This summer Dispenser Amenities: The Eco-Travelers Club ran the #GreenHouston Sweepstakes and Design Your Own Eco-Vacation Contest. Our contest winners were out enjoying their prizes last month.
Our grand prize winner Kathy Davis was unable to make it to Houston because of a personal commitment so we randomly selected a new winner – Shaun Brown of Winnipeg Manitoba. Shaun and his wife Crystal loved their prize of a round trip flight to Houston to stay at the Element Vintage Park Hotel, with tickets to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers live at the Houston Toyota Center. He had a chance to tell me about it when he got back:
We loved the Element Hotel especially the Full Kitchen. We had our own dishes/cutlery and even a dishwasher… so we were able to grab food and bring it back to our room. We checked out the USS Texas Saturday morning, it is huge! We must have spent 3 hours there, wandering all the bottom decks, a couple of the top decks and checking out all the different rooms, and equipment. We got a first-hand account of what it must have been like to live on this piece of solid metal at sea.
We then headed south, grabbed a cold drink and toured the Kemah Boardwalk visiting all the small little shops. After that, we finished off the afternoon with some seafood at Joe’s crab shack overlooking Galveston bay.
The concert was great! Honestly, I was not a huge Red Hot Chili Peppers fan coming into this, but the show and their older songs were great.
Emilia Turner was the winner of our Design Your Own Eco-Vacation Contest. She is a true eco-traveler and chose to spend her weekend vacation prize in Vancouver, Canada, on her way to another scheduled vacation in Glasgow, Scotland. Emilia is in Scotland now but took the time to send us a little update of how everything went for her:
Coming to back to Vancouver is always a thrill for me. Thanks to The Eco-Travelers Club my weekend with my husband very memorable. Vancouver is a very walkable city. From our hotel we walked to Granville St heading north to the beautifully restored Waterfront Station building where the Seabus, Canada Line and Westcoast express meet. There is always a buzz of movement here. Restaurants, shops and easy access to Gastown make this stop exciting. It is very easy to get to all points of the city, airport and suburbs from here, which makes this an important hub for me because I don’t own a car.
I then walked along Coal Harbor, a stunning walkway with no cars. It is perfect for bike riding, roller blading, or just strolling for hours and is right beside the water with open views of the North Shore Mountains. As you walk you come across the marina with beautiful yachts. Shops, public cared for washrooms make this walk very comfortable. For lunch, I stopped in the “Lift Bar Grill” which had an assortment of seafood and pasta, with stunning views of Stanley Park, the mountains and marine life. It was delicious and the presentation was beautiful and to top it off, for menus, they handed out iPads. As we continued our walk Coal Harbor takes you to English Bay which is full open spaces and views and even features palm trees in Canada! This is a great safe place for bike riding, walking, rollerblading with no interference from cars. After spending hours walking we went back to the hotel for a nap.
Night life in Vancouver is always fun. Granville St. and Yaletown are my favorites. The next day I went to Pacific Centre, a mall with all my favorite shops. For lunch we went to the Vancouver Art Gallery. A must for tourists in Vancouver, is to try the sushi; there are tons of sushi places at a reasonable price.
I wanted to visit Stanley Park but decided against it. I would need a whole day there and a bicycle to get through it, it’s huge.
I went to bed early as I had to catch a flight to Scotland the next morning. I am quite proud that I took the greyhound to Vancouver, walked to the hotel, Canada Line to Airport. In Scotland, I took the shuttle bus to Glasgow Queens St train Station, the train up to Inverness, then walked across the street to the Inverness bus station and took a one hour bus ride to Dornach. These buses are beautiful.
Emilia also promised me some pictures from her Scottish adventure once she’s had a chance to take some. I’ve heard great stories from her about the beauty of the local Castle and Cathedral with the back lighting at night as well as the beaches and highlands, so make sure to keep an eye out for those in upcoming posts. If anyone has any comments or suggestions for future contests, be sure to give us a tweet @disp_amenities.