Australia Travel Guide
Tags: Perth Hotels / Margaret River Hotels / Luxury Hotels / → All Tags
Luxury Abounds Down Under At These Four Resorts Near Perth
Perth, Australia is the most isolated city on earth--seriously, we checked it and it’s 1,700 miles from the nearest large city, Adelaide--but on a recent trip, we were surprised to find that there's plenty of luxury hotel options for you to try out.
Our brother site, Jaunted, gave us Five Reasons to Visit Perth earlier this year and we finally made it out there earlier this month, courtesy of Tourism Western Australia.
About three hours southwest of the city (by car) lies an up-and-coming wine region and surfer paradise, the Margaret River. That’s where you’ll find these four luxury properties that, though about as far from the rest of the world as you can possibly get, still provide all the modern conveniences while making your troubles melt away.
Tags: Hotel Coffee / In-Room Coffee Makers / Nespresso / Perth Hotels / → All Tags
The Richardson Hotel’s Nespresso Machine Helps The Down Under Jet Lag
Before heading to Western Australia last week, we heard that Aussies take their coffee very seriously. There’s a "cappuccino strip" (or several) of cafes in every major city, and each one of my hotel rooms would have a decent coffeemaker in it. One of them even had a deluxe espresso machine that would make a Starbucks barrista drool. Guess that's why Australians always seem so chipper.
However, the coffeemaker during a recent stay that really won out on the quality-of-coffee versus ease-of-use nexus was the one at The Richardson Hotel and Spa in Perth.
Tags: Hotel Deals / Sydney Hotels / Brisbane Hotels / Melbourne Hotels / → All Tags
Get $99 Rooms Down Under as Summer Approaches
Where: Australia
While northern hemisphere hotels are busy promoting their winter sales, Down Under hotels are advertising summer specials, and there's a particularly good one on offer from the Urban group of hotels, represented in the three major east coast cities.
The three places - Urban St Leonard's in Sydney, Urban St Kilda in Melbourne and the Urban Brisbane - have got together to organize a half-price summer sale. The deal is that if you make your booking this week (before Saturday, October 31), you can get your room for A$99 ($91) a night instead of the usual average of A$199 ($180). The sad thing is that the Aussie dollar is pretty strong right now, so if you're booking in another currency the deal isn't anywhere near as good as it might have been a few months ago.
The summer deal is good for stays between December 18 and January 18, 2010 in Sydney and Melbourne, while in Brisbane, apparently summer lasts a lot longer – the deal is valid for stays between December 18 and February 14 next year. Just look for the "Hotel Urban turns up the heat" prices when you book online – we saw plenty of $99 rooms left.
Tags: Hotel Blacklists / Hotel Guests / Australia Hotels / → All Tags
Guests Behaving Badly Teams Up With Booking Site Down Under
You might remember a couple of years back when we let you know about the Australian Guests Behaving Badly database. It's a website where member hotels can report anti-social and destructive hotel guests and share their names with other hotels so they can avoid having the kind of guests that no hotel really wants.
Guests Behaving Badly has now gone one step further and has announced a partnership with the Ubid4rooms website, an Australian hotel bidding site a bit similar to Priceline.
Tags: Sydney Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / Shangri-La Hotels / → All Tags
Sydney's Shangri-La Upgrades Its Cafe Mix Restaurant
Sydney's Shangri-La Hotel already serves up drinks in a bar we approve of - its Blu Horizon Bar which has amazing views over Sydney Harbour and the Opera House. Downstairs, the all-day dining spot Café Mix has just had a revamp and earlier this month relaunched with a new look and a new menu.
The new look includes extra seating and Café Mix now seats over two hundred guests. You can get nearly anything you want here: there's Indian, Japanese, Chinese and Australian cuisine, plus (something we really like) a dessert buffet which includes a chocolate fountain.
To celebrate the new look there's a special on every Friday night until October 16. It's a seafood buffet with fresh oysters, king prawns, crab and lobster for A$99 ($85) per person.
Tags: Anti-View / Melbourne Hotels / Westin Hotels / → All Tags
A Building's Exterior and Random Statues Do Not Make For a Pretty View
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
Wow. Talk about disappointing. A HotelChatter Flickr member dropped in this shot of the view from their room at the Westin Melbourne saying:
Crappy view of wall. The statues were something to look at at least.
Hmmm...we're having a hard time focusing on the statues because there's just so much wall in this shot.
We actually passed up staying at this hotel a while back because the hotel charged for WiFi in the guestrooms. Guess we'll have to stay away because of the view as well. But they do have a pretty website if that counts for anything!
[Photo: Vissi87/HotelChatter Flickr Pool]
Tags: Hotel Staff / Australia Hotels / → All Tags
Hotel Workers in Australia Dish On 'Ethical Hotels'
It's old news that some hotel guests want to choose their hotel by looking at how green they are, but in Australia a consumer website has just started up so we can also know how ethical a hotel is – and the people behind the First Star: Ethical Luxury website are not too shy to name and shame.
The website was launched last week by the trade union which represents hotel workers in Australia, and, in their words:
The aim is for the site to be used as a tool for travellers and workers to push for social change.
So far they're light on the "this hotel isn't green" message and heavy on the "this hotel exploits their workers" theme. Luxury hotels in major Australian cities, such as Sydney's Sofitel Wentworth and the Novotel Darling Harbour, get slammed for stuff like cutting out workers' breaks or not paying overtime due (although the latter at least gets some kudos for doing some nice environmentally-friendly stuff).
Whether or not we'll actually bother checking this website before making our accommodation decision in Australia is a good question, but of course we quite like reading tidbits about who's doing what wrong, so we might at least take another visit.
Tags: Hotel Spas / Spa Packages / Island Resorts / Australia Hotels / → All Tags
Qualia Does Spa Treatments for the Typical Aussie Bloke
The idyllic Hamilton Island resort off the Queensland coast Down Under, qualia, is ramping up the Aussie factor. Of course, it's been Aussie all along, but they're now cashing in on it with a bunch of Australian-themed spa packages at the Spa qualia.
Since spa treatments are really a pretty new thing to Australia, none of the offerings are truly Australian in any way, but at least some of them sound authentically Aussie. For example, there's the It's A Man's World spa menu which, they say, is "inspired by the Australian man, particularly the type who is likely to spend time sailing or playing golf" – you can get some "individual guy time" and a steam scrub treatment called the Cup Defender, or the Lifesaver facial for dry, too-long-in-the-sun skin.
It's not just for men, of course. There are a collection of Li'tya treatments which have taken their inspiration from Aboriginal dreamtime stories, along with the Heart Reef Ritual which includes body brushing and just the right colors to make you think of the Great Barrier Reef.
Prices aren't exorbitant (you're already paying enough to get to qualia and stay there) – for example, the 105 minutes that your man spends getting the "Cup Defender" treatment will cost A$200 ($160). We're not sure that making spa treatments sound more Australian is really a marketing winner, but there are plenty of other reasons to check out the qualia luxury anyhow.
Tags: Healthy Hotels / Sydney Hotels / Hilton Hotels / Hotel Packages / → All Tags
Get a Taste of the Healthy Life on Hilton Sydney's Health Retreats
If you're looking for a vacation that's healthier than the average overindulgent getaway, here's a suggestion: the Hilton Health Retreat which they run four times a year at the Sydney Hilton. The next retreat is coming up soon, from June 12 to 14, so get packing for Oz fast and you'll come away feeling pretty good – or pretty exhausted.
The Hilton Health Retreat is a pretty full-on weekend, led by an expert nutritionist and a fitness pro. You have to undertake a fitness and nutrition assessment before you even get there, so those two experts can set about planning all the right activities for you.
Tags: Australia Hotels / Luxury Hotels / Moonlight Head Private Lodges / → All Tags
Live Out Your 'Australia' Fantasy at the Moonlight Head Private Lodges
Inspiring overworked citizens and spouses of the world to escape the rat race and head down under, the movie "Australia" featured Nicole Kidman as an English aristocrat who arrives in Australia to sell off her husband's poorly performing ranch, just as the rest of the world is preparing for World War II. She ends up falling in love with hunky cattle driver Hugh Jackman amidst the beauty of Australia’s landscape. Not to mention, she falls in love with the Outback and its people too.
As if a hit movie weren't enough (the film earned Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, a $26 million campaign courtesy of Tourism Australia has helped boost Australia’s global image in a major way. Wooed by the hospitality and friendliness made famous by Paul Hogan of “Crocodile Dundee” fame, coupled with the country’s natural beauty, more tourists than ever are heading down under.
Oh yeah, and if you're regular readers of Jaunted then you would know about the Down Under Air Fare War that's currently going on between Virgin Australia, Delta and Qantas. This means airfare to Oz is cheaper than ever. And the hotel scene isn't looking too shabby either.
Tags: Australia Hotels / Island Resorts / Beach Hotels / → All Tags
Canoodle With the Dolphins at Australia's Tangalooma Resort
Some say an ex-whaling station is a strange place to build a resort — but we have a feeling that it's a great place for the Tangalooma Island Resort off the coast near Brisbane in Queensland, Australia.
Ironically, Tangalooma used to be the biggest whaling station in the southern hemisphere, but now it's all about being nice to big fish (and mammals). For example, there's a pod of dolphins who seem to call Tangalooma home now, routinely comin' around to be fed and have even brought gifts of eels to their feeders.
But if dolphins aren't your creature of choice, you can also go jet skiing to check out some turtles and dugongs, or snorkel around 15 different shipwrecks where there are plenty of colorful fish. And in the right seasons, there's even whale watching; uh, obviously the whales have erased the memory of what used to happen to them at Tangalooma.
There's a variety of accommodation styles within the resort, including hotel rooms starting at A$290 ($220) for doubles (just a short sprint to the beach), and there are also fancier beachfront apartments if you're traveling with friends; a two-bedroom place (which can actually sleep six if you include the sofa bed in the living room) starts around A$660 ($500) a night. You also have to get out there — remember it's an island — so you usually need to add a A$70 ($50) transfer fee. Unless you can arrange to hitch a ride on a dolphin.
Tags: Adelaide Hotels / Expedia / Hotel Awards / Australia Hotels / → All Tags
Nobody's Heard Of Australia's Best Hotel
Expedia gave Australian hotel-goers a bit of a surprise this week when they announced that their top 1000 hotels list included an Adelaide hotel as the best Aussie representative.
The South Australian capital city doesn't get too much attention from either vacation or business travelers, but at least according to this survey it's got the best hotel in the whole country: the Majestic Roof Garden Hotel. The 120-room Majestic rated 24th best in the world, even though it's only been open for five years.
As you'd be guessing from the name, this place does have a pretty cool roof garden. It's also in a good location near the main shopping area of Rundle Mall, and since two thirds of its guests are business travelers, it's obviously well-placed for them as well.
And the big bonus is that you get the apparently best hotel in Australia for a pretty cheap rate. For example, they've got an autumn special (that's now in Australia) with a Deluxe King room plus breakfast for A$165 ($125) a night and there are last-minute rates around that are even cheaper.
[Photo: ellieannef]
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