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Vying with Paris's George V and Co. for big business and big wallets, is the Hotel Le Bristol.
Since we can't afford to stay at the Hotel Bristol ourselves, we asked the off-the-record advice of a friendly businessman who stays there regularly for conferences. He had a lot to say about the hotel's style, location and dining which we've recapitulated below for you. Enjoy.
Fortune magazine just put out a nice rundown on "The Best New Business Hotels." We would normally be skeptical, but they teamed up with Wallpaper to get some true hipness cred in the mix. The result is a lot of hotels that have good desk lighting, talented concierges, and "better than average room service," but a bit of style as well.
Bad news is, you have to pick up the print copy to get a rundown of their list and short descriptions. Good news is, we've got plenty of chatter about a lot of them right here. For more than a few, HotelChatter has been providing a blow-by-blow account of opening delays and pushed-back promises for a year or more. Following are a few of the hotels that made the list, both in the U.S. and internationally.
· Tides Miami South Beach
· Stoneleigh Hotel Dallas
· Liberty Hotel in Boston
· The Keating San Diego (pictured here).
· Opus Montreal
· The Chedi in Milan
· Peninsula Tokyo
Note that this list is aimed at readers with fat expense accounts who are willing to shell out for wireless Internet access. After all, the InterContinental Boston touted in their article made our Worst Wifi Hotels of 2007 list. Plus Fortune is not going to tell you about the Anti-view from the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro.
Bucking the usual bad magazine practice of listing hotels on a "best of" list before the construction is even finished, all these seem to actually be open though.
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by Tim L.
The Donovan House is set to open in Washington DC on March 28th and while its sister property in NYC--60 Thompson--might go for a minimum of $300 a night in the darkness of winter, this CIA-inspired hotel will be a lot cheaper. At least on the weekends.
We found a King Superior room for $179 a night March 28th and 29th. A King Deluxe was $189. Both rooms feature this intriguing cocoon-spiral shower of which we are dying to see.
Interestingly, when we looked for rooms from the March 31st to April 2nd, the price jumped up a bit to $479 a night for the King Superior but was back down by the weekend. So we're guessing it's adopting the policy of business hotels which lower their rates on the weekends.
Yet that blows our mind. A Thompson Hotel Business Hotel? Is that possible? Anyways, we think the CIA-theme is much cooler.
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by juliana
Forget London - the latest British capital city to visit is Cardiff. After decades of drudgery brought on be incessant rain and regular invasions of sheep, the Welsh capital is now hotting up faster than the US election race.
A spectacular opera house, a shiny new Parliament building, and the super Millennium rugby stadium are the city's most showy accessories. Depending on your attitude towards cruel sports, Cardiff is either a superb or a revolting place to visit on rugby match weekends, as we did.
The hotel scene is hotting up as well, in expectation of the Ryder Cup 2010, to be held at the Celtic Manor Resort near Newport and Cardiff. In the capital, there's a rather frightening trend for ripping the guts out of office blocks and turning them into hotels, with varying levels of success.
The only area currently worth staying is near the imaginatively named 'Mermaid Quay', or Cardiff Bay. In the last few years, it's been redeveloped from a stinking muddy dock area into a fantastic leisure area, packed with bars and restaurants and heaving with Welsh rugby fans, students and increasing numbers of tourists. Thankfully, Cardiff's two best and most long-standing hotels - the St David's Hotel & Spa and the Jolyon's Boutique Hotel - are right in the centre of this area.
As soon as we tell you about another Downtown NYC hotel opening up--the Four Seasons--we get word that a Cambria Suites hotel is coming to Midtown.
The 22-story, 239-room property will be across 8th Avenue from Madison Square Garden, roughly half way between the Javits Convention Center and Times Square. (It's replacing the Glad Tidings Tabernacle Church, pictured.) This'll be the second Cambria in to New York; a 300-room hotel is under way in Brooklyn. Both are being developed with PLC Partners, which plans to have both locations open by 2009.
Amenities are what you'd expect from a business hotel, including free wired and wireless internet. Rooftop bars are of course in the works. And the Midtown Cambria might have a bit of spice to it, too, because it's been designed by architect David Helpern--who did the Soho Grand and W Lexington Avenue among others.
Related Stories:
· Lower Manhattan Four Seasons Opening in 2001 [HotelChatter]
· Cambria Suites Debuts in...Boise? [HotelChatter]
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by pbb
[UPDATE 12.28.07: Drury Inn's Tech Services employee emailed us to say that Drury does not block HotelChatter.com or Jaunted.com. However, in the Drury Inn business centers there is a Net Nanny software installed on the computers which can be "overzealous" at times and may have blocked HotelChatter.com. If it did, it was not intentional.]
We recently heard a rumor that some Drury Inns were blocking access to HotelChatter. We certainly wouldn't appreciate that, particularly when we've praised the chain for offering no-nonsense, free WiFi.
Well our tipster had the chance to revisit one of the properties that's blocked her in the past, and as the screenshot above proves, something's changed. St. Louis Union Station Drury Inn, you're innocent of all web censoring charges for now. But we're keeping an eye on you!
Have a hotel WiFi horror story of your own? Let's hear it.
2 Comments - Add Yours by pbb
We've got a pretty skeptical view of Drury Inns around here, despite the chain's best efforts to entice us with free hotel-wide WiFi and budget-minded prices. But truth be told, we've come to count on Drury more than once, especially in the Midwest. And we're not the only ones who've stopped in at the St. Louis Airport Drury Inn.
Basically across the road from STL, the hotel has a 24-hour shuttle to the terminals and parking deals that can't be beat. And it gets good marks from biz travelers:
What a pleasant surprise. My company's travel agent reserved me a room at the Drury and I grumbled quietly as the taxi passed by the Marriott next door which is my (former) favorite. But the Drury is my new favorite nowadays: friendly staff, super clean, complimentary happy hour.
Nothing like some free booze to win over the road warrior set traveling through the Midwest. Now if only they could do something about those pesky children we spied in the candid pictures on the hotel's TripAdvisor page.
[Photo: Theoriginalbman]
Related Stories:
· St. Louis Airport Drury Inn reviews [Tripadvisor]
· Drury Inn coverage [HotelChatter]
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