Up Early for Breakfast
May. 19th, 2023 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerGrand Cayman Travelog #13
Westin, Grand Cayman - Thu, 18 May 2023, 7:45am
Today we got up early— reasonably early, like at 6:30am rather than struggling to fall asleep most of the night like Tuesday night— to walk on the beach in the morning. But first, breakfast!
One of the perks of my lifetime titanium status with Marriott at this hotel is a breakfast coupon for two each day. Hawk and I normally aren't big breakfast people. We're fine with a protein bar and a bottle of water or soda in the room. But as long as the breakfast is comped it seems a shame not to at least consider eating it.
I'm glad we chose to check out the breakfast spread our first day here. Unlike the sad assortment of prepackaged sugary crap cheaper hotels offer everyone for free, this breakfast buffet is quite good. There are boxed cereals and a bucket of oatmeal for people who really want them, but there are also freshly made pancakes, french toast, and omelets. There are sugary muffins and sweets like banana bread, but they're all freshly made, not delivered in plastic wrap from the factory. And there are also European style cold cuts of meat and cheese in addition to American breakfast meats like sausage and bacon.
Oh, and there are great view of the ocean. The pic above is a photo of our breakfast table after we set our plates down on it.
This comped breakfast turns out to save us a bundle... depending on how we calculate it. One of my colleagues told me the normal price is 50 USD. So on the one hand we're saving $100/day— an epic benefit for elite status!
But on the other hand, we'd virtually never choose to pay $50 apiece for this food. We'd instead have breakfast in our room with protein bars we've already brought from home, supplemented by odds and ends we'd pick up from a local convenience store or grocery store. That breakfast would cost us about $5 apiece, not $50.
So, how much is free breakfast worth to us, $10 or $100? The answer is somewhere between those two figures. Filling up on a high quality, satisfying breakfast means we can go lighter/simpler on lunch. Maybe we'll even eat those protein bars instead of spending, say, $40 on a lunch tab for two.
Westin, Grand Cayman - Thu, 18 May 2023, 7:45am
Today we got up early— reasonably early, like at 6:30am rather than struggling to fall asleep most of the night like Tuesday night— to walk on the beach in the morning. But first, breakfast!
One of the perks of my lifetime titanium status with Marriott at this hotel is a breakfast coupon for two each day. Hawk and I normally aren't big breakfast people. We're fine with a protein bar and a bottle of water or soda in the room. But as long as the breakfast is comped it seems a shame not to at least consider eating it.
I'm glad we chose to check out the breakfast spread our first day here. Unlike the sad assortment of prepackaged sugary crap cheaper hotels offer everyone for free, this breakfast buffet is quite good. There are boxed cereals and a bucket of oatmeal for people who really want them, but there are also freshly made pancakes, french toast, and omelets. There are sugary muffins and sweets like banana bread, but they're all freshly made, not delivered in plastic wrap from the factory. And there are also European style cold cuts of meat and cheese in addition to American breakfast meats like sausage and bacon.
Oh, and there are great view of the ocean. The pic above is a photo of our breakfast table after we set our plates down on it.
This comped breakfast turns out to save us a bundle... depending on how we calculate it. One of my colleagues told me the normal price is 50 USD. So on the one hand we're saving $100/day— an epic benefit for elite status!
But on the other hand, we'd virtually never choose to pay $50 apiece for this food. We'd instead have breakfast in our room with protein bars we've already brought from home, supplemented by odds and ends we'd pick up from a local convenience store or grocery store. That breakfast would cost us about $5 apiece, not $50.
So, how much is free breakfast worth to us, $10 or $100? The answer is somewhere between those two figures. Filling up on a high quality, satisfying breakfast means we can go lighter/simpler on lunch. Maybe we'll even eat those protein bars instead of spending, say, $40 on a lunch tab for two.
