| rev:text
| - Had a pleasant one-night stay here over Labor Day weekend. It's a bit of an unprepossessing affair from the outside, but once you step into the lobby, the soaring ceiling with juxtaposition of dark and light woods, mixed with the stacked-stone columns and colorful patterned carpets, make for an impressive entrance. Check-in was smooth and easy, and I was given a room right away at 11:30am on a holiday weekend. Between the lobby and the outlying buildings housing the guest rooms is a large tropical oasis divided into different areas. There are two pools, one with a sand bottom at one end. There's lots of lush vegetation, plus some grouped seating areas in peaceful garden settings with water features. The rooms are obviously remodeled from some mid-market hotel (I don't know what the history of the property is) and are located in four two-story buildings making a U around the pool area. The hallways are a bit low-ceilinged and slightly musty, but the rooms have been given spiffy Kimpton makeovers. They're a pretty decent size, with plenty of room to walk around the bed and back and forth to the bathroom and a wide entryway. The entryway has a nice wooden flooring, then there's patterned carpet in the sleeping area. The bed is comfy, my bathroom was large with marble tiling and a separate small vanity table--though I had one of the accessible rooms, so I don't know if they are all this size. The patio is a small area which looks directly onto... a fence, at least from the first floor. (This is not a hotel built on views.) One other note, when I first got in the room, I kept thinking I was hearing distant thunder outside. Turned out it was maintenance employees rolling trash cans and service carts through the asphalt parking lot behind the fence.
Tried a massage at Jurlique. The massage itself was enjoyable (and a full hour instead of the 50 minutes some places do) with very attractive treatment rooms that felt almost like a fusion of Moroccan and Old West. However, be aware that this is a tiny spa with a postage-stamp lobby and no amenities such as changing rooms, a separate pool, plunge pools, etc. The rates, however, are comparable to the amenity-laden spas in the Valley.
The lobby bar is an extension of Taggia restaurant. Had a couple of drinks there and the bartender was highly efficient and very friendly, despite the fact that some of his customers that evening were PITAs (my acronym for Pain in the... Butt).
Across the street from the hotel is Roaring Fork, which has a pretty bangin' happy hour that starts at 4pm, with $4-$10 appetizer plates and lots of $5 drinks. It's worth a stop-in to kick off an evening (or to hit if you can't wait for the free wine hour at 5pm at Firesky) but get there early--every seat was taken by 4:30. It's also not far to Old Town Scottsdale, where we poked around for the evening. We took a cab down there, but decided to walk back since it was a nice breezy night.
All in all, Firesky is a great choice for a quick stay if you want the urban Scottsdale feel and access to Old Town because of its location and pretty high energy level. It's not the place if you're looking for a more laid-back full resort experience.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)