HotelChatter - Tag: NYT Reviews

Boston: NYT Deems the Copley Square Hotel 'Perfectly Nice'

KatieK — 2009-11-23T11:07:21-05:00

<![CDATA[<img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/17697/copley_square_hotel.jpg" class="top"> After some incredulity over how many Boston hotels have Copley in their names, the New York Times this weekend reviewed the revamped, historic <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/Copley+Square+Hotel/ian/114172">Copley Square Hotel</a>. Until this year, C-Square was a historic but faded enterprise: not the kind of place to earn cool points with your teenager on a college visiting tour, the Times writes. But after $18 million in renovations, the hotel is once again ready for prime time just as, ahem, some of us have been <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/4/15/101820/716/hotels/Copley_Square_Hotel_Gets_Joan_Rivers_Style_Revamp">telling you</a> all year. Highlights: The bathrooms wall featured unusual reading material: the poem Paul Reveres Ride, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in cursive. Super-speedy room service that arrived in less than 10 minutes (though unfortunately,

Las Vegas: The NYT Finally Checks into the Encore

KatieK — 2009-11-16T13:05:10-05:00

<![CDATA[<embed src="http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1321361467" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=7332577001&playerId=1321361467&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="500" height="400" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed>HotelChatter's video from Encore Las Vegas, taken in January 2009. Its always fun to read someone elses first take of a place that youve covered, well, quite intimately. Like the <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/Encore+Las+Vegas/local/1397">Encore in Vegas</a>, Steve Wynns almost one-year-old 2,034-room luxe tower, which this past weekend (finally!) got the official <a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/travel/15check.html?ref=travel">New York Times treatment</a>. If Steve Wynns last two Sin City resorts Wynn Las Vegas in 2005 and the Bellagio in 1998 were about bringing a whiff of Park Avenue to the Strip, the Encore is about the hoteliers loosening his pearls and swinging a little, writes the Times Brooks Barnes. And though the Times says the

JUYONGGUAN: NYT Not Particularly Impressed by China's Commune by the Great Wall

KatieK — 2009-11-09T13:34:24-05:00

<![CDATA[<img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/17697/great_wall.jpg" class="top"> Sometimes a view is so awe-inspiring, well admit we cant be bothered caring quite so much about creature comfort details. At Chinas <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/Commune+By+The+Great+Wall/ian/265219">Commune by the Great Wall</a>, though, not only do some guests nab views of the Great Wall, but the collection of vacation homes is an architectural marvel in its own right too, or <a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/travel/08check.html?ref=travel">so says the New York Times</a>. Designed by 12 Asian architects as a retreat from the urban sprawl of Beijing, the collection of homes is a mix of originals and more recent copies, the most popular apparently being the Cantilever House and Bamboo House. Sitting in the valley at the food of a wild section of the Great Wall, the

Istanbul: The NYT Wants You to Get Thee to a (Turkish) Nunnery

KatieK — 2009-11-02T13:47:58-05:00

<![CDATA[<img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/17697/articleLarge.jpg" class="top"> In this weekends travel section, the NYT <a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/travel/01check.html?ref=travel">checked in</a> to <a href="http://www.tomtomsuites.com/">Tomtom Suites</a> in Istanbul, a newish 20-suite boutique hotel housed in a restored 1901 building that once was home to French nuns, and decided Hamlets infamous slamGet thee to a nunnerycould be the hotels fun-loving invitation or slogan. Highlights:</a>Tomtom Suites addresses the partiers paradox: how to find a crash pad within striking distance of a night-life district that isnt overrun by noisy lager louts, the NYT writes, describing the location as a five-minute walk to nightlife-heavy Istiklal Caddesi. Spacious suites have contemporary touches (wooden floors, high-tech gadgetry) injected with Turkish touches (hand-painted ceramics, tubular harem-style tasseled cushions). The bathroom has a Philippe Starck-designed bathtub with

Buenos Aires: NYT Not Particularly Impressed by the cE Hotel de Diseno

KatieK — 2009-10-26T11:42:18-05:00

There’s nothing quite like a glowing hotel endorsement from the New York Times. And by glowing, we mean flickering like a string of Christmas lights about to expire. That’s the feeling we got reading this week’s Check In, Check Out column, in which a Times-er describes the 28-room cE Hotel de Dise�o in Buenos Aires as “slightly more stylish alternative to the corporate chains.” Sort of ouchy, don’t you agree?

“While the minimalist-cool hotel, which opened in 2005, offers a few sumptuous extras like Jacuzzi hydro-massage tubs in every room,” writes the NYT, “it lacks such basics as a full-service restaurant and closet space readily available in this price range.”