Pittsburgh Int’l Airport’s new terminal is almost done
(Image courtesy Gensler)
Later this week, we’ll be doing a hard hat tour of Pittsburgh International Airport’s new terminal, visiting the airport’s in-terminal day care center (yes, they have one!) and checking in on some of our favorite art pieces at PIT.
Stay tuned for pics.
Our new terminal is 85% done!
Three things pictured below ⬇️ ⭐ Starry night ceiling, we can't stop showing off (you'll see why in person) 🥂 View from arrivals level where we'll have a large restaurant and bar 👜 Testing out baggage belts from plane to claim pic.twitter.com/w5QT5M63rJ
— Pittsburgh International Airport (@PITairport) April 23, 2025
Fresh art at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
SEA is the home base airport for the Stuck at the Airport team, and one thing we love about the airport is all the art. It’s wonderful and, often, reassuring to see favorite pieces before or after a flight.
And it’s always a treat to spot new art being added to the collection.
New art at SEA! 🎨 If you haven’t been to the North ticketing level lately, check out On a Clear Day You Can See Forever by Sarah More—right by Alaska’s new baggage drop. 👀 pic.twitter.com/JNwOie4Mqi
It’s not crazy to celebrate an anniversary at an airport
Our tradition of celebrating milestone anniversaries at new or cool airport hotels, such as the Hilton with a rooftop lounge that opened at Nashville International Airport not too long ago, made it into this Washington Post article about airport hotels.
Airport hotels are no longer dominated by the staid, cheap, bed-for-a-night abodes that were standard for so many decades. New accommodations hark back to the luxury of early aviation, featuring top-notch amenities enjoyable by all. My latest in the @washingtonpost.com.
The Stuck at the Airport team visited Finland, loved it and Helsinki Airport – and we’re now scheming to go back.
If we do, we’ll try to book a stay at the Ilmatar Airplane Lodge, which the folks at Visit Finland let us know is housed inside a SAAB 340b passenger airplane once operated by the Finnish Air Force.
In addition to accommodating eight guests, the jet complex has two saunas and an outdoor jacuzzi.
(Photo credit: Ilmatar Airplane lodge and Valtteri Vainio)
Chinese Airport with a cool museum
It’s not the first museum in an airport, as they claim, but the museum inside the new fifth terminal at sprawling Xi’an Xianyang International Airport (XIY) in Northwest China is quite impressive.
The new airport museum displays artifacts excavation during the construction of the airport along with cultural relics from Shaanxi Province.
According to an article in China’s Global Times, the airport museum showcasing archeological treasures is a “bold initiative” that “redefines the boundaries of both museum spaces and transportation hubs, heralding a new chapter in cultural accessibility and public engagement.”
If you’re not heading to China anytime soon, you can visit the museum exhibits offered by the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the Phoenix Airport Museum at Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) and many others here in the United States.
The Stuck at the Airport team is a longtime fan of Spokane, WA.
The city is home to, among other treasures, a giant red Radio Flyer wagon.
Its airport, Spokane International (GEG), offers a free car wash to anyone who uses the parking garage.
In 1974, this eastern Washington city became the smallest city to host a World’s Fair and a citywide 50th-anniversary celebration of Expo ’74 is running through July 4, 2024.
We stopped at the Expo ’74 exhibit at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture and got a kick out of the list of bands and other performers who visited the fair. Marcel Marceau, Gordon Lightfoot, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, The Modern Jazz Quartet and Chicago, were all there.
As was Liberace.
The exhibit displays the poster advertising Mr. Showmanship’s appearance (prices starting at $3) and the lovely beaded blue costume and boots he was wearing in the poster and in his show.
While in town, we stayed at the Davenport Grand, which sits right across the street from Riverfront Park and is one of the five unique hotels in the city’s The Davenport Hotel Collection.
Four of the hotels – The Davenport Grand, the 110-year-old Historic Davenport, the Davenport Tower, and the Davenport Lusso – are part of the Marriott Autograph Collection.
And each hotel adds a $20 amenity fee to the room rate.
Usually, hotel amenity fees irk us. But this one feels like a good deal.
The fee covers high-speed internet; a standard offering of amenity fees these days.
But guests also receive a coupon for a Washington wine tasting that includes two small glasses of wine, plus another coupon for $20 food & beverage credit which can be used anytime at any of the brand’s 11 restaurants & bars in town.
We got great value from this by using our coupons during Happy Hour at the Safari Room at the Davenport Tower and were pleased that the wines offered in the tasting, which we loved, were included in the discounted Happy Hour wines.
If we weren’t so busy enjoying the festivities at Riverfront Park and visiting the Expo ’74 exhibit, our amenity fee would have also covered our use of the hotel’s bicycles – and helmets – for two hours; any number of fitness classes at the local branch of The Union; and unlimited rides on the hotel’s shuttle van to any attraction or location within a half mile of the hotel. If the weather hadn’t been so nice, we would have used that shuttle quite a bit.
The Davenport Collection team values this amenity package at $125.
And while not every guest will take advantage of all the items covered by the amenity fee, as amenity fees go, this $20 is easy, and fun, to recoup.
The Stuck at the Airport art team is based in Seattle, which is home to world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly, the Chihuly Garden and Glass attraction, the Refact Glass Festival, and a bubbling glass art community. Down the road, in Tacoma, WA, there’s an entire Museum of Glass.
But we’re putting the newly opened GLASS National Art Museum, in Danville, Kentucky on our ‘go’ list. The just-opened museum is built around the collection of Stephen Rolfe Powell, an artist known as a hot glass master of color who died in 2019. He was highly regarded in the international glass world and his glass sculptures are in the collections of major art museums. He was also a professor at Danville, Kentucky’s Centre College for more than 35 years, where he founded a glass program.
The Art Center of the Bluegrass, a multipurpose space in Danville, acquired Powell’s collection and is displaying it along with works by other prominent glass artists.
Find the Glass National National Art Museum at 408 West Main Street, Danville, KY. Hours: Tuesday – Friday 10:30 am – 6:30 pm. Admission: free.
(Photos courtesy GLASS National Art Museum).
Circus dinner theater: Teatro Zinzanni at Lotte Hotel Seattle
(Elena Gatilova in Teatro ZinZanni Residency at Lotte Hotel Seattle. Photo by Nate Watters)
Love, Chaos & Dinner. And maybe an overnight stay.
If you live in or near Seattle or are looking for a reason to head that way this holiday season or sometime before the end of March 2024, the rollicking theatrical cirque experience that is Teatro Zinzanni is a must-do.
The sumptuous dinner show is wacky and, at times, a wee bit racy. And there’s a stellar cast that leans into some tried and true vaudeville traditions while offering a steady stream of impressive and often heart-stopping acrobatics and funny stuff performed on and above the stage and, sometimes, in the audience.
There’s a storyline to the evening, but with all the singing, the shtick, and the ‘how can they do that?! feats on the trapeze and elsewhere – that won’t matter.
This is Teatro Zinzanni’s 25 anniversary and over the years the company’s giant cabaret tent has been in residence in several locations in and around Seattle.
This season, Teatro Zinzanni is in residence in the Grand Ballroom of the Sanctuary at Lotte Hotel Seattle so there’s no room for the entire tent.
But the mirrored walls, the wooden booths, the in-the-round seating, and the elevated live orchestra Teatro Zinzanni fans have come to expect are all here. And it’s clear that the Sanctuary, formerly the oldest church in downtown Seattle, is a perfect venue thanks to lots of stained glass, a 58-foot-high domed ceiling, and plenty of history.
Sleepover after the show
Lotte Hotel Seattle is one of the newer, high-end hotels in Seattle and an overnight here is a great pairing with an evening at Teatro Zinzanni.
Designed by industrial French designer Phillipe Starck, the hotel has 189 rooms, a spa, plenty of meeting space, great views over the city, the waterfront, and Elliott Bay, plus a cocktail lounge and restaurant on the top floor with a very reasonably priced Happy Hour.
The guestrooms have floor-to-ceiling windows, large mirrors, fun art, spacious bathrooms clad in travertine stone, and a cozy decor that takes inspiration from Pacific Northwest forests.
We spotted a lot of fun wood (real and referenced) throughout the hotel, from the front desk made out of a log from a 3,000-year-old Sequoia tree to the ‘wood’ carpeting in the hallways and in the rooms.
They’ve even got a discount package for anyone attending a Teatro Zinzanni show.
The Stuck at The Airport team is still relearning some of its post-pandemic packing skills.
And we’ve called down or showed up at several of our hotel front desks asking for toothpaste, combs, and other items we’ve forgotten to replace in our travel kits.
We’ve also been forgetting to pack belts, sunglasses, and other accessories. So this new complimentary program from Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants (part of IHG Hotels & Resorts) caught our attention.
Through a partnership with lifestyle retailer Anthropologie, beginning August 1 select Kimpton properties will offer guests the opportunity to borrow from a selection of stylish and seasonally-appropriate accessories kept at the front desk.
The accessories in the Forgot It? We’ve Got It! program will change with the season and right now includes several styles of sunglasses, handbags, and belts. Better yet, if you love what you borrow, you can buy that accessory on a special Kimpton/Anthropologie shopping site.
Smart right?
So we’re declaring this a top nomination for “Hotel Amenity of the Week.”
Have a hotel or airport amenity you’d like to nominate? Leave a note in the comment section below.
