You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
To be fair, most hotels can't actually change that much about the environment around them, especially if they're in the middle of a city. This anti-view from a window of the Courtyard by Marriott Denver - Cherry Creek is one of those cases.
Big car parks and flat ugly buildings abound, unless you somehow see over all of that to the more attractive row of trees in the distance. It's not the worst anti-view we've seen but it doesn't make us want to pull up an armchair and sit at the window with a good book or a drink.
We had some technical difficulties a few weeks ago when we first posted our review on the Hyatt Regency Denver and thus we couldn't get up all of our pictures from the room. (Let's just say our computer hates traveling.)
But now we present you with some more snaps inside room 1134 which we scored on Priceline.com for $75 a night. Don't forget to watch the hotel video tour here.
This is room 1134 inside the Hyatt Regency Denver where we spent some time this past weekend. As we told you yesterday, we had a successful check-in attempt with the self-service kiosks in the lobby and that probably set the tone for the rest of our stay.
Actually, maybe the feel-good tone started way before that when we actually booked the hotel room. We did it through Priceline, our first time booking through that site. And our bid of $75 was accepted right away.
Regular room rates at the hotel, which are higher during the week when conventions are in full force across the street, are about $235. That might be too high for us, after all it's a Hyatt in Denver near a convention center but the place is pretty fantastic.
And since the Dems have made this their headquarters hotel for the DNC this August, here's what they can expect.
Hotel check-in kiosks have never quite taken off the way that airport check-in kiosks have. Indeed, the hotel's versions of easy check-in have been labeled "dust collectors" in the past and we've read a ton of reports that these things just don't work.
Well, maybe that is about to change.
We checked into the Hyatt Regency Denver (aka the headquarters hotel for the DNC this summer) over the weekend and upon walking into the lobby, a greeter immediately ushered us over to the machines (pictured above). Before we could protest, the greeter urged us to give the kiosk a try.
It was incredibly easy. We simply swiped the credit card that we used to book the room and the touch-screen process went very similarly to the airport check-in. We selected a king bed and even joined the Hyatt Gold Passport program.
Interestingly enough, we booked the room via Priceline and not directly through the hotel. But that didn't matter here. The greeter also informed us that they have had the machines since the hotel opened in 2005 and they have had no problems with them. Could this be the start of a new life for the dust collectors?
We are suckers for a room with a killer view. We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.
What makes a killer view even better? When someone has a killer view from their hotel room and can take a really pretty photo as well. That's why we rather like this view from Marriott Denver City Center.
The hotel may not be the ultimate hotel for Democrats in Denver but this view from a room looking out over the intersection of California Street and 17th Street is pretty killer.
It was taken using a 30 second exposure. If you look at the line of lights leading down to the bottom left corner, what you're actually looking at is the light rail system that moves you around Denver.
After our recent nightmares involving the Marriott bear, this killer view restores our faith that there are beautiful things to be seen around Marriott hotels.
The Hyatt Regency Denver has just been named the headquarters for the Democratic National Committee which will announce its presidential candidate at Denver's Pepsi Center Aug. 25-28. The Denver Biz Journal reports:
"Outside Pepsi Center, the Hyatt Regency Denver will serve as the primary nerve center for our convention operations -- our home away from home ...," said Leah Daughtry, CEO of the Democratic National Convention Committee.
Indeed the convention will be good for all Denver-area hotels. The Democratic National Convention Committee expects
convention delegates, media and others coming to the event to take up roughly 17,000 rooms at 100 metro-area hotels. In a scary hotel market, Denver is going to get a healthy little boost.
In other Political Hotel news: · Remember that fundraiser for McCain at the Plaza attended by billionaires? Well, they coughed up $2 million [MSNBC] · Obama talks to women at the Radisson Lackawanna Station. But don't worry, unlike Eliot Spitzer he didn't pay for the service! [Wayne Independent] · Techie fave Ron Paul dropped over $18G on the Renaissance Worthington Hotel in Texas [Federal Election Commission] · Bill Clinton stumps for Hillary in Pennsylvania at the Hotel Bethlehem [Penn Live]
Reports out of Denver tell us that a new W Hotel is planned for the 16th Street Mall, where a big Office Depot store is currently found, on the corner of Market Street.
The deal is nearly done, but since Office Depot has still got four years left on its lease, nothing will be signed until a new site for the office supply store is located.
This means that the Denver W doesn't yet appear on the Upcoming W Hotels list but we do know that they're planning a 12-storey hotel including 180 rooms and 56 residences. They turned to the 16th Street site after talks on getting a spot in the Central Platte Valley came to nothing.
How long Denver will have to wait for its W isn't known yet, but the developers are saying stuff like "as soon as possible".
Fourth of July is just two weeks away so in case you are headed to a big city for some fireworks fun, we'll be taking a look at hotels with prime fireworks views. Have a favorite hotel for gawking at bombs bursting in air? Send it our way.
Planning to head to the mountains for Independence Day? We were going to recommend Vail, but an insider (don't you love insiders?) has informed us that Vail Village is smack in the middle of some crazy summer construction and is therefore not so picturesque at the moment.
Plus, the big awesome fireworks show in that area is a 10-minute drive away in Avon, a town with a much higher concentration of condos and residences than hotels. So no. In keeping with the "purple mountains majesty" theme we were going for, we present to you... Denver!
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by amandak
