Whew, the Renaissance Mayflower is having a bang-up year. First former NY governor Eliot Spitzer was revealed to have paid for a pricey session with a call girl in room 871 under the guise of Client No. 9.
Now, the hotel has suffered from a minor fire. A generator on the roof burned out early this morning causing the hotel to evacuate all guests for 30 minutes (at 4:30am, mind you) including the Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern.
No injuries were reported and guests were allowed back in their rooms. This looks like the same thing that happened at the Gansevoort South the other week. Is 2008 the year of Hotel Fires?
UPDATE: Here's the official word from Robert Van Eerde, Managing Director of Gansevoort South:
“There was a small, contained fire on the unoccupied terrace at the penthouse level at Gansevoort South yesterday afternoon. The Fire Department responded immediately and extinguished the fire within 15 minutes. No one was injured and damages were minimal. The hotel is fully operational. “
The Gansevoort South was burning yesterday. Details are a little sketch but the South Beach Real Estate Blog reported that the hotel had "flames shooting from the roof." The rooftop has a bar and an adults-only pool.
We've sent an email to the hotel's reps and will update you as soon as we hear what went down.
An AP news report published on Monday said that Las Vegas' Clark County officials are going over permits and work done with a new fine tooth comb at five additional hotels on the famous Vegas Strip.
Bally's, Caesar's Palace, The Imperial Palace, Paris Las Vegas and Bill's Gamblin' Hall & Saloon are getting the once, er, twice-over to make certain inspection permits were properly issued. We're certain hotel execs are betting all aces, but you never know. Vegas folk seem always to find something somewhere amiss. Well, at least on CSI.
The county inspections follow in the aftermath of the January three-alarm fire at the
Monte Carlo Resort & Casino (above) when nearly 5,000 guests and 1,000 employees were forced to evacuate the premises, and at least 13 people were treated for smoke inhalation.
While the hotel suffered severe damage to guest rooms on the five upper floors 27 through 32, luckily repairs were completed in quick time for the February re-opening.
According to Harrah's VP Marybel Batjer, the company is fully cooperating with local authorities. She also stated that hotel violations previously found at the company's Flamingo Las Vegas, Harrah's LV and Rio hotels already had appeared in the news. Evidently what happens in Las Vegas really stays in Las Vegas, cuz we missed those reports.
We're pretty sure the Best Western Playa Suites in Acapulco, Mexico won't be keen on hosting Spring Breakers again.
Several Spring Breakers from the University of New Hampshire and Penn State were staying at the hotel when it caught fire early Monday morning.
The students had booked the trip through StudentCity.com and several had just arrived only a few hours before the fire broke out.
One senior from Bedford said she and her friends ran down 12 flights of stairs after their suite began to fill with smoke.
They stood outside in their pajamas and watched the smoke climb, unable to collect their belongings until many hours later, said the student, Ashley Herrin, 22.
"I was stranded with no money, no shoes, no passport in Mexico, with nowhere to go. It was just miserable," she said.
The hotel had recently passed a fire inspection but several students said they never heard any smoke or fire alarms. Fortunately, no one was injured and some students were able to enter last night to retrieve their belongings. The hotel hasn't updated their website but we are sure they won't be taking any guests anytime soon.
We might have some weird type of ESP. In our story the other day about Starwood devaluing their points system, we mentioned the Sheraton Four Points in Hagerstown, Maryland which we picked to demonstrate how many SPG points you will need in a random city in a random state like Maryland.
Then a Hotel Maven mentioned Hagerstown was his hometown. Interesting.
And now, Hagerstown is in the news because novelist Nora Roberts (women's fiction best for airplane reading) was planning on turning an old hotel into a literary-themed, except the place caught fire!
[A fire marshal] said the fire started around 7:30 a.m. in the Boone Hotel, owned by Roberts and her husband, Bruce Wilder. It spread to the two other buildings caused an estimated $1.5 million in damage, Zurolo said.
[Roberts and Wilder] were renovating the hotel and planned to open it this summer as an inn with each room reflecting a different romantic literary theme. The 2 1/2-story hotel dates to the late 1700s.
That's an extremely sad ending for such a historic hotel. But we secretly hope Roberts will stil go forth with her romantic literary-themed hotel. We'll even locate Hagerstown on a map and go there.
This morning Monica Guy talked about the Hotel Everland atop the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Then she skipped out of her apartment and took this shot for us so we could see what the Hotel Everland looks like right now. It's no TMZ live feed at the courthouse during Britney Spears' custody/conservatorship/mental illness trial but it's close.
Also Monica offers this bit of advice:
You can't actually visit it from the museum, you have to go on a 12-person-only guided tour at 4pm every day, which is always booked out.
In other news: · If you frequently stay at Excel Inns, you should know they will be run by Wyndham Hotels now. [CNN] · A historic Venice hotel, the scene for the novella "Death in Venice", caught fire last night. 10 rooms were burned.[USA Today] · Showtime wants a piece of HBO's hotel biz. [NYT] · Speaking of Showtime, they will be offering a sneak preview of the new seasons of the "The Tudors" in Sheraton Hotels starting March 16. Umm...our Tudor-obsessed selves in a hotel room watching Jonathan Rhys-Meyers play King Henry VII? Trouble. [Hotel News Resource]
We linked back to a local newscast story in Atlanta back in December who did an expose on those drinking glasses you see in hotel rooms. Check-out the video above.
Now an ABC channel in Arizona has done their own investigation which was featured on "Good Morning America." Most hotels caught using lax "cleaning" practices (for example: drying the glasses using a dirty hand towel) were budget chains and extended-stay chains.
BUT one of the hotels caught with questionable practices was the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, a Waldorf-Astoria collection (which we just wrote about this AM!) Here's the statement from the hotel:
We are extremely concerned to learn that one of our employees was not following the resort's exacting procedures on which they were trained. We have taken immediate action to address this issue, conducting additional training to ensure that every employee not only understands the procedures but consistently follows them.
So paying $6 for bottled water doesn't seem so bad now does it?
In other news: · Fameball dating expert Julia Allison plugs the W Hotels New York Valentine's Day Spin the Bottle shindigs.[Julia Allison] · NJ Nets Richard Jefferson allegedly choked a man at the Infinity Lounge inside the Graves 601 Hotel.[TMZ] · Even the U2 Hotel, The Clarence, in Dublin is not immune to hotel fires. [Digital Spy] · Another hotelier caught saying dubious things. Richard Born may want to bankrupt the Hotel Chelsea [Living with Legends]
For all those who just. can. not. wait for the reopening of the The Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino, along with its "Master Magician", "hottest night spots" and casino, MGM announced they would begin a staggered hotel reopening after the fire on Jan 25th caused extensive damage to the façade and forced the hotel & casino to close until further notice.
Starting on Friday, February 15th, 1,200 rooms will be available for guests, by February 22nd, another 1,300 rooms will be available, and the remaining 500 rooms on the upper floors which were damaged in the fire will be undergoing a much more comprehensive renovation.
In addition to the hotel and casino, Lance Burton's show will re-open again on February 15th, as will most of the resorts retail stores, spa, and convention center.
Unfortunately, those who are hoping to spend a late Valentines Day dinner at the Monte Carlo Brew Pub or Buffet will have to wait - those venues will only open if there is demand for them, but no later than February 22nd.
But thank goodness the Monte Carlo is finally reopening! There was such a glut of glitzy, over the top, ridiculousness in Las Vegas since the fire shut it down.
Whew, the Renaissance Mayflower is having a bang-up year. First former NY governor Eliot Spitzer was revealed to have paid for a pricey session with a call girl in room 871 under the guise of Client No. 9.
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by juliana
