austin Travel Guide
Tags: Celebrity Scoop / Austin Hotels / Kevin Connolly / → All Tags
Kevin Connolly Flies in Playmates To Spice Up His Stay at The Driskill
If you play a guy on TV that's always used to having an "entourage" of hot girls around you, giggling and agreeing with everything you say, we guess it must be hard to go anywhere without these fembots. How else to explain Kevin Connolly's (aka "E" from Entourage) BYO-Playboy Playmates incident at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas?
Kevin Connolly knows poker and Playmates go together. For a poker tournament the "Entourage" star and a group of buddies organized at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, Texas, a couple of dozen Playboy Playmates were flown in just to keep things lively.
Hmm...we've heard of people bringing their own pillows and toiletries with them to their hotels but never their own Playmates. Maybe Playboy should start offering this service to hotels then?
Rooms at The Driskill start at $309 for a room with two queen beds. The suites, which include the Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson Presidential Suite, start at $414 a night.
Tags: Wii Hotels / Airport Hotels / Super 8 Hotels / TripAdvisor / Sweet Suites / → All Tags
The Superest Super 8 of Them All?
You don't want to know how we stumbled upon this TripAdvisor review for the Super 8 Airport South in Austin, Tex. but we sure are glad that our dubious internet skills took us here. That's because we might have found the superest Super 8 of them all.
The reviewer mentioned that the hotel's lobby had a Nintendo Wii for guests to use. Yes, a Wii which proves that Wiis are not just limited to Westins and boutique hotels.
But looking around some more, we saw that the hotel was ranked the #2 hotel in Austin by reviewers. So what gives? It can't be entirely due to the Wii, could it? Well we noticed that guests loved the amenities offered in-room such as lots of pillows on the bed and the flat-screen TVs (The suites have 52-inch flat screens too.) But also outside the rooms, guests were impressed by the food offerings and the free internet. We're also impressed by the fact that the entire hotel is non-smoking. A trucker stop, this is not.
Tags: Summer Cocktails / Hotel Cocktails / Hotel Bars / Four Seasons Hotels / Austin Hotels / → All Tags
The Ginger-Chile Mojito From the Four Seasons Austin
We've kicked off our Summer Cocktails series where we profile fun new summer drinks that hotels are making. Got one we should know about? Send us the recipe with a photo of the drink. Otherwise, enjoy and @reply us when you're wasted!
Guests hitting up the Four Seasons Austin should try out some of the hotel's "Summer Sips" being served in the hotel's lobby lounge from now through the end of September. These cocktails are fun, fruity and most importantly, packed with alcohol!
The hotel's mixologists have introduced five new summer drinks, available for $12.50 each: The Ginger-Chile Mojito, The Sparkling Sangria, The Terlingua 75 (served with Patron tequila), a Cucumber Martini and a Pineapple Mojito. We were able to get our hands on the Ginger-Chile Mojito recipe which we've listed here so you can try it out on your own.
Tags: Hotel WiFi / Austin Hotels / Omni Hotels / SXSW Hotels / → All Tags
SXSW Attendees Minus Hotel WiFi Equals Disaster at the Omni
By now, most of us are well aware of the major AT&T snafu that happened down in Austin at this year's South by Southwest. Basically, the cell service provider was not equipped to handle the massive amount of iPhones that convention-goers were packing — not to mention the heavy twittering, texting, and emailing they were probably doing. Yikes. Not good.
And almost as bad as a big ol' AT&T fail is a SXSW hotel in Austin with crappy WiFi. Sadly, this was the case at the the Omni Austin, where one blogger and SXSW attendee reports the WiFi was mostly down. Oh noes.
Tags: SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / Music Festival Hotels / → All Tags
What Hotel Rooms Can You Get for SXSW?
Despite the recent reports that signal music festivals might be dying, everyone's favorite Texan music fest--South by Southwest--is still very much on again this year. If you have the time to get to Austin (perhaps the downfall of our economy has freed you up a bit, eh?), hotel rooms are available but not quite affordable. We have a feeling Austin is trying to milk this event even harder in the wake of the economy's collapse.
We checked our hotel rates search engine for March 13-16--prime festival time and found the Hyatt Place Central Austin for $109 a night. This hotel is about five miles from downtown and it involves a freeway ride. But if you are a music geek who needs to upload or edit music, video, bootlegs, whatever, remember Hyatt Place has all the geeky tools you'll need to make that happen.
Tags: SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / → All Tags
Hotel Options Dwindling for SXSW Festival
Its almost time for Austins annual blowout music event, SXSW, and you know what that means: Come March 12, a heaving mass of skinny-jeans and bearded bloggers will descend on the hot streets of Austin for 10 days of music festival madness. Also, with this starting in less than three weeks, hotel rooms are getting scarce.
If you want to stay in one of the official SXSW hotels, your options are paltry particularly if you want to stay through the whole festival. At this writing, the SXSW website lists four not-particularly-central hotels with availabilities: Candlewood Suites-South (doubles $123), Marriott-Austin South (doubles $149), Crowne Plaza (doubles $156), and Barton Creek Resort & Spa (doubles $199). Though all the downtown hotels seem to be booked, SXSW runs pay-to-ride shuttles ($30 unlimited pass) during daytime and nighttime shows to and from the other official hotels.
The Country Inn & Suites-North (doubles $114) and Embassy Suites (doubles $172) are available all but the first night, if you can stomach the late start. Or, scour Expedia for deals that started around $67 when we searched. Just remember that cabs can be near impossible to catch in the height of SXSW, so that cheap hotel in the hinterlands might not be the sweet deal it appears to be.
[Photo: bre pettis]
Tags: SXSW Hotels / Austin Hotels / Music Festival Hotels / → All Tags
Hilton Austin Still Has a Few Rooms Left For SXSW
If you're planning to go to South by Southwest in Austin this year, we have some news for you: hotels are gettin' pretty full already. You need to get your game up and start booking.
We started checking individual hotels' websites for stays that ran March 12-23 (the festival runs March 13-22), but the Hilton Austin came back with absolutely no availability on any of those dates — which was curious, but not impossible since the hotel is adjacent to the Austin Convention Center, where many of the SXSW activities go down — so we investigated further.
According to Expedia, if you're really set on the Hilton Austin (it's nice and it's convenient; easy, easy), it can be done if you're only staying for the first weekend of SXSW (Thursday through Monday). But you'd better book it now and be prepared for a $349 rate.
If you're down for staying a few miles out of downtown, The Doubletree Austin does have rooms available for the entirety of SXSW for $118 a night — but, again, you'd better get to booking now. Rooms in the more upscale (read: not Super 8) hotels are lookin' scarce around the city.
Tags: Hotel Openings / Boutique Hotels / Austin Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Austin's New Vinyl-Friendly Saint Cecilia Spins Us Right 'Round
We have to begin this post by saying that Austin's newest boutique property, Hotel Saint Cecilia, has one of the coolest hotel websites we've seen in a long time. Seriously; check it out: it has an old school cinematic vibe and it just swallows you up into the hotel's whole vintage-chic ambiance. We love it.
That said, this newcomer onto the Austin hotel scene is named for the patron saint of music and poetry — appropriate for Texas' coolest art and culture hotspot. Accordingly, the 14-room hotel features little odes to the art forms throughout: from killer soundsystems in the rooms equipped with both turntables and iPod docks to a library chock full of films and books on poetry, poets and musicians and an extensive collection of vinyls available for guests to check out and bring to their rooms.
Tags: Hotel News / Marriott Hotels / Austin Hotels / → All Tags
Austin's Las Manitas Shuttered to Make Way for Marriott
Shut. Up. Las Manitas -- the Austin institution that served up Mexican food with a cult-like following among Southern foodies -- has been (unexpectedly to most, it seems) shuttered.
And why? To make way for -- drumroll please -- a Marriott complex.
In her Texas Monthly dining blog, Patricia Sharpe reports:
The shaky detente between the purchaser of the property (White Lodging Services Corp., parent company of Marriott hotels) and Las Manitas's proprietors, Cynthia and Lidia Perez, came unglued at the end of last week for reasons that are-I'm just going to say they're fuzzy, in order to avoid stepping in a bear trap.
Fortunately, the plan is for Las Manitas to eventually move down the block into another building -- but things look sad over there right now: there's a sign in the window that reads "CLOSED FOREVER." We hope not.
[Photo: Texas Monthly]
Tags: Jenny Block / Texas Hotels / → All Tags
Open Marriage Expert Checks Out The Mansion at Judges Hill During Her Book Tour
Once again, open marriage expert Jenny Block returns with another VIP Hotel Review. You may recall her last visit at the Hotel Burnham in Chicago. This time she goes big in Texas at The Mansion at Judges Hill. Enjoy.
From the minute you pull up on the property, The Mansion at Judges' Hill is a charmer. It is a gorgeous old building that dates back to 1900 and has been since added onto - but never has the design been compromised. It remains the same gracious mansion it was when it once served as a private home.
I was in town for a book signing and arrived at the property rather late on a Friday night. My girlfriend and I were greeted cheerily by an engaging employee named Don at the front desk, and we checked in without a hitch. It was definitely a sign of the fabulous service that was to come.
Tags: SXSW Hotels / Hotel Parties / Hotel Blacklists / → All Tags
What Went Down at Hotels During SXSW?
South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual music and film festival in Austin, Texas concluded its run yesterday and predictably, we have some hotel scene reports.
Ryan at the Synthesis blog stayed at the Four Seasons hotel and said his room smelled like something interesting by the end of the trip. He also said the hotel charged him for something he didn't get. On the bright side? He saw Ice Cube in the hotel lobby and the veggie burger is delicious although $22.
Meanwhile, Perez Hilton is reporting that singer Van Morrison who is allegedly already blacklisted at the Four Seasons is now banned from the Hotel Driskill.
Update: We got word that the Driskill Hotel have confirmed categorically that the Perez Hilton report is untrue.
Sorry Van.
Furthermore, Mr. Morrison's representatives added this concerning the Perez Hilton report:
Mr. Morrison has not been banned from this or any other hotel.
John Spomer, Vice President & Managing Director of the Driskill Hotel, has issued the following statement. "Throughout his stay, Mr. Morrison, as well as members of his party, treated our staff with the utmost professional courtesy and respect. We look forward to the opportunity of hosting him again in the future."
Got any more hotel party reports from SXSW? Let us know.
[Photo: Tyfn]
Tags: College-Football-Hotel-Map / → All Tags
College Football Hotel Map: Where to Stay Near UT Austin
The college football season is in full swing, so we here at HotelChatter are doing our best to help you fans support your alma mater in the best way we know how, with our College Football Hotel Map, a guide of where to stay when you attend the games.
The next school on our list is the University of Texas, Austin whose team is currently ranked #7 according to the AP's Top 25 College Football rankings. Austin is pretty much known for two things---being the live music capital of the world and for Longhorns football. Everybody all together now: "Hook 'Em Horns."
So there are plenty of hotel options in this city but to be honest, none of them really stand out and that's mostly because guests frequently complain of parties, loud music and dirty rooms. Perhaps Austin is the victim of too many concert festivals and football tailgating parties. Nevertheless, we got our cleanest picks after the jump.
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