philadelphia Travel Guide
Hotel Contests / Hotel Scavenger Hunts / Philadelphia Hotels / Kimpton Hotels / → All Tags
Hotel Palomar Philly is Offering Boss Prizes for Mobile Scavenger Hunt
It takes a lot for us to get excited about hotel contests, which are a dime a dozen in these heady social media days, but when the prizes include either a brand new iPhone 4s or an iPad2, we've got our game faces on and are ready to roll.
Those are the gadgets that the winner of the Hotel Palomar Philadelphia's first annual "Philly Finds" mobile scavenger hunt will receive this weekend if they can find all the items and document their findings on their mobile phone using the iPhone and Android app, "Scavenger Hunt with Friends."
The contest is open to locals and guests alike so you don't have to be staying at the hotel to play. Yet with the contest starting at 8am on Friday and lasting until noon on Sunday and with the hunt going all over Philly, it can't hurt to have a hotel room to crash in, especially since we suspect at least one item in the scavenger hunt will be in the hotel.
To participate in Philly Finds, here's what you gotta do:
Hotel Hype / Philadelphia Hotels / Home2 Suites / Hilton Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Home2 Suites 2 Expand 2 Philly
Hilton Hotels' new hip extended stay brand, Home2 Suites, keeps on growing. Fresh off a Baltimore opening, the brand has just announced plans for Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Business Journal reports:
Home2 Suites by Hilton, with 246 guest rooms, is planned for 12th and Arch streets, across the street from the Pennsylvania Convention Center. A summer 2013 opening is planned.
Yes, that's a ways off so we'll have to be content with the smattering of Home2 Suites that are open so far (in Baltimore, Raleigh and Salt Lake City.) But if you're dying to check out a Home2 Suites on your next trip to San Antonio, there's one opening up on October 2 near the Riverwalk.
And remember, all rooms come with plenty of space including a kitchenette, free WiFi, free breakfast and an iPad docking station if you need it.
[Photo: Home2 Suites/Facebook]
Philadelphia Hotels / Kimpton Hotels / Hotel Rooftops / Hotel Construction / Hotel Hype / → All Tags
The Hotel Monaco Philadelphia is Readying Its Rooftop
It's been a while since we checked in on Kimpton Hotels and their plans for Philadelphia but thanks to the Uwishunu blog, we've got an update on The Hotel Monaco Philadelphia on 5th and Chestnut Streets out of the old Lafayette Building and it's tres exciting.
Construction on the hotel is breaking ground this week (with a groundbreaking ceremony today) but don't fret, the work will go fast as the opening is now set for Summer 2012. Uwishunu reports on all the goodness we can expect to find inside and most importantly up on the roof.
In addition to the 268 guest rooms, the hotel will feature 12,000 square feet of meeting space, a 3,200 square foot ballroom overlooking Independence Mall, a 130-seat chef-driven restaurant, and — wait for it — a spacious rooftop bar and lounge overlooking Independence Mall.
Hotel Theft / Marriott Hotels / Hotel News / Hotel Fraud / Hotel Employees / → All Tags
Meet The Woman Who Tried To Bamboozle A Renaissance Hotel
With all the perks available to hotel workers (free rooms, free food, celebrity sightings on the reg), you'd think they'd be content with their lot. But Tia McNeill, a Pennsylvania sales manager has proven us wrong. The suspect, who has now been taken into custody, was apparently leveraging her position in the hotel to pocket thousands of rewards points, which she then used to purchase items from a Skymall catalog. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:
"McNeill worked at the Renaissance Hotel, part of the Marriott chain, in Tinicum Township as a sales manager until Nov. 24, according to court papers. According to court documents, McNeill allegedly created six fictitious accounts in Marriott's rewards program and logged points into the system. Purchases using those accounts were made between October and December of last year."
Hotel Events / Hotel Bars / Hotel Restaurants / Philadelphia Hotels / Four Seasons Hotels / → All Tags
Philly's Four Seasons Taps Their Courtyard for a Beer Week Biergarten
The courtyard, pre-biergarten
We have three very inspiring words for you: hotel beer garden. We don't know about you, but just the words "beer garden" inspire us to dress casual-cool, get outside and order a foamy pitcher. Add "hotel" onto that and we're planning a weekend around it—specifically June 6-10 as the Four Seasons Philadelphia plays home base for Philly Beer Week.
Daily from 4pm-8pm during this time, the Four Seasons will transform their al fresco courtyard into a full-fledged beer garden, complete with taps for special and limited-edition brews, like Victory Brewing Company's second annual release of Summer Love Ale.
What's more is that the beer garden will be doing giveaways to those who check in on Foursquare and Facebook Places (of course), and if you're hungry, there's a menu of cookout favorites coming from the Four Seasons' Executive Chef Ralph Gonzalez. Here is the full schedule of goings-on at the hotel, which is just one hotspot for beer guzzling awesomeness during Philly Beer Week.
[Photo: VisitPhilly]
Presidents Day Hotels / Philadelphia Hotels / Loews Hotels / Omni Hotels / → All Tags
Last-Minute Presidents Day Hotels: Philadelphia
The presidential connection runs deep in Philly, even if its most famous native son, Ben Franklin, never did run the country. On Independence Mall, the President's House is a newly opened joint National Park Service-City of Philadelphia project on the site of a home occupied by both George Washington and John Adams while the city was the nation's capital.
Hotel Bars / Hotel News / Philadelphia Hotels / Marriott Hotels / Sofitel Hotels / → All Tags
Liberté Is Now Open At Sofitel Philadelphia
If all those pumpkins and pesky trick or treaters didn't make you feel like fall is here to stay, try this: a nice cozy spot in front of the fire at Liberté, the chic-looking new bar at the Sofitel Philadelphia.
We first heard about this French-inspired cocktail bar back in September, and now, thanks to the good people at VisitPhilly.com we get wind that Liberté is well and truly here. Hooray!
Hotel Hype / Hilton Hotels / Philadelphia Hotels / Beverly Hills Hotels / Waldorf-Astoria Collection / → All Tags
Philadelphia Most Definitely Not Getting a Waldorf-Astoria
Much like the dream for a W Philadelphia, the hope for a Waldorf-Astoria Collection hotel in the City of Brotherly Love has flatlined. The lot that was supposed to hold the five-star condo hotel with high-end retail shops was just sold in an auction sale yesterday for $12 million. The new owner has not revealed their plans for the property but whatever happens on it, won't happen for a long time.
Meanwhile on the West Coast, another long-vacant lot has a happier ending. The abandoned Robinsons-May department store next to the Beverly Hilton Hotel has been sold again and the new investors, unlike the old ones--the flashy Candy brothers, are planning to make this spot hotel-free.
Hotel Hype / Kimpton Hotels / Philadelphia Hotels / → All Tags
Kimpton to Get More Brotherly in the City of Brotherly Love
It looks like the Hotel Palomar in Philadelphia has done so well that Kimpton Hotels is gonna do it again in Philly--this time with a 270-room hotel at Independence Mall. Philly Biz Journal reports:
The 11-story, 195,000-square-foot historic building would be the only hotel with unobstructed views of Independence Hall and sits among the features of Independence National Historical Park. Its direct competitor is the Omni, just a few doors down on Chestnut Street. The hotel would have a restaurant at the corner of 5th and Chestnut and roughly 10,000 to 12,000 square feet of meeting and ballroom space.
Hotel Bars / Philadelphia Hotels / Hotel News / Sofitel Hotels / → All Tags
Liberté Comes To Sofitel Philadelphia, And Cheers To That
NYC isn't the only city cooking up new hotel bars and restaurants. We hear that our favorite neighboring city, Philly, is also getting a fancy new hotel cocktail bar. It's called Liberté and it's moving into the Sofitel Philadelphia in October.
We already like the sound of it, just from the name alone--Liberté will replace the old Lounge Bar La Bourse, which is a bit of a mouthful, especially if you've already had a few cocktails.
Located in the first-floor lobby, Liberté will having a dining area, lounge and seating at an oval-shaped central bar.
Hotel Fitness / Hotel Amenities / Kimpton Hotels / Philadelphia Hotels / → All Tags
The Case of the Dreaded Hotel Jogging Map
There it was, sitting on the desk and openly taunting us. Would we dare read it or could we pretend we never even noticed it in the first place? The Hotel Palomar Philadelphia's city jogging map threatened to make us feel guilty about taking a long weekend away from New York City and all the subway stair-climbing life in NYC entails.
Instead of in the back pocket of our workout pants, the map landed in a shuffled stack of torn-off hotel notepad paper on which we had jotted our impressions of Philly cheesesteaks from around the city, but we had not forgotten about it.
Top Chef Hotels / Philadelphia Hotels / Ritz-Carlton Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / → All Tags
Philly's Ritz-Carlton is Still Milking Their Top Cheftestant
Has it already been over a year since Top Chef Seasons 6, aka the Las Vegas one? We love Top Chef not only for the pretty food, but also for a glimpse at what talented chefs are cooking in hotel kitchens, since oftentimes the contestants cut their teeth at a hotel restaurant.
Even the winner of Season 6, Michael Voltaggio, continues to cook at The Dining Room at the Langham Huntington Hotel & Spa in Pasadena, a restaurant that holds one of the few Michelin stars awarded in the US.
But it's Philadelphia we're focusing on now, since our recent visit revealed that the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia is still milking their Top Chef contestant, Jennifer Carroll. She didn't win, but she did come in fourth.
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