Cambridge Travel Guide
Tags: Hotels Doing Good / Hotel Packages / Hyatt Hotels / → All Tags
Volunteer and Vacation at the Same Time at Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay
DC families inspired by the country’s new populism bent can turn their Spring Break into an opportunity for bragging rights over all the good deeds they did while staying at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Resort.
About 80 miles from the Capital Beltway in Cambridge, Maryland, the resort is perched along the Choptank River in the Chesapeake Bay, a prime getaway spot among Washingtonians. And the hotel’s Spring Fever package is not only good for karma but also pretty easy on the wallet, with rates starting at just $129 a night, from March 29 through June 1.
Tags: Hyatt Hotels / Hotel Packages / Political Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Escape Election Overload on the Eastern Shore of Maryland
The Hyatt Chesapeake Bay's new "Politi-scape Package" sorta speaks to us. After all, we can think of more than a few cracked-out politicos who could do well by a break from the election horse race, not to mention all those average schmoes among us.
Just 85 miles east of the District of Columbia and perched on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the hotel is offering itself up as a "restful retreat" far from the Beltway, and now through the star-spangled inauguration on January 20, guests at the Hyatt Chesapeake Bay will enter full-immersion detox: stashing cell phones and Blackberries at the front desk and trading pantsuits for plush spa robes and iPod shuffles programmed with the best of easy listening.
Tags: Fall Foliage Hotels / Boston Hotels / Kimpton Hotels / Fall-Foliage-Hotels / → All Tags
Fall Foliage Hotels :: Get Away to Boston's Marlowe
You may be smack in the middle of Boston Proper, but you can still enjoy that autumn chill in the great outdoors.
Kimpton's Hotel Marlowe is offering an active Fall Foliage Package. A rate of $999 (and going higher, depending on the room you book) gets you two nights, a bike ride around the city with Urban Adventours, and a kayak to swish up the Charles, park the car at Harvard yard (say that with a Boston accent).
For real trees with real leaves, the package also offers your choice of day trips to local working farms. You'll get a free ride to Boston Hill Farm in North Andover, for pumpkin picking and tractor rides, plus more apples you could eat or stuff into a pie, with Cortlands, MacIntoshes, and Macouns.
Or get a bit of history at Brooksby Farm in Peabody, 250 acres of farm, barns, gardens, and orchards, smack in the middle of the burbs. Pet emus, alpacas, and sheep, pick apples by the bushel, and wolf down some cider with a maple syrup candy chaser. Yum.
[Photo: GrigorPDX]
Tags: Kimpton Hotels / Hotel Animals / Pet Hotels / Hotel Happenings / Boston Hotels / → All Tags
Weekend Hotel Happening: 'Bark and Bath' at Boston's Hotel Marlowe
Hotel: Hotel Marlowe, Nine Zero and The Onyx in Boston.
When: Saturday, July 12th. 10 am to 2 pm.
Where: The Hotel Marlowe Courtyard.
What: Continuing Kimpton's streak of heartwarming efforts to embrace pets and their doting families, three Boston Kimpton properties -- the Hotel Marlowe, Nine Zero and the Onyx -- are holding a Saturday of doggie pampering for charity.
The event will feature wash-and-dry services provided by local doggie pamperers Laundromutt (hehe) and "puppy snow cones and peanut butter cupcakes" from Polka Dog Bakery. Awww!
The proceeds from the day go to benefit Boston chapter of the Trust for Public Land.
Before we pain you with a joke about the 'dog days of summer', we'll direct you to more info here.
[Photo: smwarnke4]
Tags: Cambridge Hotels / Luxury Hotels / Boutique Hotels / UK Hotels / Monica Guy / Hotel Restaurants / → All Tags
Cambridge Hotels: Grandma Versus the Rest of Us
[Photo: CutterNutter]
Monica Guy is fed up with the old guard hotels of the U.K. that may have entertained her grandparents when they were tripping all over the world in their youth but have since been lasting on reputation and little else. In this new feature, she pits her grandma's favorite hotel against some of the new hip hotels popping up across the rainy motherland. Enjoy.
Yesterday you were in Oxford, today you've taken your grandparents to Cambridge. Running a tour of the boffin towns. But where will you all stay?
Tags: Kimpton Hotels / WiFi Hell / → All Tags
Kimpton Hotels Are Getting Stricter with Their 'Free' WiFi
We knew that the sudden pay-for-WiFi policy at the 70 Park Ave Kimpton Hotel in Manhattan was the start of more troublesome things to come for our #1 Best Hotel WiFi pick.
Take for instance the new WiFi rules at the Hotel Marlowe. Whereas once upon a time, you could just check an agreement to terms of service box and then surf the web, now you must input your room number and name.
The internet is still free for guests but if you want to VPN it is $4.95 a day. And if you are a a non-guest you need to pay $7.95 for Web and $11.95 for VPN.
Boo. Maybe Kimpton got sick of people hanging around their lobbies for free WiFi--certainly we would not do such a thing, heh--or else, they're just getting greedy like the Four Seasons in Palm Beach.
We have a strong feeling that suddenly Starwood Properties, who were once notorious for abysmal WiFi offerings, will surpass Kimpton in a very short while.
Related Stories:
· Best WiFi Hotels 2006 [HotelChatter]
· Kimpton Ditches Free WiFi in NYC [HotelChatter]
Tags: Hotel Technology / → All Tags
Katie Couric in a Charles Hotel Bathroom
Salacious sounding isn't it? Yesterday HotelChatter took a bit of a field trip to the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square to check out the newest in hotel bathroom excess--in-mirror televisions. Yup, the Charles installed Séura televisions in all of the bathrooms. Séura has developed a system that combines an LCD television with a specially-designed mirror in which the screen appears in the mirror when turned on and vanishes when turned off.
So as we chatted with Charles staffers about the benefits and shock value of this technology we were able to watch Katie Couric say her final Today show good-bye.
These in-mirror flat screen televisions are now in all 294 guest rooms. This technology is part of a bigger room redux at the Charles, which when it is completed in August, will include remodeled bathrooms, flat screen televisions (both in mirror and outside mirror), local artwork, and cool wall clocks from the Institute for Contemporary Art.
We have first look preview photos of the renovated rooms in the HotelChatter photo pool.
Our big question: Does the in-mirror television fog up when you take a long hot shower?
Related Stories:
· HotelChatter Photo Pool [Flickr]
· The Charles Hotel reviews [TripAdvisor]
Tags: Miscellaneous / → All Tags
Hoteliers Do Good
To prove we aren't all bad, we are going to start the day with a couple hotelier do gooder stories.
Recently, Cara Spalla, general manger of Hotel@MIT, received an unusual request from a MIT Masters in City Planning candidate.
The request was for soap. Lots of soap. Furthermore, that soap was to be sent and distributed to schoolchildren in Mozambique.
Mozambique is one of the poorest nations on the African continent. Home to 17 million people Mozambique lies on the Indian Ocean.
The team from M.I.T.'s City Planning School was leading an educational outreach program to elementary schools in Maputo (yup, happy Maputo Day y'all), the capital of Mozambique.
Soap is a valuable commodity in Maputo, and schools rarely have the budget to provide it in their bathrooms. It is often stolen when provided.
Thanks to the generosity of Spalla and Hotel@MIT, Brown and her team left for Mozambique carrying 12 dozen bars of soap. They left with the hope that this donation would become an educational building block in Mozambique.
The soap donated by the hotel was used in games re-emphasizing the importance of proper hygiene, and of the country's larger sanitation systems. At the end of the games the children were given bars of soap to take home.
According to Spalla:
Participation in initiatives like the M.I.T. Mozambique Sanitation project helps to serve as a reminder that the norms in civilization many of us take for granted daily, is life altering in many areas of the world.
Related Stories:
· Maputo [I Go U Go]
· Hotel@MIT Reviews [TripAdvisor]
Tags: Hotel Deals / → All Tags
Hotel Marlowe's Jedi Mind Tricks
Hotel Marlowe is offering a Star Wars package this fall.
If you are OK with leopard print, Hotel Marlowe should be a fine place for central command during any leaf peeping/Boston visiting venture.
This Cambridge Kimpton propety offers great service, free WiFi, free drinks (happy hour), and a location steps away from the Museum of Science.
The Hotel Marlowe Star Wars package includes a room and two VIP tickets to the Star Wars exhibition at the Museum of Science. VIP tickets to the Museum of Science? What does that get you--a lightsaber or something? Turns out VIP passes mean you can bypass all lines at the Museum.
Hmm, you will still have to use the force to drown out all the screaming kids and giggling geeks. However, if you are a fan, seeing this exhibit that compares Star Wars innovations to real world technology should be right up your alley.
This package is available Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights from November 12 - April 4 2006.
The package is not up on the hotel web site yet, it should be soon, in the meantime it looks like you will have to use that ancient talking device called the telephone.
Related Stories:
· Star Wars Exhibit [Museum of Science]
· Hotel Marlowe Reviews [TripAdvisor]
· The Newest Cambridge Gem [HotelChatter]
Tags: Celebrity Scoop / → All Tags
Overheard At Hotel Marlowe
A Hotel Maven writes:
Was over at Hotel Marlowe for a meeting and overheard one of the wedding sales gals giving the pitch. She said "When Elton John was in town we tried to get him to stay here, but he will only stay in hotels where he can get a piano in his room, and we didn't have a piano for him."
This tells us two things:
- Sir Elton is a queen.
- Sir Elton made a mistake. Hotel Marlowe is currently one of the best hotels in the Boston area.
Related Stories:
· Hotel Marlowe Reviews [TripAdvisor]
Tags: Hotel Deals / → All Tags
$99 At Royal Sonesta--Can You Handle The Cold?
Travelzoo leads us to a $99 a night deal at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge, MA. The deal is available weekends through April 3.
Good deal, seeing that rooms are usually around $200 a night.
So what do you do in Boston in the dead of winter?
A brief list of suggestions:
· Wiggle is back with the Celts, check 'em out at the Fleet and see if the City of Champs can pull off a the triple crown of championships.
· Go bar hoping and celebrate St. Patty's month...yeah it is celebrated all month in Boston.
· The Sonesta has a nice heated pool with views of the Charles, so just soak in the pool, order in, and laugh at the poor, cold, shivering folks outdoors.
Black out dates are March 18 & 19 (St. Patty's weekend...grr), however for $10 more a night you can beat the black out.
Related Stories:
· Royal Sonesta: Kids Love It [HotelChatter]
· Royal Sonesta Reviews [TripAdvisor]
Tags: Hotels / → All Tags
Charlest Hotel: Hunting For Hotel Whales
Two years ago, Harvard's unofficial official hotel, the Charles, spent $1 million to renovated its 293 guest rooms and public spaces. This week, the Charles unveiled their latest $1 million renovation, the 1800-square-foot presidential suite.
The Charles Hotel's presidential suite is definitely one of the best in Boston. Includes an 85' long living room, dining room, two sitting areas, King size bed, wet bar, baby grand piano, two fireplaces, and Jacuzzi.
Oh, and there is more, including five flat-screen TVs, a security camera to monitor people at the door, and an iPod docking station. There is a custom $10,000 king-size bed, and the bathroom has a giant eight-jet shower.
However, at $3,500 a night the question is still $1 million on one room...how do you make those nubmers work?. The answer, according to the Boston Globe, is you don't.
As much as 80 percent of the time, presidential suites are marketed as a freebie or at heavily discounted rates.
So what is the goal with these loss leading rooms? To capture those rare super rich whales, of course. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, world leaders, corporate CEOs, these are the folks the Charles Hotel, and other hotels, are hoping to nab with rooms like the presidential suite.
But those whales can only be counted on for 20% occupancy in any given year. What we need to figure out how these hotels dole out that tricked out suite the other 80% of the time...and how do we get on that list.
Related Stories:
· Hotels Spend Millions on Rooms Few Will See [Boston Globe]
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