The Amazing Racers took a trip over to the Las Vegas of the Far East--Macau. As usual, Jaunted has the in-depth wrap-up while we focus on hotels.
Naturally, the big hotel pick for Macau would be the Wynn but we wanted to take a look at what else is going on over there. Surprisingly, there's a lot to choose from--Hyatt, Westin, and even a Holiday Inn. Unfortunately, we've heard a bit of complaints about Macau in general. Namely, that the air is extremely dirty and that it's got a long way to go if it wants to live up Las Vegas standards.
Take for instance the Mandarin Oriental Macau. A few reviewers say it's not the best Mandarin Oriental experience out there but for Macau, it's pretty good.
For the people who expect best of the best service from Mandarin Oriental, they may be disappointed. But for the people who know the average quality of service in Macau hotel, you'd be impressed.
This is my fourth times to stay there for couple days. In-room decoration is very "Mandarin Oriental" style in old days. Size is spacious. The most impressive I found is the cleanness of room. I did not find any stains, smoking smell at the room. Also, it has very good air-cond system. I did not need to adjust it in the mid-night.
I did not find any large groups of tourist at the lobby, it was quite, clean and not crowded.
The downsides seem to be that it's far away from downtown and the taxis are impossible to get. And depending on whether you like to shop or not the hotel's lobby is filled with shops. On the bright side you can probably snag a room here for about $200 USD a night.
Once again, we check in on the Amazing Racers' latest pit stop. As usual, we leave every detail and ever pregnant pause of Phil's up to our sibling Jaunted while we take a look at which hotel we would choose to stay in at each pit stop.
This week, the crew landed in Malaysia where they could gobble cookies or "apply batik to fabric". We, on the other hand, would rather stop in at the Ritz-Carlton in Kuala Lumpur, mainly because it's a Ritz we can afford. Rooms average about $183 a night and are extremely spacious. You also can order your butler around, relax in the hotel spa, or around the pool, shop at the luxury mall next door and get this, according to one guest surf the internet with the hotel's free broadband internet. We never thought we'd see the day....
Last night's Amazing Race All-Star episode was a two-hour spectacular that we didn't have to sit through. Luckily, our sibling Jaunted did and wrote down everything that happened. (Unfortch, we still have to sit through Tori and Dean's ridiculous reality show)
In the first challenge, the Racers landed in Warsaw, Poland where they had to choose between either "tuning pianos or hauling and x-raying mannequins." (i.e. running out of challenge ideas.)
The hipppest place to stay is probably the Hotel Rialto which is the city's first boutique hotel. But if you're looking for a more mainstream stop to relax (hauling mannequins gets tiring) and a place that has ironing boards, the Westin Warsaw in the city's business district is a reasonable stop.
You'll be able to use your SPG points here, as well as expect all the comforts of a Westin Hotel and you'll even learn about Polish pierogies as part of the hotel's unwind program.
Room rates average around $175 and gets pretty kickass reviews. The one thing it might not be good for is an "amazing honeymoon." Then again, who would go to Warsaw for a honeymoon?
As always, Jaunted has the episode recap while we search out a place for our weary Racers to lay their heads.
Usually, as you no doubt know, we skip the hostel thing. Even when a hostel touts itself as a "design" hostel as Hostal Gat Raval in Barcelona does.
However, this season's Amazing Race cast has been a real bore. Seriously, ever since they got rid of the amputee and her creepy boyfriend there has been something missing from Amazing Race 10--excitement.
So we say, throw the remaining three teams in a stripped down "design hostel" in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona before their final race leg. Why? C'mon, at the end of the day if you strip away the slick website and the artsy front, Hostal Gat Raval is nothing more than a hostel. Which the hot water may be out, the crowd will be on the edge of shady, and after 24 hours at this place the teams could be full of some much needed tension.
Imagine: The 'Bama girls having to mingle in a Barcelona neighborhood that reminds many of Manhattan's East Village. Or Rob and Kim having to function with only a cold shower under their belt. Oh, and finally, don't you think a Bohemian neighborhood like Raval might test the sobriety of Tyler and James. C'mon, you have to admit, making the teams spend a night at a "design hostel" sure would liven' up the final leg.
So our beloved Amazing Racers left the prostitutes in Kiev, Ukraine for the movie sets of Ouarzazate, Morocco. As always, Jaunted has the episode recap while we search out a place for our weary Racers to lay their heads.
We probably would have picked this hotel based on its name, Kasbah Ait Ben Moro, but its also #1 on TripAdvisor and was written up by Travel + Leisure. Granted, there's only two reviews listed but that's probably good for this part of Morocco.
The room was basic, but spotless, with an extremely comfortable bed and spacious shower/toilet room. Also, contrary to expectation, the electricity was available for 24hrs....The owner and his wife were a lovely couple, pretty sophisticated but extremely welcoming and friendly.
Wow, electricity all day long. How we take that for granted. However, the other review warns you to have an open-mind when visiting this place as its an ancient kasbah with only 16 rooms, basic amenities and no added luxuries. (About $100 gets you both rooms and breakfast and dinner.) And unless you're doing reality show challenges on the Atlas Studios lot, there's not a whole lot to do nearby.
The latest news in this never-ending season, aside from Rosie O'Donnell gifting ousted competitors Dave and Mary a new house and car, is that the competitors finally got out of Finland and headed on to the Patriotic War Memorial in Kiev, Ukraine.
As always, our partner-in-crime Jaunted has the episode recap while we merely pick out a possible hotel to check-out. And on that note, if Rosie were to be so nice to all the Racers, then maybe they could afford to stay in the Premier Palace Hotel which seems to be the premier place to stay in Kiev. A five-star hotel, for the Ukraine that is, the hotel has 289 "contemporary-styled" guest rooms and is located right in the heart of the city.
The hotel surprisingly has some modern amenities including WiFi access, satellite TV (one guest reports there are BBC channels), an electronic lock and lighting system and randomly, but good-to-know, the hotel's 6th floor is specially designed for non-smokers and allergy sufferers. The hotel also has a Fan Fest Sports Bar, open 24 hours a day with four plasma TV screens that show either Ukrainian and UEFA Champions League soccer, boxing, tennis, basketball, hockey and Formula-1 racing.
A more civilized way to take in the city sights? Dining at the hotel's 8th floor Empire restaurant, which has panoramic views of the city.
The only problem with this place to be seems the fact that single women better beware of crashing another lady's "game":
Warning for female business travellers - I was glad to be with a male colleague, but even then it was clear that I was perceived by the "ladies" and their pimp to be invading and having poached a potential punter, notwithstanding my wearing normal business clothing/far more than them. Unsavoury. Would not have wanted to be there alone. But for the prostitution, a lovely hotel, but then everything is relative and I'm not sure you can escape how blatant that is in Kiev.
This sounds just like the Mandalay Bay's prostitution counterpart except a little more vicious. We're guessing the Fan Fest Sports Bar and the hotel's Premier Casino is where they hang the most so females better avoid these places.
What you hear about those Scandinavians is true--they are much larger in person, well, at least their hotel rooms are. Hotel Kämp in the middle of Helsinki has some of the most spacious rooms in the city.
Since the remaining Amazing Race teams spent the day getting dirty in Finland, we think the CBS suits should have put them up for the night at Hotel Kämp, a swank Helsinki hotel. Not only is this hotel in the center of everything, but the hotel also offers a laundry service for in house guests. Very nice.
As far as we know Phil and CBS made the teams continue racing without a night to catch their breath, however, if we were in charge of this little race around the globe, we would let these dirty kids wash up at a five star hotel in the middle of Helsinki. Oh, and the photo you see above? Yes, Hotel Kamp is known to hand out these ducks to guests to use in the bath tub. The monkey mounting the duck in this particular photo is not included with your room, just the duck, as far as we know.
This week the Amazing Race contestants were sent to Antananarivo, Madagascar. We know what you are thinking cuz we're thinking it too--Isn't that where are all those cute fuzzy animals that were trapped in the Central Park Zoo took a trip to?
But the show wasn't all about traveling to the land of fuzzy cartoon characters. Jaunted has the scoop on the new "Intersection" challenge twist that the producers introduced as a way to spice up a completely boring season. So skip on over there for the episode recap while we detail our hotel pick.
Since those cartoon characters were faced with some shady characters when they arrived in Madagascar (yeah, we watched the movie and yeah, we're lame), we decided we would play it safe and stay at the Hilton Madagascar...or so we thought.
Locataed in Antananarivo, the Hilton was completely refurbished back in 1998 (which is just eight years ago!) and offers 171 rooms to stay in. The place seems like a pretty standard Hilton and the reviews are so-so. Well, actually there's only three reviews but if you got Hilton Honors points to burn (about 20,000), you may as well do it here. Just watch out for the bugs:
Hotel is in a dated skyscarper in dowtown. we stayed on top floor in a superficially looking nice room with king bed. However, as soon as we turned lights on we had roaches crawl over fruit plate that was left for us. The furniture was very dates as well as the interior of entire hotel. The room next to ours had a kicked in door panel. We stayed here with Hilton Honor's Points and cannot imagine paying $200 per night for this place. I was really grossed out. I also felt badly that hotel did not help us negotiate taxi fare with hotel taxis and we were ripped off by taxi driver. the whole atmosphere was just somewhat unsafe and unclean.
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by juliana
