Less well known than other regions, the Pacific Northwest promises one of the most beautiful fly drive holidays in all of North America. You will love the cosmopolitan city of Seattle, the high mountain passes, rain forests and rugged coastlines not to mention the volcanic regions of Crater Lake and Newberry National Volcanic Monument. This itinerary is varied, unhurried and most of all a fabulous surprise for most people who have never visited this region before. You can scroll down to read our customer experiences or click the link below to view this itinerary
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Hi,
Myself and David Kent have just returned from a most enjoyable tour of the North West United States that was put together by your good selves.
We were blest with excellent weather the whole way which greatly helped this part of the U.S. show off its best face.
Your chosen accommodation exceeded our expectations. I am glad we booked early as it must have helped you to acquire accommodation for us at the lodges. The ocean facing room at the top quality Surf and Sands Resort at Cannon Beach will last long in our memory and the B & B at Eugene was a stroke of genius.
Non of the travelling distances were too great and this gave us time for a leisurely tour.
The itinerary was definitely the right way round and since we were blessed with a glorious clear and sunny weather almost all of the time, it gave us a wow factor view of Mount Rainier on our last day.
Just one small confusion on Day 14. Your itinerary stated that our accommodation was at the entrance to the National Park when in fact the Paradise Inn is 22 miles inside the park and not that surprisingly at Paradise. I expect on occasions you are unable to acquire accommodation at this Inn and hence use accommodation near the parks entrance which would have then been correctly described as being at the park’s entrance.
Please could you pass this e-mail onto your team that put this tour together, they did a great job.
Attached is one of my photos that caught for me the magic of where we had been.
Thanks again
Graham Woodfine
**CNA Comment**
We’ve now amended our website to ensure there is no confusion caused with the description of where our accommodation selection is – thanks for pointing this out.
Hi Roger
I thought I’d send this e-mail to let you know that we had a really good trip to the USA.
I’d also like to thank you for you service, help and support over the past few months; it was appreciated greatly.
I would unreservedly recommend Complete North America to anyone wanting a holiday such as ours.
I hope you would be interested in our experiences: for future reference, if anyone else does this trip, and to let ‘American Driving Vacations’ know.
* Flights: everything went well with BA
* Car Hire: fantastic customer service and a great car (Dodge Charger!)
* Warwick Hotel Seattle: the hotel overall is good and a really good location for the light rail link to/from SeaTac airport. However we had poor customer service when checking in. The front desk had no record of the room being pre-paid (it turns out a fax hadn’t been sent on time), but was not prepared to investigate this on our behalf, basically saying ‘it’s your problem to sort out’. This led to me making a number of ‘phone calls when we arrived (ired and jet-lagged) to American Driving Vacations and the Hotel’s reservation department to sort this matter out. I didn’t expect to have to do this and was annoyed at the front desk’s indifference.
* Red Lion Port Angeles: great room, great sea view, excellent service.My wife’s favourite hotel.
* Lake Quinault Lodge: very good room and good customer service
* Shilo Inn Seaside: the location of the hotel is great. The hotel overall is a bit shabby; the room was clean but the metal window frames were rusty and dirty, which was offputting. We also had problems checking in here, the front desk being unclear about the pre-payment of the room. NB Seaside is the only place that we didn’t like, even our two teanage daughters; it was like Blackpool! I’m sure that other people who undertake this journey would agree. Cannon Beach is a much better location, and it may be worth considering B&B accommodation there rather than Seaside.
* Shilo Inn Newport: everything was good; we had an ocean view room
* Crater Lake Lodge: Excellent room; we didn’t get a lake view, but that didn’t matter as the view from the other side of the lodge is equally as stunning. Excellent customer service and support. My favourite hotel.
* Shilo Inn Bend: another great hotel with a great room, two excellent swimming pools and a complimentary buffet breakfast. My youngest daughter’s favourite hotel.
* Hilton Portland: another excellent hotel with a great downtown location. Parking was easier than we thought and good value for what it was. My eldest daughter’s favourite hotel.
* Blue Heron Inn, Castle Rock. Thanks for finding this for us, it was really good. It was good to provide business to an independent owner who’s finding it tough in the recession. Eric, the owner, was welcoming and helpful; the room was great with direct views of Mount St. Helens, and the complimentary breakfast was amazing! The location of this B&B is much better than the Red Lion at Kelso as (a) it’s nearer to Mt. St. Helens (b) you have to pass it on the way to MSH regardless and (c) to return to Kelso we’d have to double back on part of our journey.
* Nisqually Lodge, Ashford: good location and clean, comfortable room.
I hope this is of use(?!), but thanks for sorting us out with a great holiday. A once-in-a-lifetime trip…but never again (sorry, poor joke)
Regards
Mike Lythgoe
***CNA Comment***
Following the recent sales mission to this region we are making efforts to offer Cannon Beach as an option. It does present some challenges with minimum stay requirements, high room rates and limited availability of rooms during the summer months however we agree it is a lovely town and we hope to be able to offer a stay here in our 2011 programme.
Hi
Our apologies for not contacting you sooner. It seems to have been so busy.
We just want to say what a wondrful holiday we had thanks to your wonderful organisation when we went on our trip to the Great Pacific NorthWest.
We had fabulous flights, accommodation, car hire, journeys. Everything went very smoothly and meant we had a very stress free holiday.
We loved Seattle and the personal travel portfolio you mailed out to us meant we knew exactly how to make the best of our stay.
Other highlights were Lake Quinault and the Oregon coastline.
One of our favourite discoveries was a beach called Cannon Beach just near to Seaside. I wonder whether you could include accommodation in Cannon Beach instead of Seaside as it is so much nicer.
Another discovery was Nye Beach, just a walk from our hotel in Newquay and perhaps it would be worth adding to your portfolio to recommend it to travellers looking for an excellent meal at April’s in Nye Beach, probably the best food we had on our trip.
Perhaps you could include travellers’ recommendations? Another excellent trip was on a low cost ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and we ate at the Cafe Nola on Winslow High Street. We just watched where all the locals were heading, and it was worth it.
We have recommended your travel company to our friend, Bryan Mitchell and his wife, and we believe they are booking a trip to Boston and New York. Hope they will be as satisfied as us.
Now we wonder where next?
Kind regards
Jill & Pete Long
**CNA Comment**
We really appreciate contructive comments regarding our itineraries. We have looked at the Cannon Beach location and would be happy to offer this to anyone on an adhoc basis however the property is not proactive in working with international tour operators so rates are quite a bit higher and they require a 2 night minimum stay throughout the summer which would mean changes elsewhere to accommodate 2 nights in what is a very small community. Both the Seaside and Newport locations offer beachfront properties.
My husband and I returned last Sunday (20 August) from two weeks touring in Washington State and Oregon and felt that we had to write and say thank you. From the time we made our first enquiry to you to the moment we landed back in the UK everything has been handled very efficiently. With regards to the actual holiday itself all the hotels were well situated (a couple had the most amazing views) and there were no issues with either the flight or the hire car. We would definitely travel with you again and would recommend you to our friends and acquaintances.
Ann and Graham
We had an excellent tour covering all the areas we wanted to and we were blessed with almost 100% hot sunny weather throughout. In retrospect we might have added another day’s stop at two or three locations but you can only tell this when you have done the tour. The air travel arrangements all went very smoothly and the upgrade to World Traveller Plus was well worthwhile – the extra space and foot room made for a very much more relaxed journey.
The car rental arrangements with Hertz also went very smoothly with efficient pick up at Seattle – no extras (this is the first rental company where we have experienced no extras on pick-up!) – and a free upgrade! – first rate.
The accommodation was all very good – Sun Mountain Lodge especially so – Shilo Inns check-in arrangements seemed particularly well organised.
John & Myra