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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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Today's the last day to enter the Andaz trip to London sweeps. If you're game, click HERE.
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I just got an email from Last Minute Travel stating that there's going to be another $1-a-night window today. Apparently there was already one this morning, per posts on FlyerTalk and Slick Deals. Reminder: For the latest on the promotion, go to the LAST post and work your way back.
Here's a snapshot of the first four days, from the promotion's blog:Since the beginning of The World for $1 sale, 928 reservations have been made for less than the cost of a movie ticket! And 48% of these reservations were for high-end, luxury hotels! The 2,197 people going on these vacations are headed to 224 different destinations with Orlando, Las Vegas, New York, Cancun and Honolulu topping the list!
This promotion is making some people crazy. I'm chill.
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I missed the window again. There was one at the crack of dawn this morning, followed by speculation that there would be another window later in the day. I haven't checked the threads on FlyerTalk or Slick Deals to see whether one materialized, but I suggest you do for the latest. I will as well, when I get home later this evening.
Remember to click to LAST for the most recent posts and work backwards for the latest and greatest. Here's to Last Minute Travel for concocting a provocative promotion!
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I predict the D.C. Marriott-Schrager Edition hotel will move forward despite some neighborhood opposition. I live two blocks away from the site, and almost daily walk or drive past the church that is going to be transformed into a ballroom and restaurant. Interestingly, the church has not been designated a landmark so the D.C. bodies that govern preservation decisions technically do not have jurisdiction over the project. Though their opinion holds sway. Here are details from an article in TheInTowner, a neighborhood weekly that covers development projects in great detail.Ironically, an earlier proposal for restoration and redevelopment of the church site that called for simply extending the rear of the building into and over the church’s adjacent surface parking lot and recasting the resultant structure as a condominium with townhouse residences facing Champlain Street was rejected by the historic preservation process because — it is asserted by the developer — the expansion structure looked too much like the old church building and DC building code required punching windows on the two rear sides of the church. The height of the expansion structure would have followed that of the existing church building — which would have been proposed for inclusion in the Reed Cooke Zoning Overlay.
Even more startling to note, neither HPRB [Historic Preservation Review Board] nor HPO [Historic Preservation Office] has any legal jurisdiction over this site — no part of which is in an historic district. Moreover, the church building itself has yet to be designated or declared an historic landmark. Thus, federal tax credits and façade tax easements, as well as property tax relief, remain hypothetical benefits to the project. More importantly still is the fact that the hotel project requires approval by the DC Zoning Commission of a Planned Unit Development (PUD) that would serve to override the restrictive Reed-Cooke Zoning Overlay and the site’s underlying zoning regulations.
Unfortunately the hotel is not slated to open until 2012. I hate to wish away the years, but this is something I'm really looking forward to seeing happen, espcially since it's practically in my front yard.
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Apparently the window has come and gone. But maybe not. According to trusty posters on FlyerTalk and Slick Deals, Last Minute Travel can sneak in a second window. Caveat emptor: There are also posts from successful bidders (note that I did not call them winners) that LMT is sending out 1099 for the value of the rooms, as though this were a sweepstakes. That is absolutely bogus. If you snag this rate through this promotion, do not fall for that! NOTE: When you click on the links to these to threads, go to the last post page and work backwards. These threads are moving targets.
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Some disgruntled posters at FlyerTalk and Slick Deals are up in arms about the way Last Minute Travel’s promotion is playing out. At least one person is threatening to contact their state’s Attorney General's office for assorted transgressions, including lack of availability and assertions that the Terms and Conditions keep changing.
I do not know if a stitch of this is true. I did not attempt to enter this promotion today. Apparently the 15-minute window came and went this morning EST. If you’re interested in trying to snag this $1 rate, keep on trucking. I’ll post updates if I see/hear anything interesting. UPDATE: This poster on SlickDeals cadged four nights at a Las Vegas hotel. His tips:1. Sign up and create an account on LMT before you start refreshing the browser (even the 15 seconds you will save by doing this in advance may make the difference between getting the deal and being angry because you ran out of time)
2. Log into LMT with your newly created account
3. Load Check4Change or whatever add on you desire
4. Set C4C to refresh the main LMT page
5. Open another tab for the hotel page
6. Research your hotels in advance - and open another tab with whatever hotel(s) you desire. I had one tab for the LMT main page, one for my first hotel choice and one for my second hotel choice
7. Listen carefully for the clock to start ticking. My Firefox browser with C4C plug in did not play the song as some others mentioned. I was made aware of the deal by the clock ticking and the flashing tab on the main page being monitored by C4C
8. When the ticking begins, navigate to the first choice hotel tab, refresh, and you'll only have to see the movie once (based upon my experience)
9. Book the hotel dates, room type, etc as quickly as possible
10. Fill out your personal info ASAP
11. Answer the two question survey and confirm your reservation
12. Enjoy the fact that you just got a marvelous deal for FREE!
I might give this a whirl tomorrow.
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I’m such a Girl Scout. Yesterday I clicked through all the recommendations on The Daily Beast’s BUZZ BOARD to see if anyone besides Sophie Dahl had recommended a hotel. It turned out that people have been recommending hotels, restaurants and, get this, entire countries (New Zealand and Nicaragua) since the site's inception.
In November, comedian and all-around wit Mo Rocca suggested The Stonebridge Inn & Spa in Batesville, Indianapolis. (I bet he was in the area for a wedding.) Last month, pollster Douglas Schoen raved about the new Canyon Ranch in Miami Beach.
More recently, Radha Arora, regional V.P. and General Manager of Beverly Wilshire, a Four Seasons Hotel recommended the Four Seasons Hotel George V. Okay, the Hotel George is part of his company, so there’s self-interest in getting the name of another hotel in the Four Seasons chain out there, but at least the connection’s obvious. Four Seasons is in the title of his current hotel post.
Not so clear is a recent recommendation from Shane Krige, General Manager of the Plaza Hotel, for Fairmont Mayakoba. Nowhere in his entry or bio do he or The Daily Beast mention that the Plaza also is a Fairmont-managed property. Not owned, but managed. I know this because of my hotel proclivities. For most people to realize there was any connection, they’d have to click on the Plaza link, which goes to the Fairmont website. So, we’re not talking cover-up. But the disclosure, if you could call it that, is embedded, to say the least.
I can’t help but wonder if Krige was slightly conflicted over this; he hardly pulls out all the stops. He writes, “The combination of impeccable service and luxurious accommodations gave my wife and me an incredible sense of well being. It was the perfect place to recharge from the fast pace of New York City.” Now, as General Manager of one of the world’s great hotels, he’d probably get impeccable service at any hotel, Fairmont or not, the moment the staff detected his status. (Have you ever gone out to dinner with a chef? Wild!) At a hotel in the same chain, the staff’s jobs depend on his approval! Plus, besides being anything but anonymous, I’m sure the Kliges got an employee discount. Even if they paid full price, plugs like this are free advertising – which in my book are only acceptable if the reader knows about the connection.
This is one of my biggest bugaboos about the blogosphere, New Media’s repudiation of basic journalistic standards about disclosure. This just undercuts its credibility. Maybe it’s not Watergate. But still.
Tsk tsk to the Daily Beast.
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