Asheville Weekend

Warning: This will be long and picture-heavy.

Saturday we left about 10 to head up to Asheville for a night’s stay. The plan was to shop Saturday afternoon, eat the Prime Rib Buffet at Grove Park Inn Saturday evening and then spend all of Sunday in The Spa at Grove Park. 

If you’ve read here long enough, you may remember our trip last year for our 10th anniversary.  As much fun as we had, we knew we didn’t want to stay at Grove Park again.  To be honest, for the money the room was just not that impressive.  The plan had been to find a local bed and breakfast but really, the prices are all competitive and Jill had heard of the Grand Bohemian Resort.  It’s a 6 month old hotel right outside the entrance of The Biltmore. 

Ok, I’m getting ahead of myself by talking about the room but let’s fast forward…we got to Asheville about 1ish, shopped for a bit (didn’t find much) and then checked in. 

Ok, wait.  We did visit this place called The Chocolate Lounge in downtown Asheville.  Let me show you a few pictures:

 

 

It was basically like a coffee shop but for Chocolate.  And yummy chocolate.  Cakes, cookies, truffles and even chocolate drinks—think hot chocolate but really thick.  Let’s just say it’s a good thing my town does not have one of these.

Ok, so back to the hotel.  We got a call while we were out that our room was ready so we went to check in.  The pictures on the site are impressive but they can be a bit misleading so I was still not holding my breath when we pulled into a covered, stone driveway. 

However, I started getting exciting when Scott came back out to the car to get the camera when he went inside to check us in.  Just look at the lobby:

 

 

And wow, I just found picture of the men’s bathroom that Scott took.

  

But again, I’d seen fancy hotels with not-so-fancy rooms.  Take, for instance, the hotel we stayed in New York.  But oh my, this room did not disappoint.  When you walk in the room, you basically see this part of the bathroom:

But then you see this:

And this

And then you see it opens up into that room of which you did not get very good pictures of

 

 

Well, not sure if you can tell from our awful pictures (from 3 different cameras, no less), but the room was NOT a disappointment.  In fact, I was beginning to regret any plans we had and was about to announce we’d be spending the rest of the trip in the room.

But we did go out for a bit more shopping which quickly ended because of the rain and our dinner plans.

The prime rib buffet back at Grove Park was great just like last year and we were pleasantly surprised when our bill was much less than we anticipated.  Except apparently we got ripped off a little in our “package deal” last year.

  

We did stop by Elaine’s Piano Bar before heading back to the hotel.  I had hoped that last year’s experience was blah because we were alone but I’m afraid only alcohol might save the dueling piano bar experience there. 

I wasn’t too disappointed though because the room was calling our name!  Because you know of course we had to get up early to get to the spa.  *cough*

Which we did!  After a quick stop at Starbucks.

I mean, the hotel is right across the street.  Can that place really get any better?

I was SO HAPPY to push that really big button in the elevator at Grove Park.

I have to say the spa WAS better with another couple.  When we were in the women’s area, Jill and I were able to chat and it was fun in the pools and eating lunch with them.  I did snap a few undercover pics in the lounge right before we left.

Indoor lounge.  You can’t see the fireplace on the left wall there:

Outdoor “silent” lounge:

View from the outdoor lounge:

 

One of four vanity areas to get ready.  They have EVERYTHING you need.

View from the lounge down into one of the pools:

This is just a hint of what the spa is like.  We all had full body massages that were so relaxing.  It’s so nice that it makes you feel guilty for going.

So yeah, we had a good weekend.  Really. good. weekend.