We did briefly mention last month that the world's largest swimming pool is now officially found in the San Alfonso del Mar Resort in Chile, but given our deep love for hotel pools, we figured it's time to take a closer look, especially since the Guinness Book of World Records decided it was worth looking at, too.
The San Alfonso del Mar Resort, on the southern coast of Chile, spent around $1.5 billion to create this lagoon of a swimming pool, which is a full one kilometer in length. Two neat facts strike us about this pool: hotel guests get to use small boats and kayaks to get around, because the pool is so big, and cleaning is a breeze because they've got technology to clean and recirculate ocean water into the pool.
As for staying at the San Alfonso del Mar, you've got two choices. Either buy a vacation apartment there--some buildings are still under construction--or check their resort website if you read Spanish. Be prepared for a heap of annoying pop-up windows. But keep your eye on the prize--that beautiful pool--and you'll be able to get through 'em.
Cubicle Dreamin' is a feature in which we ask the hotel mavens to take some time out of their busy work day, surf the Internet, and tell us what hotel they wish they could beam themselves to right that very second--all on the slave driving companies dime, of course. Oh, like these people aren't surfing aimlessly anyway--at least now their purposeless clicking will be cobbled together into useful hotel stories--we hope. Have a destination hotel you are just dying to leave your cube for? Send the story our way.
In this episode, Hotel Maven Monica Guy returns to Chile. Enjoy.
Split the cubicle in half: I'm dreaming of two superb hotels at opposite ends of the longest, skinniest country in the world - Chile.
This week our roaming correspondent, Monica Guy, is giving us the low-down on the Chilean Hotel Scene. Here she checks out a five-star hotel Chilean style. Enjoy.
Some hotels are 5-star for their facilities, some 5-star for their service, some for their location. Some are 5-star because they simply award themselves the title, and nobody knows the difference.
The Hotel Villa del Rio in Valdivia, Chile, fits right into the second and third categories.
This week our roaming correspondent, Monica Guy, is giving us the low-down on the Chilean Hotel Scene. Here she encounters una vista mal. Enjoy.
Lucky Lorie and Paul Bennett, who found a killer view staring at them out of the window of the businessy Park Plaza Hotel in Santiago, Chile.
We on the other hand spent the night in the Radisson Plaza Santiago Hotel, a similar 160-room 5-star mega-hotel in Santiago's business district.
In their information about the local area, they forgot to mention they're backed right onto a mega-building site which actually seems to create 100 times more dust and noise and pollution than buildings.
If you're lucky, you'll be on the other side of the building, which faces a blank tower block.
How miserable. You're in one of the hottest capitals in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, you have to work (presumably you're here on business, or you wouldn't be staying at the Radisson) and to top it all off, the view out of your hotel window is enough to make you want to top yourself off.
The hotel is fine - standard business-hotel affair, with a piano player tinkling away in the small bar, a small swimming pool and a well-equipped gym on the top floor (at least you can see over the top of the building site) and all the usual knobs and whistles of a Radisson.
Service is sloooooow, and we couldn't get WiFi to work, but apart from that you'll get pretty much what you expect.
Rates are standard business hotel rates, with a bit taken off for Latin America. If you can't pass the bill on to your boss without looking at it, don't bother staying here.
This week our roaming correspondent, Monica Guy, is giving us the low-down on the Chilean Hotel Scene. Today, she tells you how to enjoy Easter Island on a budget. Enjoy.
You're all fired up to go to Easter Island and you're desperate to stay in the new luxury Explora Posada de Mike Rapu.
Unfortunately, your bank manager isn't quite so enthusiastic.
The Hotel O'tai is the only place worth staying if you can't afford the rates at the Explora. It's even got a couple of benefits. Unlike the Explora, it's based right in the center of the only town on the island, Hanga Roa. The town's not exactly a heaving metropolis and the nightlife wouldn't win prizes over London's, but it does mean you'll meet other travellers and get closer to the native inhabitants.
This week our roaming correspondent, Monica Guy, is giving us the low-down on the Chilean Hotel Scene. Today, she has exclusive review of the much-vaunted, just-opened luxury Explora hotel of Posada de Mike Rapu on Easter Island. Enjoy.
Easter Island
Take one of the loneliest islands on earth, cover it in miles of unkempt grassland, teams of wild horses and hundreds of mysterious stone statues. Then drive a kilometer down a bumpy track off the island's single main road and you'll come across the most isolated, luxury, dreamland hotels you've ever read about.
We're talking about Easter Island, known as Rapa Nui by the natives, or as Isla de Pascua by the Chileans. It's 3,600 km from the nearest mainland in Chile and a 5h40min flight from Santiago. Famous for those great, stone Moai statues you'll have read about but probably not seen.
And we're talking about the Explora Posada de Mike Rapu, opened only since late 2007 and already one of the hottest topics of the Latin American hotel world.
We had a little meet-and-greet with a Chile tourism rep yesterday, and he reminded us that Patagonia is home to the Explora Patagonia, an all-inclusive resort with killer views of the mountains.
But it turns out, there's a new Explora on the scene, this time in Atacama. (You'll remember Chile's northern desert from the latest season of Amazing Race.)
Aside from the reality TV tie-in--reason enough to visit!--the Explora en Atacama does its best to put jaded urbanites back in touch with nature. Just check the brochure:
Its core is a hotel built for linking man with the temporal space--present and past--and the mysteries of nature. To travel is to pass, to arrive and leave. Architecture is permanence, freedom and security.
Rates, including hyperbole, start at $1,546 for three nights. And in case you're curious, Explora is opening another hotel in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in December 2007.
If you're planning a break on the beach in Chile but don't want to give up your sports-mad lifestyle, the Marbella Resort in the Maitencillo region could go to the top of the list.
They don't do anything by halves (and they give themselves five stars, too): not satisfied with the standard 18 hole golf course, they've got 27, and have hosted numerous international golf championships there; ten tennis courts are around too, with varying surfaces. Volleyball takes place daily at the beach, and you can swim either there in the sea or in one of several pools with a range of features: including the "cross current" for a tougher swimming challenge.
The trick with the Marbella Resort is it's hard to get English information--even the main hotel website is Spanish only. This is a hotel with:
excellent facilities, services according to his category and efficient customized attention in an atmosphere of much cordiality.
We think we've got all this sports galore stuff right, but the most detailed info around says stuff like "Marbella is the paradise of the golfista" and tantalizes us with descriptions of "fairways and greens of varied so large and difficulties". All this and more in a hotel which "accommodates 220 passengers". Enjoy your stay or just stay in the gym at home.
Where: Ave. Kennedy 8830, Chile
