| SAN DIEGO'S HOTEL-SHOW-BUSINESS |
There’s no business like show, oops, hotel business. These days it may not be enough to discover a perfect hotel for your collection. Instead there has to be extra value. For many hotels or resorts it’s the entertainment, if not in house, at least next door. Satin sheets or flannel pillows or even that special mattress only go so far these days. A bed is still a bed. But, if your head hits the pillow humming a tune from the Michael Bolton concert you attended half an hour ago, maybe you’ll remember this night. San Diego Road Runner checked out four lodgings that offer guests more than bed and breakfast. First, let’s look a new casino. Like their big sisters in Las Vegas, the casinos in Southern California are realizing the show brings them in as much as any celebrity-endorsed restaurant. The question isn’t, Does the breakfast come with muffins? But, Does the bed come with entertainment?
Pala Casino Spa Resort opened in 2003 a few miles southeast of Temecula. It’s a straight run north up Interstate 15, then five miles east along Highway 76 past live oaks and tumbleweed, a few vegetable stands and some forlorn bison grazing in a meadow – how sad to think they once roamed the North American prairies 60 million strong. The resort is a vast sprawling place with 507 rooms. Accommodations vary from the 1000 square-foot Grande Suites that might be perfect for Wayne Newton (he would find the six telephones and the ironing board and iron convenient) to the typical-hotel-like regular rooms that are big enough at 500 square feet but have only three telephones. They have an ironing board too! However, you’re not going to be spending much time in your room. Pala is just south of the 18 popular Temecula wineries and close to four attractive 18-hole golf courses. Plus there’s the casino and the pool, the spa and the fitness center, and country walks and hiking trails nearby. The resort has eight eating places including Mama’s Cucina Italiana restaurant. If you dine there before the theater show you’ll surely wish your Mama had cooked like that.
The concerts at the Palomar Starlight Theater end this summer in late September with the uninhibited Macy Gray (“I’ve Committed Murder; It Ain’t the Money”; and “Sexual Revolution”). Then the 2000-seat Pala Events Center moves concerts indoors with the more sedate Anne Murray (“All of Me; Over the Rainbow”; “I’ll Be Seeing You”) performing in the late October. Yes, Anne. We’re looking forward to seeing you. Bottom Line?
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