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Boomer Life’s winter getaway packages: Don’t let winter blues, or economic ones, get you down
By Martha Steger
Like many others, my retirement account tanked over the past nine months. But I decided over the holidays that my husband and I needed a small sense of personal triumph in February, the month of love (and the 40th anniversary of “Virginia is for Lovers”), as well as in March, the roaring month that inevitably drives us to one last, wintry getaway.
The Clifton Inn is a metaphor for Charlottesville six miles west. With only 18 rooms, the 100-acre Relais & Chateaux property (which technically translates as Lodge & Castle but seems to be French for “very exclusive”) suggests the same classy, big-time feel in a small package that has put Charlottesville on the map as a choice destination over the past couple decades.
What first attracted me to the inn more than waking up in the Martha Stewart/Real Simple-decorated bedrooms was arranging a management meeting in “Jefferson’s Wine Cellar” and then enjoying the front-row, kitchen-dining experience with running commentary by executive chef Dean Maupin as his creations materialized.
The “Clifton is for Lovers” two-night package, good through Feb. 28, includes a full breakfast and afternoon tea both days; one four-course dinner for two; one half-hour, in-room massage for two people, with chocolate-covered strawberries and a bottle of bubbly. The package costs $645, with 25 percent added for service and taxes. www.cliftoninn.net, 434-971-1800.
Heading east from Richmond, we always find it easy to unwind along the Chesapeake Bay. On the Northern Neck, the Tides Inn in Irvington offers a package exclusive to readers of Boomer Life from March through December 2009. Readers can reserve the package directly at 800-843-3746 by requesting the “Boomer Suite Romance” package. Prices begin at $230 per person per night, double occupancy.
The package includes a 10 percent discount on greens fees, a three-course dinner in the East Room each evening of the two-night stay (in a waterside Vista Suite), champagne or house wine and chocolate-covered strawberries upon arrival, and a full breakfast each morning. Gratuities for meals are included.
In Olde Towne Portsmouth — a favored destination of mine, on the banks of the Elizabeth River across from Norfolk — I found an economical package at the Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel & Waterfront Conference Center (all water-view rooms and indoor heated pool): three nights billed as “Three Hundred Years for $300.”
Though the package (not shown on the hotel’s Web site) technically expired at the end of 2008, Sales and Marketing Director Rob Sanders extended it at Boomer Life’s request through March 31. The package features entertaining, educational and culinary highlights from each of the past three centuries.
The $300-per-person package includes three nights in a deluxe or king guest room and breakfast for two daily; a pass for two for a 30-minute carriage ride in a restored, eight-passenger, vintage surrey pulled through Olde Towne by a Clydesdale; and two theater tickets and $20 for dinner at the Commodore Theatre. (Boomers will enjoy the single-screen theater restored to its 1945 art-deco style.)
The package also includes passes to Norfolk’s Nauticus museum and Portsmouth museums ranging from the Lightship Museum and the Naval Shipyard Museum to the Courthouse Galleries and the Children’s Museum of Virginia.
Though children stay in rooms for free at the Renaissance, their meals and tickets cost extra. Also, taxes and gratuities aren’t included in the package. For more information or to make a reservation, call 757-673-3000. Visiting www.marriott.com provides hotel and area information, but package must be booked by phone.
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Martha Steger was recently honored as a Marco Polo member of the 1,200-member Society of American Travel Writers at its meeting in Houston for outstanding service to the society.
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