Cannes Travel Guide
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Where The Celebs Are at The Cannes Film Festival
Celebs have been flooding Cannes, France, for the city's famous film festival. And the hotel that's seeing some of the most action from the 64th annual festival is Hotel Martinez.
There are a number of reasons that the stars stay at the 409-room luxe hotel during the festival. Two-Michelin-star La Palme d'Or is a favorite restaurant among celebrities, its many meeting rooms make it a good spot for parties, and the hotel gives ensures some seclusion, like its private beach. Here are some people who've been spotted there during the fest:
Hotel Rebrandings / Cannes Hotels / JW Marriott Hotels / → All Tags
The Palais Stephanie in Cannes to Become a JW Marriott Hotel
At this time of year, movie industry folks are more concerned about who's staying where, er...what films are premiering at Sundance but there's actually some rather news in Cannes right now...hotel news, that is.
JW Marriott Hotels will take over management of the Palais Stephanie sometime soon. From the announcement released in early December:
Marriott International, Inc. today announced a new addition to its luxury JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts portfolio, the 261-room JW Marriott Hotel Cannes. In early 2011, the stunning Palais Stephanie hotel, located on Cannes’ famous La Croisette, will be re-branded a JW Marriott Hotel under a management agreement with Jesta Group.
Cannes Film Festival Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / International Hotel WiFi / Celebrity Scoop / → All Tags
Sorry, We Can't Muster Up Excitement Over Cannes This Year
Same old, same old.
Every year without fail Hollywood takes a working vacation to France for the Annual Cannes International Film Festival and every year, hotels in Cannes get besieged by the A-list stars, directors, producers, agents and inevitably some reality TV show stars.
And every year, we watch the festivities with no real emotion as it's the same old dog and pony show every year. Rinse, lather, pull out any Jon Gosselin-types and then repeat in 12 months. Plus, it's not like we can even afford a hotel room there. And if we did, it would probably have been sold out months ago. So unless something major happens this year, we're going to avoid reporting on the scene.
But if you insist on knowing what's going on right now, we'll pick out what we've found to be interesting hotel-wise so far.
Hotel Reopenings / Hotel Renovations / Cannes Film Festival Hotels / → All Tags
Back to Hollywood Basics at Palais Stephanie in Cannes
If your hotel’s in Cannes, you have to spend a lot of moolah to keep up with the crowd. Which is why the Palais Stephanie has just shelled out €38 million renovating and reinventing itself – and now it’s ready for its close up.
The hotel sits on the fancy Croisette boulevard, on the original site of the Palais des Congres – AKA where the first Cannes film festivals took place.
Thanks to the refurb, it’s looking pretty sleek – modern design in the 261 rooms, lots of butter, greige and chocolate colours, “hand stitched leather accents” and glam black and white pictures of classic film stars. The room photos also shows that the hotel's into technology too with flat-screen TVs in each rooms and MacBook laptops popped open on the desks (We're assuming you provide the laptop.)
On the roof, meanwhile, is a swimming pool and Le Panorama bar serving organic snacks. There's also a casino onsite and of course, a 820-seat theater. Perfect for Festival time. Rates start next weekend at 230 Euros a night.
VIP Hotel Reviewer Series / Cannes Hotels / French Riviera Hotels / → All Tags
A Night at The 3.14 Hotel: What It's Really Like in Cannes
The 3.14 Hotel overlooks the storied Carlton Intercontinental hotel.
For most of us, heading to Cannes, the land of celebrities, yachts and movies, is a pipe dream. Probably something we could only do when we're old and have saved up enough money. But we'll be old then. Thank god we can live vicariously through Jet Set Life's Kimberly Murgatroyd who gives us yet another hotel review. This time, it's the funkee (in a French accent) 3.14 Hotel. Enjoy.
Coming of the heels of my St. Tropez vacation, I headed to Cannes for a six-night stay at the kitschy 3.14 Hotel. I chose this hotel primarily for it's prime location and said to be unique design concept. My overall feeling on day six of six, was that this is a hotel with so much potential and in dire need of so much work.
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After the Stars Leave Cannes, The Perks Pick Up at The Hotel Martinez
The Cannes Film Festival is in full-swing right now which means celebs and their entourages have taken all the best hotel rooms and their mere presence has jacked up the rates at any other hotel you may consider staying at. But of course, once the celebs leave the prices come down to back down to earth. And at the Hotel Martinez, you will get a little bit of a kickback.
To celebrate its 80th anniversary, the hotel is offering guests who stay three consecutive nights a resort credit of 80 Euros, per person which can be used at the hotel's restaurants (including La Palme d'Or), bars and spa.
The offer begins for stays starting June 1 through September 30 and also includes buffet breakfast. Rates are still rather steep with a three-night stay starting at 310 Euros a night. Free WiFi is included which is a plus but we're a little concerned about those bedspreads.
[Photo: Amy.Maria]
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French TV Crew Invades Madonna's Hotel in Cannes
We've avoided covering the hotel scene at the Cannes Film Festival this year largely because the same shizz happens every year, practically on auto-pilot. Expensive hotels get more expensive, movies get booed and applauded, Sharon Stone walks the red carpet over and over and nothing really truly of interest happens.
Except when it happens to Madonna. Apparently, Madge was holed up in the Intercontinental Carlton Hotel in Cannes last week while there to promote her documentary, "I Am Because We Are", about orphans in Malawi. But she got pissed when she saw that a French TV crew had managed to sneak into her suite and film the place, including the special water and gym equipment she had requested.
And according to the French newspaper, Le Parisien, Madonna won't pay the $90,000 hotel bill because of the security breach. Usually, we think Madonna's a bit of a crackpot but she's actually very right in this instance. We bet a couple of people got fired at the Carlton this week.
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Johnny Drama Finds Love, Loses Hotel Room in Cannes
In Sunday night's Entourage season finale the boys head to Cannes (courtesy of Kanye West's private jet) and promptly shack up at the Intercontinental Carlton Cannes Hotel---well, all of them except Johnny Drama. Apparently, the room he reserved months ago and confirmed "at least a dozen times" is nowhere to be found.
Considering that his old show "Viking Quest" was a huge hit in France, Drama expects the hotel to rectify the situation immediately and put him in an ocean-facing suite like his brother Vince. Unfortunately, the hotel takes quite a few hours only to show Drama a closet-sized room with a twin bed not facing the ocean.
Making matters worse, Drama has met a girl, Jacqueline, and thinks he's in love. So he asks her to wait in the room while he goes downstairs and demands a suite. But he gets angry, calls the manager a "French f--k" and is carried out of the hotel by security. When he tips a bellman to look for the girl, the bellman says she's missing. Also, Drama only tips him a lone American dollar.
But don't worry this is Entourage. All ends well all the time. At least for Drama in this episode and not so much for the boys behind "Medellin." Drama ends up finding Jacqueline and having sex with her for three hours on the beach. Guess he didn't need that twin bed after all.
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Movie Set Hotel: The Carlton Cannes in Hitchcock's 'To Catch a Thief'
We were in the mood for a Hitchcock movie the other night, and the only one we could nab at the local Blockbuster was To Catch a Thief. We'd forgotten was a prominent role the Carlton Hotel in Cannes played in this 1955 thriller starring Cary Grant as a former jewel thief and Grace Kelly as an American heiress on holiday in the Riviera with her mother.
The Carlton, now an InterContinental hotel, hosted the production crew during 1954. The film was released the following year. During the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier for the first time at the Carlton, at the prince's request. Kelly married Prince Rainier the following year.
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French Riviera Style: Hotel Moliere, Cannes
The Cannes Film Festival is still a ways off (it starts on May 16) but a reader's recent tip about the French Riviera got us daydreaming about escaping to Cote d'Azure. This week we'll continue talking about some of the hotels worthy of checking into. As always, we wanna know what you think, not just what Uma, Rod Stewart, P.Diddy and Paris Hilton think, of the hotels here. So send us your thoughts and questions or comment below the story, telling us what's right, what's wrong and what's just French.
In the starring city of Cannes, just near the Hotel de Provence, you can find another very reasonably priced 24-room hotel, the cute pink-painted Hotel Molière. According to the the Hotel Molière website, the big selling points are something like this:
In the center of Cannes, 100 m. from the Croisette and the beaches, in a calm flowered garden, southern exposure.
Whether the flowers are calm or the experience of being in the garden is calming isn't quite clear, but we figure either way it can't be a bad thing. Most of the rooms have a terrace overlooking this calm garden, so ask for one of these when you book; all of them are air-conditioned, not always the case in this budget range. There's no in-house restaurant at Molière but its central location means you won't be too far from food--just the same, breakfast is included in the room rates, which start from about 100 Euro ($130) for a double (with bathroom) in low season, rising to up to 135 Euro ($180) in high season.
Related Stories:
· Hotel Moliere forum [TripAdvisor]
· French Riviera Style: Hotel de Provence, Cannes [HotelChatter]
French Riviera Hotel Reviews / Cannes Film Festival Hotels / → All Tags
French Riviera Style: Hotel de Provence, Cannes
The Cannes Film Festival is still a ways off (it starts on May 16) but a reader's recent tip about the French Riviera got us daydreaming about escaping to Cote d'Azure. This week we'll be talking about some of the hotels worthy of checking into. As always, we wanna know what you think, not just what Uma, Rod Stewart, P.Diddy and Paris Hilton think, of the hotels here. So send us your thoughts and questions or comment below the story, telling us what's right, what's wrong and what's just French.
If Cannes is the place you just must be for your Riviera holiday, but you don't want to totally blow the budget, then the UK's Sunday Times tips the Hotel de Provence. It's right in the middle of Cannes and only a couple of blocks from the beach, but feels more like a garden than the oft-found conference-venue style block hotels. The owners, the Portiers, run just 30 rooms here, and that gives it the personal touch, according to the Times reviewer:
Simple touches such as linen tablecloths and fresh flowers in the rooms show that this is a labour of love, not just a business.
And while the rooms are a little small (that's the nice way of saying poky), the character and the location seem to make up for it. The big tip from previous guests is to request a room with a view or balcony over the garden (you can't get beach views thanks to the monstrous hotels built between Hotel de Provence and the coastline). Extremely reasonable rates start at just $100 for a double including breakfast--more at peak or with a terrace.
[Photo: Kathryn14]
Related Stories:
· Hotel de Provence Cannes reviews [TripAdvisor]
Cannes Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
Tight as a Bug in a Rug in Cannes
Yesterday we warned you that all of France has settled into the south, or at least all the Parisians. The beaches of the Rivera will be beyond packed this month. But, if you must go let us at least send you off with a bit more advice and a little warning.
Unless you have millions to fork out, you are not going to be staying in roomy and luxurious spaces when staying in the major resort towns like Cannes. Take this blogger's warning for example:
The Hôtel Alnea, a charming two-star hotel just a (Sharon) stone's throw away from the Grand Palais, should be listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as "The Smallest Hotel in Cannes." I was in fact able to simultaneously sit on the toilet, wash my face AND take a shower - without moving a muscle. How many world-class hotels can boast such a luxury I ask you?"
Since it's Friday we thought we would try to see the bright side of things. That said, Hotel Alnea is in an ideal location in Cannes and has Wifi, cable TV, French breakfast and all that so aside from being crunched in your room you really can't ask for more (without of course, unloading your savings account). Plus, what better practice than in your tight hotel quarters, to get accustomed to the even more crowded beaches?
Related Stories:
· LaFleur de Paris [BlogSpot]
· Hotel Alnea reviews [TripAdvisor]
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