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Pepper Spray Goes Off at The Hotel Andra
If you travel with pepper spray, it goes without saying that you should be careful with how you use it but we bet you never thought the hotel housekeeper would accidentally set it off. That's what happened last night at the Hotel Andra in Seattle.
According to the KOMO-TV, a housekeeper accidentally tipped over a can of pepper spray while servicing a guest room and it went off. The entire fifth floor was evacuated and five people had to be treated at the scene for their symptoms.
The hotel, which belongs to the Small Luxury Hotels of the World collection, released a statement explaining the pepper spray mishap and said that once the hotel was all aired out, guests could return to their rooms. There were no injuries and no guests had to be relocated.
In case you were wondering, About.com says "Milk or sour cream, a baking soda paste or honey are decent pepper spray antidotes."
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Los Angeles is Burning, Luxury Hotel Provides Shelter
The Terranea Resort, unaffected by the current fires, offers shelter to displaced residents.
If you live in Los Angeles, you were probably awakened by the pungent smell of active flames on Sunday morning. And, depending on how close you are to the wildfires currently sweeping La Canada Flintridge and surrounding areas, you may have noticed tiny flecks of ash dotting the windshield of your car as well.
Governor Schwarzenegger has deemed the fires "totally out of control," according to Sky News, while the L.A. Times' "L.A. Now" blog notes that with temperatures having reached the "mid- to high 90s" in recent days, fire conditions have reached extreme new heights.
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Falling Rocks at Yosemite Forces Hotel Ahwahnee Guests to Evacuate
Staying at The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park will always be a memorable experience. For the folks that can cough up $500+ for a night's stay, they will have the memories of waking up to killer views of the park's granite Half Dome, Yosemite Falls and Glacier Point. Guests will also be sleeping inside a historic hotel, first built in 1927 (nearly prehistoric days for California) and designed during the Arts & Craft movement where everything had to be homemade. ("Machines are evil!" was the prevailing thought of this movement.)
Oh and if the hotel gets evacuated because of falling rocks behind it, that's even more memorable. Kinda. Three hundred guests at the hotel had to be evacuated yesterday after falling rocks, some as big as "microwave ovens", crashed into the hotel's valet parking lot.
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JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Jakarta Will Re-Open Today
The two hotels that suffered attacks earlier this month in Indonesia — the Ritz-Carlton Jakarta and the JW Marriott Jakarta — will re-open today, according to Reuters. The two bomb blasts at the luxe hotels left a total of nine people dead and 53 injured.
Per Reuters:
The Ritz-Carlton already has guests booked to stay on Wednesday night, said hotel spokeswoman Els Ramadhinta.
"We have reviewed everything from the incident and made some adjustments but I can't disclose what the changes are. Hopefully we will get some more bookings soon," she told Reuters by telephone.
The JW Marriott, which is adjacent to the Ritz-Carlton, will also open on Wednesday.
The Ritz-Carlton website is not yet accepting reservations, but we assume you can make them by phone at this point (we got, "The Ritz-Carlton, Jakarta is currently not accepting reservations; we continue to work closely with the authorities and hope to reopen the hotel soon" when we tried), but rates are starting at $183 USD.
The JW Marriott Jakarta is accepting bookings online, however — starting rates are at $158 USD.
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Deadly Bomb Explodes at Pakistan Hotel
Some very, very sad news to report. According to CNN, a bomb exploded just outside the luxury Pearl Continental Hotel in the Pakistani city of Peshawar today, killing at least five people and wounding at least 25 more.
CNN.com reports:
Peshawar bomb disposal squad Inspector Hukam Khan confirmed soon after the explosion that a car bomb caused the destruction.
Peshawar is the capital of North West Frontier Province, which has suffered a spate of bombings on civilian targets in the wake of the Pakistani military's ongoing military offensive against Taliban militants.
Eerily, the media is reporting that Pearl Continental is actually owned by the same group as the Marriott Islamabad, where a deadly bomb went off last year.
[Photo: AFP]
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Fire at Marriott Harbor Beach in Ft. Lauderdale Forces Out 250 Guests
Ah, imagine waking up on your semi-late Spring Break vacay in Ft. Lauderdale to fire alarms. Annoying. Except imagine there was a real fire in your hotel. Scary.
According to the Miami Herald, 250 guests were evacuated this morning after a fire broke out at the Harbor Beach Marriott Resort in Ft. Lauderdale:
Calls about the fire at 3030 Holiday Dr. came in just before 4:30 a.m., spokesman Matt Little said. The hotel's sprinkler system controlled the fire, but 250 people were evacuated from the hotel as a precaution, Little said.
Six rooms sustained damage as a result of the fire. Investigators are looking into what caused the blaze.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt. But a morning fire? What a bummer. And on top of that, unfortunately, forgetting about this morning might not be so easy for guests: the martinis there are no longer $5.
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Mandarin Oriental Beijing Suffers Massive Fire
The 40-story Mandarin Oriental Beijing, which was originally scheduled to open just before the Summer Olympics in '08 but had been delayed until this year, was sitting unoccupied (thank goodness) but near complete when it caught fire several hours ago around 9 p.m. in Beijing (8 a.m. EST).
According to CNN:
CNN's Beijing bureau chief Jaime FlorCruz said he was on one side of the hotel, but, "It seems like virtually the whole building is burned." Fire crews are on the scene and appeared to have control of the fire.
CNN correspondent Emily Chang said the fire reached up past the 30th floor, but did not appear to be spreading to any of the nearby buildings.
There were no reports of injuries, and the cause of the fire is not yet known — but it "happened in the final hours of the Chinese lunar new year as people set off fireworks across the city," so the blaze may have been an accident related to fireworks. We'll keep you posted as reports of the damage come in.
[Photo: AP via NYTimes]
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Checking In On The Taj Mahal Palace, Post-Terrorism
It's a couple of months now since the terrorist attacks and, two weeks later, an accidental fire, caused havoc for the poor Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai. We figured it was time to check in on this Taj and see if it's really up and running again.
And it looks like, just as they promised, the Taj Mahal Palace reopened the rooms of the Tower Wing plus the restaurants, banquet hall and chambers on December 21. That's a pretty impressive at just 24 days after the attacks.
A brass and bronze sculpture named the "Tree of Life" which was already on display in the hotel has now been turned into a memorial to the 31 people who died at the Taj during the terrorist attacks, with their names inscribed at its base.
Since the reopening there hasn't been too much gossip amongst guests; a traveler who stayed there a week after the reopening said it was "good to see things starting to buzz again albeit a bit quietly". But hey, we can understand being a bit quiet about things there.
[Photo: Dey]
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Hotel Jerome Evacuated After New Year's Eve Bomb Threat
New Year's Eve celebrations were majorly derailed in Aspen, CO this week when bomb threats forced the resort town to virtually shut down. According to the NY Times, two homemade gasoline bombs with threatening notes were found at two banks and two more were found in an alley, left by "a longtime Aspen resident who an acquaintance said was bitter because he had not profited from the community’s transformation from a rural mining town into a luxury resort town."
The bomb threat forced downtown restaurants and bars to close and a NYE fireworks display was canceled, sending would-be partiers back to their hotels to party with a bottle of champagne and televised celebrations — except for the Hotel Jerome guests, who were evacuated from their hotel.
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Mumbai Hotels Re-Open With Parties and Prayers
Yesterday, both of the five-star Mumbai hotels attacked by terrorists in November — the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and Tower and the Oberoi — reopened to guests. The swift repair and re-opening of the hotels were meant to serve as a symbol of hope and restoration for the city of Mumbai, which has been devastated by the attacks that claimed more than 170 lives.
According to an LA Times report, the Taj re-opened only its tower wing yesterday, as the Palace wing (which houses the restaurant, where some of the worst fighting took place) could take more than a year to completely repair. From the Times:
The Taj marked the occasion with a grand party in its tower featuring Bollywood stars and other local celebrities, several of whom took to the podium to offer their own heartfelt homage to those who died in the attacks.
Meanwhile, the Oberoi held an afternoon prayer service with religious leaders from eight denominations to mark the re-opening (only one of the two hotel buildings in the complex opens to the pubic, as the other still has a few months of repairs ahead).
[Photo: EPA/STR]
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Fire Breaks Out at Mumbai's Devastated Taj Mahal Palace Hotel
The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, which was nearly destroyed in the devastating Mumbai terrorist attacks two weeks ago, suffered a fire on its 20th floor early this morning.
According to an Associated Press report, officials have not yet said what caused the fire (possibly a short circuit), but it was under control quickly and there were no casualties reported.
When we headed over to the hotel's own website to see if they'd updated their news page with details about the blaze (they hadn't), we learned a bit more about the efforts that have been underway since officials announced that they'd be working to get the iconic hotel restored as quickly as possible:
In addition to the recovery of guest possessions and luggage from those parts of the hotel where safety conditions allow, specialist teams have already begun clearance of damaged fittings, rubble and furniture.
Everyone involved in the work is motivated by a single-minded determination that the hotel will shine again in tribute to the people who fell during the terrorist attacks on the city of Mumbai. But the rebirth of the hotel does not simply involve bricks and mortar. Ministers and clerics of seven religions will also be contributing services and ceremonies of blessing and benediction.
Hopefully, this fire won't cause any major setbacks in their efforts to rebuild and recover.
[Photo: EPA/STR via Guardian]
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Mumbai's Trident Hotel to Re-Open December 21
Bloomberg News is reporting that the Trident Hotel Nariman Point in Mumbai which was attacked in last week's horrific terrorist attacks on the city, vows to re-open on Dec. 21.
Additional security will be put in place at the hotel, Oberoi Group, which manages the property, said in a statement e-mailed from New Delhi.
While the damage wasn't as bad as the sister Oberoi Hotel, the Trident Hotels website also says a "round-the-clock" effort is going on to get the place to re-open. The hotel evacuated over 300 hundred guests during the attacks.
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