In all of our travels, one of the best hotels we’ve ever stayed at was Hoshinoya Fuji. It is a near perfect hotel: the room, the view, the kotatsu, the service, and the feeling that you are somewhere special. The only flaw was that, even in Japan, Hoshinoya Fuji is a million miles from nowhere.
But now, we’ve found a hotel that is every bit as good, minus the airfare and the jetlag, and, to be really honest, the food is even a little bit better. It’s right smack in the middle of the fifth largest city in America, and yet it seems like no one from out of state has heard of it.
Sanctuary On Camelback Mountain Resort & Spa in Arizona isn’t a hotel that gets talked about much. If you look up design-focused resorts in Phoenix, you’re likely to run into the mixed-reviewed Andaz, smack in the middle of downtown between a motel and a mall specializing in insurance agencies. If you expand your horizons to all of the western USA, you’ll probably find the genuinely-eye-watering-to-anyone-not-named-kanye-west Amangiri. Sanctuary on Camelback gets you the serene desert getaway minus the five-figures a night price, and it does it in near-Japanese level service and perfection.
Check In
Our check-in experience was the best I’ve ever had, period. We rolled up in our car, and the valet immediately walked up, introduced himself, and informed us that we could just leave the car right where it was while we checked in. When we were done our very efficient and warm registration process, we came back to a car with all the windows rolled down, bottles of ice cold water in the cupholders, and the package I had delivered to the hotel waiting for us in the back seat. A second valet informed us that he would follow us to a parking space of our choice in a golf cart, so he could deliver our luggage (and us) to our room.
The Room
The room was more like a house, and actually bigger than our house. There was a front balcony with one of those superclub canopies, minus the $25 vodka redbulls. There was a huge living room with a nespresso machine, well stocked minibar, and an inexplicable fireplace, being that we were in the middle of a desert. There was a 600sq ft bathroom. And, there was an incredible outdoor tub; more on that later. The whole place was light filled while still being private, we never had a sense that there was anyone else around. The room lived up to its namesake sanctuary-ness.
The Food
I never have a lot of high hopes for hotel restaurants. Even nationally acclaimed superstar-chef led ones never seem to be as good as a “real restaurant” of the same caliber. I chalk it up to low expectations from the kind of diner who goes to a hotel restaurant.
Ironically though, on the first night we were there I was that kind of diner because I was thoroughly done from a long drive. I wanted nothing more than easy food and lots of alcohol, and Elements – the hotel restaurant – delivered in spades. It went way, way beyond my expectations: the menu was inspired, the service was impeccable, and the food – on her first bite, Steph proclaimed the pork chop the best she’d ever had. No joke, it inspired dozens of pork chop dishes at home, it was that good. Those will be coming to the blog in the coming months.
Our waiter was that old school kind of head waiter who didn’t seem to do anything, but somehow was always around when you wanted him and never around when you wanted to be alone. In the couple of days we were there, the restaurant was always crowded, and I found out later via the internet that locals genuinely love going there, even if they aren’t staying at the property. I don’t blame them, the prices aren’t that bad, and the view, service, and food is amazing.
Turn Down
When we got back to our room, we found dessert and snacks waiting for us. A rare little uglydoll called Jeero came with us on this trip and the staff set him up with some togarashi popcorn and HBO. They also lit a bunch of candles and had some wonderful salts ready to go in case we wanted to use the tub later that night, which of course I did, armed with truly delicious shichimi togarashi buttered popcorn and a very well stocked minibar.
The Tub
The star of our stay was the outdoor tub. If you’ve never had a proper not-a-pool-bath outdoors (as we’d never had), you don’t know what you’re missing. After our stay at Hoshinoya Fuji in the winter, I came home and immediately built Steph a kotatsu, it was just that good. Similarly, I’m now trying to figure out how to get an outdoor bathtub situation going. The fresh air, the night sky, the relaxation, I just feel like this room beats every spa in the world. Because of this bathtub, we basically never went to the giant infinity pool, except to watch the sunset.
The Infinity Pool & Sunset
But truthfully, sunsets are my one true luxury in life. I can go without almost anything else – good food, money, smartphones, and the internet – just give me sunsets. A desert sunset is not to be missed, and, minus Tucson, if you are at all a sunset connoisseur, the sunset view from the infinity pool at Sanctuary is not to be missed.
The Service and Wrapping It Up
The most important thing about any experience is how you feel afterwards. Whether it’s hotels, restaurants, or whole destinations, I rate a place on how genki (awesome/happy/energetic) it is. I came to Sanctuary feeling beaten down from the long road behind me, but I left feeling light, happy, and refreshed. This was due in no small part to the staff, who were all uniformly happy, chatty, and genuinely good people to be around.
The only downsides to this hotel was that for a room this size, I would have appreciated a kitchen, or some way of heating up food. It would have been nice to have been able to heat up our bbq leftovers from Little Miss. As it was though, in a major advantage vs. any of those resorts in the middle of nowhere, we were within range of ubereats and grubhub, even though we never used it. In any case, I’d head back to Sanctuary in a heartbeat.
