mission inn

Riverside's Mission Inn: A Destination Onto Itself

Most people visit an attraction and spend the night at a nearby hotel. In the case of Riverside's Mission Inn Hotel and Spa, the hotel is the attraction that people come to see.

There's an upside and a downside to this. The upside is that it's obviously a very lovely place with 239 rooms, 28 of them suites. The holiday lights show that the Inn has hosted for the past seven years has made it Greater Los Angeles' must-see Christmas attraction, a West Coast version of posing for photos in front of the tree at Rockefeller Center. Tourists from around the world visiting Los Angeles detour to the Mission Inn, just to see it and the famed festival of lights -- all 3.5 million of them.

But the downside is that the people who come to see the Inn and the lights do tend to make the lobby and public areas a crowded experience, one that has led the hotel to hire security guards to check that only guests are entering the elevator to the floors with hotel rooms.

Tags: california hotel, mission inn, riverside california, riverside mission inn

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Riverside's Mission Inn Lights Up Christmas Season in Los Angeles

by Ann Brenoff (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Events

New Yorkers may mark the start of the holiday season with the lighting of the tree at Rockefeller Center and Washingtonians may feel the same about the lighting of the White House Christmas tree. But in greater Los Angeles, holiday cheer-seekers head east -- to the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa in Riverside.

Inn owner Duane Roberts illuminates his landmark hotel with more than 3.5 million lights and stages a free Festival of Lights show, replete with an elaborately decorated Christmas tree, Dickens carolers, horse-drawn carriages and more than 400 animated characters dressed in 17th Century costumes. There's even free hot cocoa, eggnog and holiday sweets. (No, there's no snow, but truth is most of us moved here because we weren't that attached to it in the first place.)

Tags: holiday decorations, holiday events, holiday lights, mission inn, riverside

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