review – Page 142 – Luv Saving Money

Review: Double Tree Hotel Pittsburgh

For my family’s trip to the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh we decided to make it a weekend getaway. We started looking into family friendly hotels that were near the museum. I caught a tweet from @DoubletreePitt
I initially was looking for something within walking distance from the museum but the DoubleTree of Pittsburgh offered so many great amenities that it seemed like the obvious choice.

DoubleTree Pittsburgh is right in downtown. Located right by the Mellon arena and Console Energy Center (where the Pittsburgh Penguins play). There is a room to fit your family. We got a 2 bedroom suite. It was great for our family of 5. The hotel was not difficult to find. They have valet parking in their own parking garage. From the start the first DoubleTree employee I talked with was the valet. He was pleasant and professional. We went to the lobby to check in. We were checked in, in no time at all. The lobby was very open and comfortable. Any questions I had were answered. We were on our way to our room.

I loved our room. It was very comfortable for a family of 5. Although we were only staying for one night, I wish we would have stayed longer.

The main area was open and inviting.

There was a sofa, a desk (again I want a laptop so bad) and a TV in this area. Also a mini fridge and microwave which was great for the baby’s milk and juices. You can see they put a crib in our room as well on the left side of the picture.

The boys’ room had 2 beds and a TV as well. It had a nice sized walk in closet.

Our bedroom was very cozy. King size bed, tv, and a closet. I could not believe how comfy the beds were to sleep in.

There was also two bathrooms in our suite which was great for us. Out of the picture window in the main area you got a great view of the Mellon Arena.

You can’t see it in this pic but to the right of the Melon Arena is the Console Energy Center.

The DoubleTree Pittsburgh has an indoor pool and a fitness center for their guests. The boys and I went for a swim while the hubs took a nap. The pool went from 3 1/2 feet to 4 1/2 feet. There was an outside area with a few lounge chairs and tables and chairs to sit at. The fitness are was pretty nice. There even had exercise balls to work with. I have to admit, I didn’t take advantage of the fitness center. The kids wore me out at the museum and swimming.

The DoubleTree offers a complimentary shuttle service in the downtown area. With the pre-season Steelers game and a wedding going on at the hotel we had to wait about 15 min for a shuttle. The shuttle driver told us he could not take use to the museum that Saturday (Aug 14) because they were not going to the North Shore due to the Steelers game. We had to drive. I was a little nervous about that (since the shuttle drivers wouldn’t even go) BUT they valet gave us step by step pre-printed directions to the museum which were great. We ended up getting there with no trouble.

Later on we were looking for somewhere to eat. The DoubleTree Pittsburgh staff were very helpful in making suggestions, give us details, and even gave us a map of the downtown area. We waited for a shuttle for this too. There were people ahead of us that piled onto the next one that came about. We decided just to find some place in walking distance. One of the hotel staff made a few suggestions in the downtown area and showed us where it was on the map. I was already somewhat familiar with downtown since I had lived there a little while back. We decide to go to Market Square and eat at Primanit Bros.

I had a yummy steak salad with fries on top. The rest of the fam had huge sandwiches. My 6 year old couldn’t even make it through half of a half. Every thing was so good.

We went back to the hotel and rented a movie to watch. We all had a great night sleep. The Bigelow Grille is in the same buidling as the DoubleTree Pittsburgh. We ate there for breakfast. We all got the breakfast buffet. The buffet was fantastic: french toast, sausage, bacon, home fries, fresh fruit, yogurt, cereals, danishes, lots of choices. There was even a chef preparing omelettes with your choice of fillings.

My plan was to stay until about 11 (check out was 12 noon) and head home. Hubby wanted to leave earlier. I gave him a hard time about it. I hate to admit it, but I should have listened to the hubs. Check out itself was super fast. We got the wonderful DoubleTree cookies. Getting our car….that was another story. There was a long line to pick your car up from the valet. Even thought the line was long, the valets kept it moving quickly. We were able to get out and start heading home. My suggestion, if you stay, you may want to check out around 10 am. I think that was my issue. It seemed everyone was checking out at that time.

All in all we loved out stay at the DoubleTree Pittsburgh. It’s in a convenient location for just about anything you want to do downtown: Steelers or Penguins game, catching a concert at the Console Energy Center, business trip or a trip to the Children’s Museum.

To read more about The DoubleTree Pittsburgh you can use this link: DoubleTree Pittsburgh website

You can also follow DoubleTree Pittsburgh on twitter: @DoubletreePitt

Review summary: Every DoubleTree employee my family and I encountered was pleasant and professional. Our room was very clean, comfortable, and all in all beyond our expectations. The amenities offered at the DoubleTree were above your standard amenities in my opinion.

***I received a discounted rate and complimentary breakfast to help facilitate this review. I did NOT received any monetary compensation for this post. I was under no obligation to give a positive review. Any opinions expressed are my own***

Free Stuff, Fun Sites, Contests, and More

Review: The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh

This was my family’s first visit to The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Locate on the North shore not very far at all from downtown Pittsburgh. Located close to Heinz field, PNC Park, and the Aviary just to name a few landmarks.

We happened to be going to The Childrens’ Museum of Pittsburgh the same day as a Steelers pre-season game. I was a little nervous about that, but it ended up working out just fine. The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh was not hard to find. Our hotel had pre-printed step by step directions.

The Childrens’ Museum was pretty busy on Saturday. The parking lot attendant was pleasant and helped us find a spot to park. Even though it was busy we were able to drop off our tickets and get our wrist bands very quickly. With so much to do we weren’t even sure where we wanted to start. The first thing we noticed was the tall kind of maze that went up three floors as we learned. Of course my 8 year old and 6 year old were all over that. It’s called “The Limb Bender” Here are some pics of the boys having a ball in “The Limb Bender”

In that area was also items from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. A fish tank, a tv camera, The castle, displays of the characters in the land of Make Believe and more. The boys kind of breezed through this part. I think it was more interesting to my husband and I since we grew up with Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

We then moved onto a room called “The Attic” this was a fun room with a giant Kaliedescope, A doll house, pictures that make it look like their eyes are following you, and steps that went up to a room that was on an angle called “the gravity room” and you could take slide down. We all took the slide, well except my hubby he stayed at the bottom to take pics.

Then from there was a hallway. There was a few neat exhibits in this area. They had a button panel set up. There was a screen with picture of Pittsburgh skyline. You could choose 1 or 3 Pittsburgh pics and create a computer animated fireworks display to music. Once you finished your could watch your fireworks display you created. This was a lot of fun. From there we went to the “Garage and Workshop” They had a Smart Car the kids could explore. The most noticeable thing was the almost tree house-like tower that went up 2 floors. There were steps to go up and a slide to come down if you wished. And my OT side was happy because I also noticed an elevator for those not able to hoof it up there.

This is my eight year old and 6 year old at the top of the tower getting ready to come down the slide. There was also a neat system where someone could stand on the bottom and put a toy parachute on a paddle. The person on the top would….i believe…turn a crank and it would bring the parachute to the top and you could watch it drift to the bottom. After the kids came down the slide,

We just had to try the ball maze over our head. There was a cage on the floor where you could put a ball in the basket and use a pulley system to get it to the kind of wire maze above our heads.

The ball would follow this sort of wire maze around and end in a funnel over head that would drop the balls back down into the cage. This got a little hectic. For how busy it was there were kids that kept grabbing the balls from other kids and pulling the ropes 3 or 5 at a time. It was fun though to watch the balls go around. There was more to do int his area like the little workshop room with robot gadgets, the giant wooden robot kids could control with levers and inclines for car races.

We then went to the Curious George traveling exhibit. It was cute. There was a rocket ship that was a slide, Curious George’s apartment building with a pulley system, and a lot more.

One of the room’s I was most excited about seeing was “The Nursery” for my 1 year old. His favorite thing seemed to be what I called “The lite brite wall”. He was facinated by this. He played with this for a while. Even when we took him to other areas he always would come back to “The lite brite wall”

We let him try the texture trail. There were wooden train tables set up, a ball incline where he could roll wooden balls down the incline and it would hit certain things to make sounds. Another feature he seemed to like was what we called the “bubble seesaw” Two small children could sit and use the seesaw. As they moved it would create bubbles in the “bubble wall” I tried to capture this in a picture.

We then moved on to the older boys’ most anticipated room…”Waterplay“. I was impressed with this room. They had rain coats and shoes like crocs to put on so they didn’t hopefully get drenched. There was an area with slatted floors that had pipe coming up from the floor. The kids could connect pipes to this and make a pipe system for the water to flow through. I enjoyed this most with the older boys because they were working together.

They had water way areas that the kids could put together sail boats with foam pieces and sale them on the water way. They had a larger area then one that was more accessible for the toddlers. My one year old just enjoyed splashing the water.

They wanted to do the “Limb Bender” about 3 times. We ate at the cafe in the Children’s Museum for lunch. To my surprise it was really very reasonable. We just got a large cheese pizza for the fam, and drink for each of us, and we got the baby some mac n’ cheese and it only came to about $24 bucks so no more than a family trip to McD’s as far as the food goes.

Because we allowed the children to linger on exhibits though we ran out of time. We didn’t get to try “The Backyard” which is outdoors. There were swings and a fort for them to climb in. There is also “The Studio” where they could create pictures or “The Theatre”. Oh well, maybe next time.

If you’re heading to Pittsburgh I would put this on your list of family friendly places to visit. Reasonable ticket prices, friendly staff, reasonable prices at the cafe, and lots to keep your family entertained.

Check out the link to see more things to do at The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Find directions, here about special exhibits and more: http://www.pittsburghkids.org/

***I received a family pass from The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh to help facilitate a review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this post. I was under no obligation to give a positive review. Any opinions expressed are my own***

The Wild Side review and giveaway: part of "A Bonanzle Bonanzle"–CLOSED

I’ve always admired photographers. I’ve found myself wondering how they get the picture at just the right moment. How long do photographers wait to get “the shot”? Particularly when dealing with mother nature.

The Wild Side Bonanzle Booth is full of pictures like this. Gorgeous photos of sunsets, deer, flowers and much more. The prices are extremely reasonable. (As I would have it on Free Stuff, Fun Sites, Contests, and More). Liz of The Wild Side offers two different ways to have your pictures delivered. You can order them and she will matte them with a professional look. Or mail them unmatted.

Here are the matted ones I received:

I know this is not a good picture on my part. I wanted you to see the matte mostly. They came shipped with a clear sleeve to protect the pictures. Personally, I think they look nice enough to hang like this. You can, of course put them in a frame of your choice.

I took the sleeves off and took a picture of each one in a better light so hopefully you can see more detail. It bothers me some that this blogger here is taking novice home picture of a truly beautiful photography. But this is the best I can do:

I chose deer pictures. My oldest son has a camouflage themed room. Originally supposed to be military camo but slowly he is drifting over to hunting. So this helped him with his choice of decor.

I was also sent a picture via email from The Wild side. I used it as a desktop background. My boys love it.

The photography in The Wild Side Bonanzle Booth is a great place to start to look for a great picture for that space in your home. Choose one for a desktop background like I did. Use them for projects or to add to a scrapbook theme.

GIVEAWAY

Liz of The Wild Side Bonanzle Booth is offering a choice of either 5 emailed photos or 2 matted/unmatted photos of the winners choice to THREE of my readers! This giveaway is open Internationally with the exceptions for Mexico, Cuba, and Iran.

Mandatory Entry: Visit The Wild Side and leave a comment stating which picture is your favorite and why. Don’t forget to leave an email address so I can contact you if you win.

Bonus Entries: Leave a comment for each entry. If it says +1 leave one comment for that entry. +2 leave two comments for that entry and so on.

1. Register with Bonanzle.com (+5) it’s FREE and leave your Bonanzle handle

2. Leave a comment in the chat box on The Wild Side telling Liz you’re visiting from Free Stuff, Fun Sites, Contests, and More (+3)

3. Follow FFCandM with google friend connect, Networked blogs, by email, and/or by RSS feed. Leave a comment letting me know you did so. Email MUST be confirmed to count. (+1 for each) All are in right hand column.

4. Enter any of my other giveaways and let me know in a comment which ones you entered. Leave a seperate comment for each one entered (+1) for each.

5. Tweet the following giveaway message on twitter: “I entered to win my choice of photos from The Wild side and @angiewith3 http://bit.ly/TWSbon 8/30 3 winners #giveaway” (+2)
**be sure to leave the link to your tweet in a comment. Click on the time stamp of your tweet then copy the URL of the page with your lone tweet on it. Paste into a comment***

6. Leave the following message on your facebook status: “I entered to win my choice of photos from The Wild Side and Free Stuff, Fun Sites, Contests, and More 3 winners! 8/30 www.luvsavingmoney.info”
**be sure to leave the link to your facebook status. follow instructions for tweet status link if you’re not sure how. It works the same way***

3 winners will be selected on Aug. 30, 2010 at 10 PM EST. Winners will have 48 hours to respond to winner notification email. If no response in that time frame, a new winner will be chosen. Winners will be chosen randomly via random.org.

**I received an emailed photo and 2 matted photos at no cost to me to enable me to complete a review. I received no monetary compensation for this post. Any opinions expressed are my own**

Free Stuff, Fun Sites, Contests, and More

Away for the weekend for Reviews—My first onsite reviews

My family and I are taking a weekend getaway. If anyone read my post about the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, then you already know about it. If you haven’t read it, please check it out: Pittsburgh Children’s Museum upcoming review

We’re very excited about it. Even though we only live about an hour and 45 minutes away, we’ve never been to the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum. To top it off we’re also going to be reviewing the Doubltree Hotel of Pittsburgh which is right in downtown. The kids are very excited about that. The idea of staying in a hotel sound like so much fun to them. I lived in downtown Pittsburgh for a short while. I used to think how nice the DoubleTree would be to stay at. They are part of the Hilton family of hotels.

The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh has so many fun things to do. I’m most excited about “The Nursery” room for my 1 year old son. With cause and effect activities, art bridge and texture paths and lots more.
The older boys are looking forward to…well…everything. The Garage and Workshop, Waterplay, and all those. Plus, the traveling Curious George exhibit is there this month!

The Doubletree of Pittsburgh is where we will be staying the weekend. I have been extended nothing but great customer service and a welcoming attitude so far and we haven’t even arrived yet. The DoubleTree of Pittsburgh offers amenities like a complimentary shuttle that will take us to the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh from the DoubleTree. They’re putting a crib in our hotel room which is great. We don’t have to drag the pack and play along. They have a fitness room and indoor pool. The kids and even my hubby are excited about the pool. They even offer notary services, copying services, and foreign currency exchange for your business trips. You can follow The Double Tree of Pittsburgh on twitter: @DoubletreePgh
If you decide to follow them, let them know that @angiewith3 sent you 🙂

When I live in downtown Pittsburgh one of my favorite things was looking out the big window of my 15th floor apart at all the beautiful lights of the city. Fireworks weren’t rare either. Whether they were for a Pirates game, the Regatta, New year’s, or whatever it seemed like there were fireworks several times a month for something. The gorgeous overlook of Mount Washington. Going down to point park to see the tree rivers and the Gateway Clippers going by. You can see Heinz field from Point Park. Yea you know, where the Steelers play. GO STEELERS!

I’m hoping we have enough time to make it to the Strip District which is not far from the DoubleTree of Pittsburgh or the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. They have neat and unique shops and restaurants. (No night life for me, this is a family trip this time. Though, they do have some great bars and clubs in Pittsburgh as well). My family and I can’t decide where we want to eat while we’re there. I love The Melting Pot while the kids and hubby want to go to the Quaker Steak. I think the Hard Rock Cafe Pittsburgh would be fun too. We’ll see.

I won’t be in the blogosphere this weekend so I’ll get back to you all and catch up on email on Monday. Man, I really wish I had a laptop. I’d even settle for a netbook at this point.

Free Stuff, Fun Sites, Contests, and More

Indizona review and giveaway, part of "A Bonanzle Bonanzle event" CLOSED

Indizona sells an assortment of collectible items and new and used items. Everything from cookbooks, collectible matchbooks, sewing patterns, and more. Also included in her shop, Debbie (of Indizona) wrote her own cook booklet called “Mexican Gourmet Secrets Revealed” a how to booklet.

I received this cook booklet to review. This booklet is only 9 pages long but full of wonderful Mexican cooking tips. I don’t know about you but when I make tacos I’d buy the packages and used ground hamburger all the time. I didn’t really know how to do it any other way. This cook booklet has a great recipe for a Mexican Roast Beef using common ingredients. Very easy to read and follow along.

It’s fun to read how she came about writing this Mexican cook booklet as well: Click here to read about it

This booklet also tells you how to roll tacos using corn tortillas, flour tortillas, enchilada, and burritos so they don’t fall apart. There are illustrations to show some of the steps as well. She even goes into detail about the best type of meat to use and how many tacos each lb. will make.

It seems Debbie has thought of everything for the how-to she’s written.

Check out the other items from Indizona as well.

Review Summary: good prices, great customer service, reasonable prices, and fast shipping make the Indizona’s booth on Bonanzle worth checking out.

GIVEAWAY

Debbie has offered to give 2 of of my readers a copy of Mexican Gourmet Secrets Revealed for their very own.

Mandatory Entry: This must be done to qualify for giveaway before any bonus entries
Read about “Mexican Gourmet Secrets Revealed” and tell me why you’d like to win a copy.

Bonus Entries: Leave a separate comment for each one you do. If it has a +1 after the entry leave 1 comment +3 leave 3 comments for that entry and so on..

1. Visit Indizona’s Booth and leave a comment in Debbie’s chat telling her you’re stopping by from Free Stuff, Fun Sites, Contests, and More (+3)

2. Follow FFCandM by google friend connect, networked blogs, email subscription (must be confirmed), and/or RSS feed. All located in my right hand column (+1 for each one completed)

3. Register for free on Bonanzle.com and leave your bonanzle handle (+5)

4. Enter any of my current giveaway and leave a comment telling which one(s) you entered (+1) for each one entered

5. Tweet about this giveaway on twitter:
” I entered to win a copy of “Mexican Gourmet Secrets Revealed” from @angiewith3 http://bit.ly/indizona” ” (+1)
can be done twice a day must have at least 2 hrs between tweets. Leave the link to your tweet in a comment. (to get the link, once tweeted, click on the time stamp. This will take you to a page that just shows that tweet. Copy the URL and paste in a comment below”

6. Post this message on your facebook status: ” I entered to win a copy of Mexican Gourmet Secrets Revealed from Free Stuff, Fun Sites, Contests, and More www.luvsavingmoney.info”

7. Like Indizona on facebook (+1)

2 Winner will be selected on Aug 27, 2010 at 10pm EST. Winner will be randomly selected using random.org.

***I was given a copy of Mexican Gourmet Secrets Revealed at no cost in order to complete a proper review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this post. All opinions expressed are my own. ***

Free Stuff, Fun Sites, Contests, and More