The other day I had an email pop into my Yahoo account about a hotel called Viking. My first thoughts were of the old Norse sailors and a rough and tumble meager lodging. On discovering the Hotel Viking all my thoughts were changed.

According to the hotels web site, “The award-winning Hotel Viking situated atop Newport’s Historic Hill neighborhood with breathtaking views of Bellevue Avenue mix in your mind’s eye with sightings of notable guests gone-by. There have been a few, since 1926, Will Rogers, Ella Fitzgerald, John and Jackie Kennedy.”

“The Hotel Viking opened to an awestruck public in May 1926. As a member of the prestigious Historic Hotels of America, the hotel holds a special place in history. From the clock above the Front Desk depicting ancient Nordic Runes to the original 1926 brass letter box in the Lobby, the hotel offers a wonderful combination of style, comfort and modern amenities.”

This is a beautiful property with wonderful colors, patterns and textures. If we take a look at their web site we can see that someone has not only updated their lodgings, but their web site as well. They have moved to a more modern web development using semantic markup. While they’ve gone to this effort, they still have a number of errors to overcome to validate.

If we look a bit at the usability of the site (accomodations, rates and photo gallery) it was easy right off to find their link for rooms and suites, rates weren’t readily available, but they had a nice photo gallery of images.

- 58 HTML errors
- 203 CSS errors.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an A for form and a B- function.

Billed as Canada’s Secluded Romantic Mountain Getaway the Emerald Lake Lodge is nestled in Field, British Columbia, Canada. Originally built in 1902 by the Canadian Pacific Railway it’s grown to become a winter wonderland and a secluded summer lodge that is a jewel in the Canadian crown of lodgings. This is absolutely one of those properties where I have the internal struggle trying to decide which season I want to visit it in first, summer or winter…decisions, decisions, decisions.

As of late I’ve been discovering and rediscovering the beauty that Canada holds. Around each corner seems to be another amazingly decorated lodge or Inn. This property simply is stunning with the amazing backdrop of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and the near by Emerald Lake. One look at the photo gallery will having you wanting to call to make a reservation right away.

I’m definatly sold on staying at this lodge one day, so let’s jump right into the code. One glance at the code and file names and you can tell that someone has spent some time using semantic markup with tableless design and optimized the file names for search engines. While great effort has been taken with the code there are still a few markup errors on the main page, but overall this site is to be applauded.

- 9 HTML errors
- 1 CSS error.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an A- for form and a A- function.

Last night I happened across the Georgetown Inn in Washington D.C. It’s acclaimed to be one of the most recognizable establishments in D.C. and has been so for the more than 40 years. One look at their web page and your transported back to colonial times when things were a lot simpler. It’s conveniently located on Wisconsin Avenue within a couple miles of the Capitol, White House, National Mall and most other major monuments.

The obligatory Flash photo gallery infuses you with stately images of local monuments, the hotel itself and the Mall. I like how the images fade from black and white to color almost as a representation of changing from the past to the present. The site is laid out well overall with nice clean lines and soothing colors. The site like the hotel gives you a air of sophistication like you’d be a better, higher class of person just by walking through their doors.

A quick glance at their menu reveals a bit of a split personality. There appears to be two main menu’s with a possible third. This is a bit distracting, but manageable. Fairly quickly I find a guest room link that takes me to a nice view of the different room types, however I don’t readily see rates. This is assuaged a bit by the ad for $119 summer rates. I know right away if it fits in my budget. Next I look for the hotel photo gallery and I wasn’t disappointed to see a hotel photo tour on the menu.

Rather disappointingly I look at the code behind this properly adorned site and I see a raft of deprecated code. There is no semantic markup or tableless design, only old bloated code. Their search engine optimization is nowhere to be found as there isn’t a single header in the main page. There’s so much potential here for improvement in the usability, accessibility and search engine ranking of the site. They just renovated their 96, European-style accommodations, too bad some of that didn’t go to improving their web site as well.

- 15 HTML errors
- 13 CSS errors.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an B+ for form and a C function.

I ran across Tu Tu’ Tun Lodge today. It interested me not only because of the locale but the name sounded a bit Mayan (it is however an indian name after the Tu Tu’ Tune Rogue indians). It’s quite the opposite of Guatemala and the Mayan Riviera however.

The lodge is located in the rural southwest corner of Oregon, 40 miles from the California border. It’s perched on the Rogue River 7 miles from the Pacific Ocean. If you wanted a location to get away from it all and have a life altering experience I’d say that this is a place that could make that happen. While it doesn’t appear to be a typical theme room it makes you want to stay and experience each room.

One I’d specifically like to take in is the Chinook Suite as it has a row of windows that meet in a corner that overlooks the Rogue River. This would be a wonderful place to soak in the area or just sit and read a book. The Inn isn’t for the thrifty traveler as a King room with a fireplace will run you from $180-$300 a night depending on the season. If you have a special occasion coming up however this would make a great romantic getaway or even if you just wanted to treat yourself to a day or two without any ringing phones or pressing deadlines.

The hotel and web site appear beautiful, however the ugly Flash quickly shows it’s head as you try to view each of the impeccably adorned rooms. When you drill down far enough to see one of these beautiful rooms and you try to click back as you loose the room navigation you go back to an outdated splash screen. Instead you can do some index finger calisthenics by clicking ‘Rooms > One King Bed > Room Name’ and then going through the process all over again. This is really such a shame as I’m so eager to look through each room.

- 38 HTML error
-CSS passed.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an C. It’s really too bad as it wouldn’t take much to make the site more usable and accessible. It’s just another case of Flash being miss-used. The whole site is done in Flash and prevents me from bookmarking or adding links to various pages. A little semantic markup and tableless design along with a restructuring of the site could make it much more user friendly.

As always I look for three navigation items when reviewing a site, accomodations, rates and photo gallery. While there are no links for rates or photo gallery. It did however have a link for lodging which seems to fit better than accommodation for this more rustic getaway.