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2.26.2009 | Some hotel websites have incredibly cloying soundtracks that loop after a few notes. Instead of making you want to look and possibly book, the over-and-over repetition makes you want to click the heck out of there. This morning I found what might be the coolest hotel website soundtrack in the land. Click to the Valley Ho Hotel in Scottsdale and tell me what you think. I found it while researching a sweeps for two nights there. To enter the sweeps, which comes with a bunch of spa treatments, click HERE. NOTE: This sweeps does not include airfare. It ends on Saturday February 28. Oh, and the Hotel Valley Ho is not one of the hotels in Scottsdale that faces foreclosure. They would be the W and the InterContinental. Both are, per press reports, still open for business.
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2.25.2009| Wow.
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2.15.2009 |
Me (frantically packing, blogging and doing last minute research on the Internet):
Do you want to see our hotel?
Isaac (leisurely reading a book and fiddling with his iPod):
No, I want to be surprised.
Surprise! What a concept.
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2.15.2009 | Here’s a CNN piece about how two London hotels, the Umi and Hoxton Urban Lodge, are wooing customers with genuinely lowball specials. The Hoxton Lodge’s 10 specially priced rooms a night, five for $1.50, another 5 for $40, sold out in 13 minutes. Over 60,000 clicksters were trying to get these rates. Wowsie. I’ll drink a highball to that.
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This hotel sends me. I discovered it yesterday on Been-Seen, a travel blog run by the folks at Verana, a resort in Yelapa, Mexico that also sends me. The Seriamis is far from the madding crowd outside Athens, in a suburb called Kifissia. Here's a tease from the Been Seen article.It's the 21st century, and hotelier Dakis Joannou wants to be sure we're all clear on that. Semiramis, his new hotel in Athens, is so far from classical splendor, it's positively futuristic. And bright. An architect and modern art collector, he's commissioned designer Karim Rashid to create a hotel that stands out from the rest.
There's something so whimsical about this hotel's palette. It's listed on the Design Hotels site. The Seriramis is not new-new; it made Conde Nast Traveler's 2005 Hot List. No big whoop. A hotel never has to be new-new to send me.
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I could not have custom-ordered a more perfect trifecta: chocolate, hotel giveaway and art installation. I read about this Godiva-sponsored giveaway on Luxist last evening, the post is from a few days ago. (Speaking of Luxist, it's amazing to me that the thing is still humming along in this collapsing economy.) This stay is for the lucky person who finds a card in his or her Godiva chocolate box in the coming days, for a stay in the Bryant Park Hotel's Decadence Suite. This is how Luxist describes the sweet suite:The room was created by Los Angeles designer Larry Abel and features interior design by Jonathan Adler. Hanging in the "living room" was a painting built of multicolored chocolate pieces inspired by Gustav Klimt's painting The Kiss. Above the dining table was a "canvas" dripping with brown and white chocolate -- a takeoff on Jackson Pollock's signature "drip" paintings. Books opened to a mound of chocolates. A glass-covered table features a design under the glass made up of chocolate pieces. Visitors can feel free to sit on the sofa, which is chocolate-covered only on its sides, but don't touch the chocolate walls, or light the fireplace (with its chocolate logs and mantle) or chocolate candles, or try to snuggle up in the chocolate easy chairs.
Obviously the tie-in is Valentine's Day, but the prize if for two nights in in May. The Bryant Park takes the prize for the most self-consciously hip hotel website ever. Which of course by definition means it's not hip. But truth be told, once you're in a hotel, who cares what the website looks like? In my experience, the hotel website has not one thing to do with the hotel experience. I would love to stay in this hotel, on Godiva's dime or my own.
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Whatever your status this coming Valentine's Day weekend, you might enjoy clicking around the hotel website Room for Romance. It's a collection of intimate hotels, almost all in Europe with a few from Australia and Morocco thrown in for good measure. These are small properties, each one more charming than the next. I like the funky looks of Miller's Residence in Notting Hill. Each room is named after a romantic poet, Byron, Blake, Browning -- and that's just the B's. I think I'd chose Shelley for me and the boy, since that's the name of his Russian tortoise.
Caveat emptor: I can't vouch for the website. There's not much "who, what or where" under the "about" link. I'd do a bit of research before booking through the website and consider booking directly with the property if I didn't learn more about its bona fides. It can help enormously to work with a site like this, provided it's reputable, especially considering the European differential when it comes to hotel reservations. Case in point: I booked a hotel in Rome last summer through Small Luxury Hotels. At check-in, the front desk wanted to charge me for a missed night -- which was due to a national train strike. (Those Italians.) When I said I'd take up the matter with SLH, the front desk obliged.
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I've never been to the Greenbrier but hear tell it's a wonderful mountain resort if you like that sort of thing. And I do. I happen to be partial to the Homestead, but I certainly hope the Greenbrier makes it. The place has been operating since 1778. The Greenbrier is hemorrhaging cash, to the tune of a $35 million loss in 2008, Goldman Sachs has been brought in to evaluate the situation, a possible tourniquet could be gambling.
For details, here's an article from Golf World via Wallet Pop.
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This does not come as a surprise. The Savoy's reopening has been pushed back to late autumn. The hotel, closed since December 2007, is undergoing a 100 million pound refurbishment. (It's the same language most of the time, but in hotel speak, a renovation is a refurbishment.) At present, some rooms are slated to open this summer. All this is per the Standard. I hope this is true, some rooms opening during summer season. I plan to be in London this summer, and had hoped to check it out.
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I’m starting to feel like a sucker. I’ve been entering travel sweeps for nearly three years and I have yet to win a thing. (Stomp, stomp.) That’s not going to stop me. Here’s one for five nights at the Royalton in NYC. Yes, the Royalton.
To enter, click HERE and sign up for Tablet Hotel's newsletter. If you’re already getting it, sign up again and you’re entered in the sweeps.
Speaking of Tablet Hotels, which happens to be my favorite hotel site, a hotel I stayed at this summer, and subsequently reviewed for Dream of Italy, is on one of the site’s Top 10 lists: For the past 12 months, guest reviews have put the Inn at the Roman Forum in the Tablet Hotels' Top 10 Hotels in Europe.
My review is available online to DOI newsletter subscribers. Check out Dream of Italy's site. It's great!
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Judging from the posts in the FlyerTalk Hotel Deals Forum, people are losing sleep and possibly their minds over the chance to book a hotel at LastMinuteTravel.com's next-to-nothing rate.
I'm not even bothering. I signed up for email clues, and LMT only sent two, and there was nothing resembling a clue in either correspondence. There's enough crazy-making in the world than to get caught up in this frenzy. People, get a life!
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Here are two slide shows from the Telegraph: Part 1 and Part 2. Whatever floats your boat! Actually, this one in Mexico captures my imagination.
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From the one-screen website for the Watergate Hotel:We are currently undergoing a dramatic renovation and will not be accepting guests again until late 2009. While we are creating the most luxurious hotel in Washington, we ask for your patience.
Patience indeed. Things are not going as planned: The email listed on the hotel’s website is not even working. When I emailed last week, requesting a status report on the hotel’s renovation, my email bounced back as undeliverable.
That sent me a-Googling, and I found an article from mid-November in the Washington Business Journal that explains the story. The developer, Monumental Realty, got caught up in Lehmann Bros.’ failure, and can’t do a thing unless it’s approved by the bankruptcy court. In the meantime, one tenant at the complex has sued Monumental Realty for letting the garage go into disrepair.
This is most unfortunate. I love the Watergate for its history, its location, its views. I used to love it for its tile-lined indoor pool, too, but I don’t think that’s going to survive the renovation.
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