Tag: Hotel Amenities
View All TagsHotel Amenities / Hotel Names / Vancouver Hotels / Boutique Hotels / Photo Galleries / → All Tags
What Does a Non-Starwood St. Regis Have To Offer?
A St. Regis for around $200* a night? Yes, it's possible—in Canada! Of course, that room rate should be the first thing to tip you off that the St. Regis Vancouver is not actually a St. Regis of the Starwood variety.
As we found on a recent trip north, the St. Regis Vancouver is a charming boutique hotel with historic bones, a fantastic downtown location perfect for business travelers and tourists alike--and a ton of added extras that we bet you won't find at your local posh version of a St. Regis.
If you're wondering what a Non-St.Regis St. Regis looks like, just click through our gallery for a peek at what the Vancouver indie has to offer.
Hotel Amenities / Hotel Specials / Red Hotels / Manhattan Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / Chicago Hotels / Hotel Packages / Hotel Minibars / Hotel Bars / → All Tags
Which Hotels Are Doing Good For Heart Disease Awareness Month?
It's National Wear Red Day, and across the country, the American Heart Association is urging everyone to raise awareness about women's heart disease by wearing the color red. And since we've already done our work pointing out the best Valentine's Day hotels (for both NYC and Miami), here's a look at some heart-conscious hotel efforts happening this month.
First stop: Kimpton's Hotel Palomar, which is offering a new gluten-free minibar to provide guests with healthy snacks when they get back to their rooms. Our favorite item? The KIND fruit and nut bars, which we always make a point of slipping into our carry-on whenever we travel. So fruity and chewy and delicious! The minibar will also be stocked with Izze soda, Glutino pretzel twists, and Lundberg rice chips.
Hotel Fitness / Hotel Amenities / Singapore Hotels / Shangri-La Hotels / Ritz-Carlton Hotels / → All Tags
Pack Your Trainers and Don't Forget to Grab the Hotel Jogging Map
It's official; hotels have finally figured out that maybe—just maybe—guests will want to venture beyond the fitness center and into the wild streets of a strange city in order to get that runner's high. Thus, increasingly we're opening up hotel desk drawers to spy more than just the requisite stationery and Gideon's Bible; there's also little jogging maps of the area.
Granted, you've got to be staying in a hotel that goes above and beyond in other ways than just a jogging map; you won't find extras like this in a Holiday Inn or Best Western. For example, we recently spotted a jogging map lanyard in the rooms at the Shangri-La Singapore, and a jogging map wristband at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore.
Shangri-La Hotels / Hotel Flowers / Hotel Design / Hotel Amenities / Hotel Swag / → All Tags
The Shangri-La Singapore Has Its Very Own Orchid
"Dendrobium by Shangri-La Singapore." It sounds like a perfume, right? Close, as that is the full name of a variety of orchid that graces several vases in each room at the Shangri-La Singapore hotel. Yes, this hotel has its very own flower and, though you'll spot larger, white orchids around the property as well, these sweet little greenish yellow blooms with their faint violet shading are the ones to watch for.
And if you thought we were joking with that official name of the flower, here's the full details (for you gardeners and flower geeks):
A long-lasting specialty orchid named after the golden sunsets of the Palolo Valley in Oahu, Hawaii. Dendrobium by Palolo Sunshine is the mother plant. The father plant is Dendrobium Pink Spider, a Singaporean hybrid created from Dendrobium Black Spider and Dendrobium Lucian Pink. The Dendrobium by Shangri-La Singapore was named in commemoration of Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore's 35th Anniversary.
[Photo: HotelChatter]
Hotel Shopping / Hotel Amenities / Hotel Minibars / Hotel Toiletries / Gramercy Park Hotel / → All Tags
Everything's For Sale at The Gramercy Park Hotel
Operation blips and woes aside, the Gramercy Park Hotel has a lot going for it.
The plush, dark rooms feel more like your rich, moody uncle's place than your typical hotel room and they are full of lovely little details, including the Allure magazine-editor-curated toiletries--a mix of best-of-the-best products rather than all items from the one brand.
And now, you can take a whole lot of the hotel home with you. For a price. You see, the rooms at GPH are designed for you to shop til you drop. Everything in the collage above—from the pretty tassels right down to the tray that the bathroom toiletries are sitting on—is for sale.
Hotel Amenities / Singapore Hotels / Raffles Hotels / Historic Hotels / → All Tags
Where Bedtime Stories Come Standard
Captain Whalley emerged like a diver on the other side, and in the desert shade between the walls of closed warehouses removed his hat to cool his brow. A certain disrepute attached to the calling of a landlady of a boarding house. These women were said to be rapacious, unscrupulous, untruthful; and though he condemned no class of his fellow creatures...
And thus begins our bedtime story tonight. You see, as we write this it has just turned midnight. We're in Singapore, in one of the 103 suites (called "residences") of the famed Raffles Hotel. Every moment surrounded by the colonial architecture, lush flora and entire history of the Raffles seems a fantasy. Even turndown service reinforced this, with the placement of a 4-page story excerpt from Joseph Conrad's "End of the Tether."
Hotel Hair Salons / Hotel Amenities / Fort Lauderdale Hotels / W Hotels / → All Tags
Now You Can Get Hollywood Hair With SoFla Views, At the W Fort Lauderdale
No hot SoFla hotel is complete without a sleek salon doling out sleek tresses, so it was inevitable that the W Fort Lauderdale would join the blowout set. And it comes with serious A-list cred, as the beachfront property is the proud new location of a Ted Gibson Salon.
For anyone who doesn't know, Gibson is the kind of hairstylist who's always in demand at events like last night's Golden Globes. You may have also seen him work his magic on What Not to Wear.
Hotel Amenities / Hotel Grills / Hotel Room Service / Sedona Hotels / → All Tags
Order Up 'In the Raw' at Enchantment Sedona & Get Your Grill On
Getting tired of the same ol', same ol' room service options? Cheeseburgers, club sandwiches, caesar salads... yawn? Then, you need to check into Enchantment Resort in Sedona and flip through the menu until you get to the section titled, Tastefully 'In the Raw.'
We had never seen such an option before, but we heartily approve: 'In the Raw' is a selection of barbecue favorites--raw meats--that are delivered to your room, with all the accompaniments, ready to cook.
Your grill is outside on your casita's patio--where it awaits your steak, along with this killer view...
Viva Vegas / Hotel Valets / Hotel Transport / Hotel Amenities / Video / → All Tags
At Aria Las Vegas You May Actually Want The Valet To Take His Time
Being bored as you wait for a valet to pull out your car is such a first world problem, but that doesn’t make it any less irritating. Which is why we were so taken by this light show we got as we waited for our car at Aria Las Vegas last week.
Aria’s main valet is notoriously slow, but the back valet – or, rather, the North Valet, out by Haze nightclub – was much better. Or maybe it just seemed that way, as we were watching the pretty sentences heading across the screen. They made us think, they made us smile, they made us wonder how much of a Vegas funk you have to be in to find them profound, and they made us wonder who came up with them.
They also made us recollect the entrance to the Cosmopolitan, across the road – so it was interesting to learn that this video screen has been here since Aria opened – a year before Cosmo did.
Hotel WiFi / Free WiFi / Manhattan Hotels / Twitter / Hotel Amenities / → All Tags
Guests at Bryant Park Hotel No Longer Have To Walk Across the Street To Get Free WiFi
As of yesterday, the Bryant Park Hotel offers free WiFi
On December 29, a little birdie clued us into the fact that Bryant Park Hotel was considering making the switch to free WiFi. And in a moment of somewhat warranted self-flattery, we wondered if our list of New Year's resolutions for hotels had anything to do with the its decision.
But Front Desk Manager Darren Sumner set the record straight, explaining that over the years, the hotel had received "many, many requests from guests," and simply wanted to "listen to their needs." So it seems we aren't the only ones who like to gripe about hotels still ruthlessly charging for the convenience of in-room WiFi. Not that surprising, really. We're just glad to be a part of the revolution.
HotelChatter 2011 Awards / OpenThread / Open Thread / Hotel Bathrooms / Hotel Toiletries / Hotel Amenities / → All Tags
Most Provocative OpenThread of 2011: Toiletry Dispensers—Eco-Friendly Or Unsanitary?
It's what you've been waiting all year for--The 2011 HotelChatter Awards! We'll be bringing you the best and worst of the year all day today and part of tomorrow. Agree or disagree with our picks? Air your thoughts in the comments below.
In August, we decided to resurrect an ever-popular topic of discussion—Toiletry Dispensers—and boy, were you guys full of ideas. This thread easily proved to be the most fruitful of the entire year, and why wouldn't it? What's a hotel bathroom without all its free soaps, gels, shampoos and creams?
But what we (and the hotels themselves) still haven't quite figured out is how to strike a balance between the eco-friendliness of dispensers and the luxury of individually packaged toiletries.
Many, many hotels—especially, smaller, more independent brands or sister brands—have gone over to the dark environmental side, installing dispensers in each and every shower (Aloft, Ace, Element, Viceroy and James, to name a few). As we see it, the conversation boils down to a question of sustainability: are hotels places to go and simply indulge, heedless of whatever environmental impact your stay might have? Or should we all be contributing to the evolution of greener, waste-efficient—and, of course, beautiful—hotels?
HotelChatter 2011 Awards / Hotel Amenities / Portable WiFi / Hotel WiFi / → All Tags
2011 Must-Have Hotel Amenity: Personal WiFi Hotspots
It's what you've been waiting all year for--The 2011 HotelChatter Awards! We'll be bringing you the best and worst of the year all day today and part of tomorrow. Agree or disagree with our picks? Air your thoughts in comments below.
We know that investing in technology products can be a bit of crapshoot. Just when you finally get a brand-new smartphone or decide to invest in an iPad or tablet, the next, newer, better version comes along. Which is why we understand hotels' reluctance to get as gung-ho as we do about the latest hand-held devices. (There is, however, no excuse for chunky box TVs in hotel rooms anymore.)
But we would love it if more and more hotels started offering personal WiFi hotspots for guests like the 4G Huddle station that's on offer at the JW Marriott in Kuala Lumpur. Or the E-mobile portable WiFi device that the Park Hyatt Tokyo offer its guests for about $33 a day and which can be used outside hotel, even when climbing Mt. Fiji.
But if that can't happen, then we'll just settle for an amazingly fast and strong wireless network like the gigaspeed internet the Peninsula Hotels are implementing.
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