Portland Staycation: Dinner and a Movie, and a Hotel Pool
Take a typical date night, extend it to a whole weekend, add a dip in an outdoor pool, and you’ve got yourself a local staycation—you might even find AC to escape the summer heat. Most any metro-area cinema has a hotel nearby, so it’s easy to build your own itinerary. Here are a few of our favorites.
McMenamins Kennedy School has a comfy theater at its north end and an outdoor soaking pool at its south end.
A Portland tradition and a one-stop shop: McMenamins.
If you want to snuggle, head to Northeast Portland’s Kennedy School, where vintage couches make up most of the cinema seating. For meandering expansive grounds and the chance of happening upon a concert or two, try Forest Grove’s Grand Lodge (a converted Masonic Home) or Troutdale’s Edgefield (a onetime poor farm). The public can pay to use the Kennedy and Grand Lodge soaking pools, and those with spa appointments have access at Grand Lodge and Edgefield, but the last few hours of the evening—limited to hotel guests—carry a sense of magical escape.
Cross a state line.
Enjoy one of Portland’s best hotel pools at Hayden Island’s Holiday Inn Columbia Riverfront. There’s a pool phone for ordering margaritas by the pitcher, a river view, and a protective ring of evergreen trees trimmed to look like little gnome hats. For dinner and a show, split a large khachapuri—a cheese-bread boat bubbling with butter and an egg yolk—at Vancouver, Washington’s fancy Georgian spot Dediko and see what’s playing at the nearby Regal City Center or quirky Kiggins Theatre. Time your walk back across the Interstate Bridge for sunset. Or drive—it’s a lot easier to park compared to downtown Portland, and the Regal validates parking in a garage across the street.
In addition to its retail offerings, Clackamas Town Center is full of places to sit and relax in the AC.
Be a mall rat.
With its Cinemark megaplex, Starcade, vintage carousel, and massage options; restaurants Dough Zone, Mirakutei, and Dave & Buster’s; and a food court boasting Jamba, Popeyes, and Korean corn dogs, you won’t run out of places to eat or things to do at Clackamas Town Center. Keep the ’80s mall vibes going at the Monarch Hotel, which opened in 1985 and has hosted its share of wakes, reunions, election-night watch parties, and the occasional beauty pageant. But you’re there for the pool, an aquamarine hexagon surrounded by chaise lounges and umbrellas. It’s an unexpected slice of heaven wedged between the I-205 bike path and the back of a Target.
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