If you find yourself stuck on the West Coast over the long Labor Day Weekend, unable to get to the Aloha State (or unable to afford it), never fear -- Hawaii will come to you.
The Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village has created a Hawaii-style "staycation" for left coasters in this snitzy LA burb. They've taken cues from the island of Lanai, which this month's Conde Nast Traveler coincidentally sums up as "essentially a pineapple plantation until 1990, when two resorts (now owned by Four Seasons) opened." Funny, that!
For $195 a night for the nights of August 27-31, you'll get an Aloha-style laua with all the Pacific Rim poi, lilikoi, and pork you could ever want, plus the bar will serve up mai tais and lava flows.
It's no surprise to us that the Agua Caliente Resort Hotel, part of a casino complex in Rancho Mirage, California, has a bunch of dazzling lights. The surprising bit is that the whole lighting system in the new hotel is so high tech and at the same time, clean and green.
The fiddly details are that the hotel have used special LED cove lighting on 14 floors and this lighting has a bunch of advantages: it lasts longer, so they don't need to get staff up to change light bulbs, and it's easy to choose different light "colors" with this technology so you can get the atmosphere you're after.
On top of that the lights are also more energy saving than traditional light bulbs. Since we only usually notice hotel lighting if it's particularly bad, the Agua Caliente Resort probably has the kind of lighting we'll never notice, but we do notice that it's eco-friendly and tip our hats to that.
Props to Hotel Maven CourtneyMay for dropping some pics of Villa 11 at the Sunset Marquis into the HotelChatter Flickr Pool.
We love the place enough for the slogan alone ("If we were any more Hollywood, our pool would be shallow at both ends"), but we're totally loving the sleek, modern villa too.
See more of Courtney's Sunset Marquis pics after the jump.
If you aren't up to speed on Doll Warz '08, here's a quick summary: the Barbie-making people (Mattel) are trying to nail the Bratz-making people (MGA) in court.
Mattel is claiming MGA essentially stole the idea for Bratz dolls from them. Bratz, if you haven't had the pleasure, are female dolls with big heads, nasty attitudes, liberally-applied eyeliner and sorta scandalously skanky clothes.
Since a former Mattel employee may or may not have thought of the idea for Bratz while still at Mattel, things are all messy and are even messier since the Bratz people are all like, "no way, and in fact, Barbie has been dressing like a hoochie lately because she is copying Bratz dolls so now we're gonna sue YOU." Okay.
According to the WSJ, things came to a head a couple weeks ago when the two opposing legal teams arrived in Riverside to duke out the whole thing -- and the Barbie people weren't allowed to stay in the Mission Inn with the Bratz team.
We passed on Peter Greenberg's tips about the Treebones Resort in Big Sur a short while ago, and now this collection of yurts has made it onto a list from Budget Travel magazine too: a list of accommodations in Big Sur for under $200 a night.
The odd thing about Treebones is that the owners never intended to build a hotel or resort of any kind. They bought the land there to retire on, and then discovered that new planning laws prevented them from simply building a house. And gradually the idea of the yurts developed--because they didn't want a "normal hotel"--and Treebones as we now know it, 16 simple wooden yurts and a lodge--came to be.
Rates are still the same, starting at $155 a night. They have got a special coming up if you're in to planning ahead to 2009--a whale watchers' package with 20% off rack rates for two-night, non-weekend bookings.
It took a while for the permits and red tape to go through, but the Oceano Hotel and Spa in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, is finally up and running. It's got a range of five rooms from the basic Princeton right up to the Grand Oceano Villa; views from all of these vary from Pacific Ocean and Half Moon Bay water views to outlooks over the Montara Mountains. All pretty nice.
The Oceano is also proud to be environmentally friendly, even though it has tried to make sure its eco-friendly features are "discreetly concealed" so that luxury is still the focus. Some of these green features include:
chemical-free laundry and room cleaning, energy saving lighting, low VOC paints and materials, and eco-smart suites that save energy and water and reduce waste.
There are no advertised special offers yet--the website just says they're "coming soon"--but current rack rates start from $249 per night for the Princeton Room, ranging up to $449 per night for the largest villa. As far as we can tell, the wireless internet access is included in that price, something you certainly can't take for granted these days.
While staying a night or two in a yurt might be more commonplace as you transit through Mongolia on the Trans-Mongolian Express, you don't need to head to such exotic spots to do so. In fact, according to a tip from Peter Greenberg, you can overnight in a yurt--those tent-like affairs typically used by wandering Mongolians--at Big Sur in California.
The Treebones Resort in Big Sur has 16 yurts and all of them are a lot more luxuriously equipped than their Mongolian counterparts. Some of them have an ocean view and all of them have queen-sized beds, electric lighting, a heater and hot and cold running water. They even have polished wooden floorboards, which is much more than the nomads would've been prepared to carry around with them. Additionally, there is a heated pool and hot tub on site, and a lodge building for dining.
Two things you should know: there is no cell phone access (which is probably a good thing for a vacation but you might want to know about it ahead of time); and you can't drive right up to the yurts so you'll want to pack light enough that you can carry everything you bring. If the yurts are booked out and you've got a tent, there are also five campsites available for hire.
On weekends or through the April to October peak season, there's a minimum booking of two nights. A full ocean view yurt for two people comes at $175 per night, or $155 if you only get a partial ocean view; some of the yurts can fit from four to six guests and start at $245 a night for four people. All of which is a lot cheaper than flying to Mongolia.
Also, the not-so-effective rehab center Promises (which hosted Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan) has been evacuated and patients were put up in an undisclosed upscale hotel in West Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, one of our sources say the Four Seasons in Westlake Village is taking reservations from fire evacuees. Plus they allow guests to bring their pets so long as they are under 15 lbs. Our dog is 28 lbs but super cute. If we get evacuated can we bring him?
