A Desert Oasis: Miramonte Indian Wells Resort & Spa in Palm Springs

Miramonte Indian Wells Resort & Spa in Palm Springs

By Erin

*Thank you to A Girl’s Guide To Cars, Miramonte Resort and Visit Greater Palm Springs for sponsoring the A Girl’s Guide to Cars Conference. This is a sponsored post. All thoughts & opinions are my own.* 

Just less than a two-hour drive from LA and Orange County is this beautiful oasis that is nestled at the foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains in the dessert where the days are warm and the nights are cool in the Coachella Valley region. Featuring 11 acres of citrus trees, olive trees, lush rose, herb and vegetable gardens waiting for you to discover them.  When you walk inside, the reservation check in desk is welcoming and bright with windows all around and lead out to the courtyard. Once checked in, your desert oasis awaits you.  This is the ideal place whether you are looking for a relaxing getaway, a girls weekend, a romantic weekend or a family weekend, there is something for everyone here! Miramonte Indian Wells Resort & Spa in Palm Springs, California  is waiting for you!

Miramonte Resort Spa Indian Wells Palm Springs

Comfortable Rooms

The accommodations are very comfortable and cozy. The perfect place to relax and unwind. Here are the types of rooms you can stay in.

Guest Rooms

These rooms take advantage of stunning desert vistas found around the resort and have between 425-450  square feet and come with the option of either a king bed or two queen sized beds. Rooms on the first floor come with private furnished balconies or patios. Rooms located on the second floor offer private Juliette-styled balconies. The accommodations look out onto the citrus groves, the rose garden and the desert beyond.

Junior suites

Junior Suite offers more space to relax and citrus garden, rose garden or resort views. With 550 square feet of floor space, a separate living area and a private balcony. These come with either a king or two queen beds.

Villa suites

These spacious suites offers a private entrance and a garden adjacent to the Miramonte Pool. 725 square feet of space to relax, they feature one king bedroom, a living area with sofa bed, dining table for four, a spacious bathroom with whirlpool tub, and a private terrace! If you want to live it up, this is the way to go!

Resort Amenities & Resort Services

Here are some of the services and amenities you can enjoy during your stay here:

  • Room service
  • Award-winning Well Spa
  • Two restaurants on site
  • Wellness programs including 24-hour fitness center and yoga

  • WiFi included
  • Pet-friendly accommodations
  • Breathtaking Palm Springs views
  • Three pools, including a quiet pool and hot and cool water retreats

Daily Resort Charge

A daily resort charge is added to the room rate and includes WiFi Access, self and valet parking, two-hour bike rental, shuttle to Indian Wells Golf Course with golf concierge/golf bag storage and putting course access, indoor and outdoor games, and local and toll-free calls.

Delicious Dining

Miramonte Citrus Palm Restaurant

There are a couple of options to enjoy during your stay here. Citrus & Palm serves breakfast and lunch daily. Dinner is served Tuesday through Saturday only. So just be aware that dinner is not served on Sundays or Mondays. Only the freshest locally harvested ingredients are used to prepare the dishes with to create the most healthy and delicious meals possible. We enjoyed an amazing dinner here on our first evening here.

The Tavern is your other dining option. You can order snacks, entrees and drinks here. Some options you can order include roasted or stir-fried vegetables, grilled shrimp and lobster quesadillas (my mom had these and loved them), fried calamari and more. They also have a pretty sweet happy hour  during the week (Monday- Friday from 2pm-6pm) that you will want to check out!

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Girl Power at the BMW Performance Center

Girl Power at the BMW Performance Center

By Erin

*This is a sponsored post for A Girl’s Guide To Cars and the BMW Performance Center, all opinions are my own.*

Imagine about 30 girls who love cars, and fast cars at that. Now imagine that but at the BMW Performance Center in Thermal, California. Yep, well that’s exactly what happened recently at A Girl’s Guide To Cars #Drive2Learn conference held in Palm Springs, California. I only love one speed, and that’s fast. Fast horses, fast roller coasters, and of course fast cars. So you can only imagine how thrilled I was to learn we would be getting to drive around in fast cars at the BMW Performance Center on the test tracks. You know I was excited! (Be sure to stick around til the end here, there is a HUGE giveaway at the end of this post that YOU will want to enter for a chance to win so that you can experience the BMW Performance Center for yourself along with some other fun goodies!)

One of the best things about going to the performance center is that you get to test all of the BMW vehicles and take them to their limits while learning some valuable skills. For an amazing experience where you can see what a performance vehicle is really capable of, you need to head to the BMW Performance Center ASAP! This would make for an awesome Christmas gift.

The BMW Performance Center West is a permanent performance driver training facility located in Thermal, California, near Palm Springs. The facility is open to the public and offers a wide range of driving schools for people of all ages and capabilities. There are also special programs for private and corporate groups.

The BMW Performance Driving Schools are taught by BMW professional driving instructors on a private course. Our instructor Adam was amazing. We also got to do a hot lap with him later, which was even more awesome! The classes provide individuals with the opportunity to get behind the wheel of the Ultimate Driving Machine® and learn skills like basic car control, proper vision, emergency and panic braking, handling last-minute lane changes, distracted driving, high-speed control, precision driving and much more.

Set in a backdrop of breathtaking mountain views, the facility features a brand new, luxurious modern building, up to 5.1 miles of expansive track layouts, meeting space, a gourmet café, gift shops, and a truly unique experience. Check this view out, there’s even a hot air balloon in view in the top left corner!

Our Experience

We did a 1/2 day session and it was a bit of a hybrid of 3 different courses and almost an hour of classroom training where we learned the correct posture to have in the drivers seat and how to maximize speed while maintaining our safety in the corners and straightaways.

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2019 Lexus UX 200: Crafted for the Modern Frontier

2019 Lexus UX 200: Crafted for the Modern Frontier

By Erin

*This is a sponsored post with A Girls Guide to Cars. All thoughts and opinions remain my own*

A few weekends ago I attended A Girls Guide to Cars Drive2Learn Conference, where we got to test drive a bunch of awesome cars. One of my favorites was the 2019 Lexus UX. It wasn’t even on the market for purchase yet at the time we were driving this beauty around and it drew quite a crowd wherever we went! I love red cars to begin with so you can see why right away I was drawn to this one!

Who This Car is For

The Lexus UX is a crossover (The U stands for Urban) featuring a bold urban design and unmistakable strength. From its smart compact size to its agile performance and turning radius, every aspect of the first-ever Lexus compact crossover was crafted for exploration. So who would this car be perfect for?

  • Singles or couples who want a smaller luxury car that gets a decent MPG–29/37/33 for city/highway/combined
  • Smaller families (4 or less) looking for an entry-level urban luxury car
  • Drivers who want the reliability of a Lexus
  • The Urban professional who ultimately cares about comfort, parking ability, and safety tech
  • First time Lexus buyers looking to buy their first luxury vehicle.
  • Xennials- “Gen X” and “Millennials”

The pricing on this one is very competitive. The UX200 starts at $32,000 and the UX250h from $34,000. Buyers can opt for the F Sport package on both models for an additional $2,000. It is an around-town car that is not ideal for hauling a lot of stuff if you go on long trips with a lot of people, but perfect for those looking for an around town car or a couple looking for a car to travel and explore around in.

Packed with Tech Toys Galore

Once you jump into your seat you will find yourself in comfortable, well-supported eight-way power NuLuxe seats in the front with 2-way power driver seat lumbar. There is everything here that a 30-something would expect of a luxury car, the sweeping instrument panel boasts a seven-inch display, a push button start, head-up display that provides all the essential info you need, 4 USB ports and much more. Featuring Apple CarPlay, 4GB WiFi hotspot, Dynamic Voice Command, as well as Amazon Alexa that allows owners to unlock the doors, check the fuel level and even start-up the car all from their smartwatch. If you like being connected, the UX has you covered. The optional Lexus Navigation comes with a 10.3-inch screen. The only thing I am not a huge fan of here is the touch-pad. I am used to the touch-screen so I constantly kept touching the screen only to remember that, “oh yeah, I need to use the touch-pad!” It took a little bit of time to get used to that. Everything else though was spot on and are tech gadgets that are all nice to have!

Safety in Mind

Safety is huge for me when considering a car. Living in Southern California where the freeways are always overcrowded with cars and with some drivers that should probably not be on the road, safety is of the upmost importance! With ten airbags and the Lexus Safety System+ 2.0 as standard, the UX is one extremely safe SUV. The Pre-Collision System includes daytime and low-light detection for pedestrians and daytime detection of bicycles, Dynamic Radar Cruise Control uses a radar on the front grille and forward-facing camera to keep a safe distance from the vehicle ahead at speeds of up to 110 mph. Other safety features include Road Sign Assist, Lane Tracing Assist, Automatic high beams, Lane Departure Alert with Steering assist. There is an optional Blind Spot Monitor that I highly recommend, I have this on my current car and I don’t think I will ever get another car without one! I love that feature so much! The safety goodies you could possibly want can be found in the UX.

What This Car Costs 

2019 Lexus UX 200 Red

  • Lexus UX 200 base price, for the gas version is $32,000
  • Luxury: $37, 200
  • Hybrid: $34,000
  • Hybrid Luxury: $39,200
  • Sport: $34,000
  • Hybrid Sport: $36,000
  • Lexus UX 200 with Premium  Package and Optional Navigation as shown in this post is $35,875

Why I Love It

There are so many things to love about this car!

  • Exterior: The look of this car is so unique, this was proven when we were out and about taking photos of this car in town where lots of other people were walking by. Many would stop and look and then ask about this car. It was pretty cool to see so many people interested in this car when it wasn’t even on the market yet. When you drive in a city with hundreds of thousands of other cars, the ability to stand out is very much appreciated!
  • Handling: The car feels small and it moves quick, a very smooth ride. It drives like a dream and can make some really quick and sharp turns! It has a 34-foot turning circle—perfect for LA traffic!
  • The price point: the least-expensive Lexus, but it doesn’t feel cheap.
  • Comfort: The UX is an easy car to jump in and out of, with comfy seats that are supportive without being  too hard or too soft and was surprisingly roomy.
  • Safety: all the safety features I’d want or need are available with the UX
  • MPG— The 29/37/33 for city/highway/combined that this gets is pretty good compared to other like cars/SUVs.
  • The grille: Very flashy and is made of dozens of beveled spindles that makes it look fancy and stylish.

I enjoyed driving this car around town while we were in Palm Springs and I’d gladly consider purchasing the 2019 Lexus UX 200!