Palm Springs Hotel Zoso is a great place to stay.  I read reviews on line before I got there that made me leary about the size of the pool and the politeness or lack there of of the staff, but I must say it was really a tremendous stay all around.

Number 1 tip for Palm Springs, if your schedule allows go during the week.  I know that is probably easier said than done but Sunday - Thursday prices for hotel rooms are 40-50% less, plus occupancy is much less so you have more to any hotel for yourself.  That was certainly the case for the Hotel Zoso.  We did stay overnight on Saturday (our rate that day was about 40% higher than the other days) and shared the hotel with a crew of pre-teen cheerleaders - there was a huge preteen cheerleader competition in town - I never paid attention to the fact that a bow is such a prominent accessory in a cheerleading outfit, but for Saturday and Sunday morning Palm Springs was overrun with pre-teen cheerleaders with bows in their hair.  I digress, tip No. 1 stay in PS Sunday - Thursday.

So I don’t necessarily have any more tips but we did have any excellent time at the Hotel Zoso.  Top things I liked:

1) The staff was incredibly nice - Robert who works the shuttle van - free shuttle service from the airport happens to be from Portland, but he was a great reception to PS.  We had three different waiters for breakfast - free continental breakfast I would say two of the three were great.  The hotel manager was also a gem, whenever we saw him it was like he was the cruise director just making sure we were doing ok but not in an annoying way by any stretch.

2) The Hotel is extremely nice for the price - great value hotel.  The lobby and Pool area received new furniture, there was new carpeting throughout and the rooms were awesome, amazing view from our second floor balcony of the mountains around Palm Springs which are really breath taking.  There is an exercise room with brand new modern equipment that is great just below the lobby.

3) The Pool is not super huge but the pool area is extremely nice.  There is a huge outdoor gas firepit that is lit at night, there is as I said brand new furniture, cabanas and lounge mats on all the pool furniture.  As I said, if you can go Sun-Thursday the size of the pool is not an issue.  In four days there we only shared the entire pool area with one other couple each time.

4) Location - right in the heart of downtown Palm Springs, now the downtown area was a bit depressing on some levels as a retail shop owner - there are far more vacant available spaces than there are places being rented, but hopefully that will change as the huge fashion mall downtown is in the process of being renovated and re-tenanted, if you are looking to start a business this would be a great place to do it.  PS is ripe for a big upswing.  Despite the number of vacancies, the downtown has amazing bones and a great energy amazingly, we loved it.

Now the weather completely sucked when we were there, we arrived to rain (which is very uncommon) and practically shut the town down, had two days of cloudy weather and one reasonably nice day.  Despite that we had a great time.

Couple final tips:

1) Great moderate hike just behind the art museum about 3.5 miles.

2) Palm Springs Bike Rental  - Bike Palm Springs, is a new shop with great high end cruiser bikes at very affordable prices, make sure to book before you go to make sure you get one.  The shop owner Rocky is a great guy, he recently opened his shop after retiring from his career in construction in San Fransisco - Rocky is bound for glory!  Congrats on your new retirement and career Rocky.

3) Happy Hours at The Falls and Kaiser are great and about a block away from each other - hit both!

Overall loved Palm Springs despite the weather and plan to go back, very charming town.

Need a St. Thomas Condo? We recently took a great trip to St. Thomas, luckally we came across a posting for a condo at Sapphire Beach. This was our fist visit to the island, we had a great time and really lucked out to find this great place, it was everything we were looking for. Below is a picture of the balcony from the condo - unreal right?

The condo is owned by Gail and Duane. They have done a very nice job making it comfortable. They actually take vacations to stay and visit themselves which is nice because you figure if they are going to stay their themselves they would maybe treat it nicer than if it was just a rental.

We had a chance to travel around much of the island on our 10 day visit. Sapphire Beach is probably our favorite, not only because it was literally right outside our door but it has the great combination of everything you want, beautiful blue waters, good snorkeling, and fewer crowds than Coki Beach and Megan’s Bay.

So if you are looking for a great moderately priced condo we can offer a full recommendation. The condo is very close to Red Hook where you catch the ferry to St. John - which is absolutely amazing. The Red Hook side of the island is on the other end from the airport and is a lot more mellow, still with plenty of things to do. Directly behind the condo complex you can get on a group charter to visit the BVI which is a must do.

Here are a few other shots from Gail and Duane’s web site:

The Pool:

Tennis Courts - we never played but the surface is grass - we should have tried it bet it would have been cool!