Only a hotel with a few interesting or odd facts surrounding it gets its own Wikipedia entry, but the Hydro Majestic Hotel in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney certainly qualifies. This hotel's had such a colorful history it's hard to know where to start.

We'll try in the present: it's hit the headlines recently over rumors that the Malaysian owners want to sell up, complaints that it needs an urgent renovation and that the staff needs some improvement.

But there's so much more going on that we are still keen to visit.]]> amandak 2008-10-06T09:19:01-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/3/28/53325/1606 <![CDATA[<img align="right" src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/3873/Mantra_Logo.jpg" class="imgborder"><p> <p>In the wink of an eye, there's a new leader in the Australian hotel industry when it comes to hotels in the four to four-and-a-half star category. As of March 31, there will be more <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/tag/Mantra%20Hotels"><b>Mantra</b></a> hotels than any other brand in that category--so we'll probably start to hear a lot more from them.</p><p>From April there will be over 50 Mantra hotels operating, a lot of which have led former lives as Saville and Pacific International properties. And there are plans for Mantra to expand even further. The CEO reckons that the rebranding will create "more choice" for customers, and while he means that there'll be more Mantras to choose from, it kind of sounds amandak 2008-03-28T09:15:01-05:00 Search HotelChatter string http://www.hotelchatter.com/search/