Do not attempt these stairs after a few drinks: the Hotel Monaco Baltimore

Greetings from soggy London! After six weeks, 20 states and 7000 miles, our US road trip has finally come to an end and we are back in the city of grey. Hopefully we’ll be back to test your speed limits soon; until then, we’ll be wowing London with our awesome t-shirt collection (one for every state) and shouting “USA, USA” at every opportunity. How glad to have us back they must be. ]]> londontown 2009-09-04T12:45:03-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/8/31/75720/5646 <![CDATA[<img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/1425/hotwirelax.jpg" class="top"><p><b>Expedia Inc.</b> has been on a bit of convergence spree recently. A few weeks ago our sister blog Jaunted reported on how the travel mega-company <a href="http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/4/13265/63769/travel/Expedia+Incorporates+SeatGuru+Into+Their+Flight+Booking+Fun">integrated Expedia and SeatGuru,</a> and in the meantime they've also integrated TripAdvisor and Hotwire. That last part integration has the potential to be particuarly yummy, though not for the reasons Expedia intended (they thought customers would benefit from seeing TripAdvisor reviews on Hotwire - <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/6/15/966/92871/hotels/Is_TripAdvisor_Removing_Some_of_Those_Fraud_Warnings_">not so much</a>). <p>Instead we're excited because the TripAdvisor/Hotwire integration may help Hotwire bidders crack the opaque site's hidden hotels. Hotwire has an interest in minimizing what a customer knows about the hotel being considered, lest they decide that they're not getting a deal and move on.<p> Omri 2009-08-31T09:44:44-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/8/27/10120/5968

Have we mentioned before how much we like Hotwire? Well today we’re saying again because we got a smoking deal with them the night before last.

We were passing through Georgia and instead of staying in another B&B with too-thin walls or a motel where strange men phoned our room in the middle of the night, we thought we’d get some sleep in a proper hotel in Atlanta. And seeing as W has no less than four hotels in town, we thought we’d try one out.]]> londontown 2009-08-27T10:59:19-05:00 33.8472360 -84.366095 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/8/3/155358/7348 <![CDATA[<p><img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/33752/mgm_room.jpg" class="top"> <p>We spent a few days last week hopping between Vegas hotels that we&#146;d booked through <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/tag/Hotwire"><b>Hotwire</b></a>. We landed the <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/MGM+Grand+Hotel+And+Casino/local/69"><b>MGM Grand</b></a> for our second night in Sin City, which we were very excited about. And although we got zilch in the way of upgrades and vouchers at check-in, we rather liked our room &#151; it was a little old-looking, but it had a pretty super view of mountains and McCarran airport. We could have watched the planes coming in all day. <p>Unluckily for us, as it turned out, we didn&#146;t. We went out instead. And, because we were a bit nervous of being mobbed by drunk people, just as we were going out the door, londontown 2009-08-04T10:03:41-05:00 36.1011980 -115.17242 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/8/3/32254/66713 <![CDATA[<p><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1321361467" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=31675117001&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="486" height="412" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed>So last week, we landed a room at the <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/Avalon+Hotel/local/584"<b>Avalon</b></a> for just <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/7/24/145644/622/hotels/Booking_Our_LA_Hotels_A_Hotwire_Experience">$118</a> through <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/tag/Hotwire"><b>Hotwire</b></a> (booking through the hotel direct would have set us back $270). We had high hopes of sharing the poolside with <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/3/26/154739/073/hotels/_D_List_BFFs_Paris_Hilton_and_Kathy_Griffin_Spotted_Poolside_at_Avalon_Hotel">Paris Hilton and Kathy Griffin</a>, thereby scoring our first LA celeb spot. Unfortunately, it was a Monday night, and a quiet one at that. And so, as sod&#146;s law would have it, there were no celebs. Never mind eh? We saw Billy Zane the next day in Bar Marmont. Anyways, here&#146;s how the rest of it went down. <p><b>Room Reaction</b> <br>Lookswise, we loved the trashy-funk, motel throwback vibe of the juliab 2009-08-03T17:36:00-05:00 34.0574740 -118.35806 Search HotelChatter string http://www.hotelchatter.com/search/