Calling all health-nuts, meatheads and normal people who enjoy working out: the first two Renaissance ClubSport properties have opened in Cali -- the first in Walnut Creek and the second more recently in Aliso Viejo corporate park.
Marriott and NorCal health club development firm Leisure Sports, Inc. have teamed up to create the new concept, which essentially boasts the same higher-end features of most Renaissance properties with monster fitness offerings.
We heard whispers last week that the David Barton Gym at the Gansevoort South wouldn't open on time this month and today we have confirmation--an email to all Miami members about the delay from DB himself.
Hammers are swinging, dust is flying and equipment is being polished and readied for delivery. Because of a backlog at the Building Department, construction is now scheduled for an April completion and official opening in mid-May. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience this delay may cause and I promise that in May you'll be pumping away in the best gym you've ever been to.
For current DBG members, they can workout inside the Flamingo South Beach which houses a much smaller facility. The club is also offering outdoor workout programs on the beach at the hotel until the gym opens.
As for the hotel, reservations are still being taken for select rooms on March 24th. But we don't expect much to be open aside from that. Let's hope the building dept. backlog was just for the gym and not for the hotel as well.
The Hilton New York has just completed a renovation of its 8,000-square foot glass-domed fitness facility that features floor-to-ceiling windows offering you killer views as you break a sweat.
The renovation added cushion flooring, Precor cardiovascular machines with personal entertainment on each machine and some new strength-training equipment. But have no fear if you fear working out in public. The hotel also offers private in-room yoga and Pilates workouts.
And for you Movie Set Hotel junkies the fitness center was used in a scene of Michael Clayton starring George Clooney.
The Gansevoort South Beach is aiming for a mid-February opening but we don't know for sure if that will really happen. However, if you want to snag a membership to the exclusive David Barton Gym before it opens on March 1, now is the time.
The gym which was once a part of the Delano Hotel, is offering a special pre-sale rate of $75 per month along with a $75 fee to reserve membership. The gym and membership will include:
unlimited kickboxing, spinning, krav maga (an Israeli fighting art), yoga and pilates. There will be 5 designated studios for these special trainings.
There is a 10,000 square foot spa with aromatherapy steam rooms and sauna. There are 2 Gourmet 5 Star restaurants and three beachfront swimming pools.
This all sounds incredibly impressive. Gym rats in Miami never had it so good! However, we still don't know if hotel guests will be able to use the gym for free or for a fee. A hotel rep said they are working out the details.
We hope it's free of course because we all want to, in the words of the David Barton gym motto, "look better naked." And FYI: That's David Barton in the picture above.
We found this funny/disturbing video on YouTube of a step aerobics class at the Hotel Melas. We're not quite sure which Hotel Melas it is but we have a feeling it's the one in Turkey.
However, if people doing step aerobics in bikinis and banana hammocks makes you ill, the TripAdvisor reviews on this place report several guests getting ill with diarrhea and dehydration. Yuck. Btw if you can bare it (heh, heh), this same YouTube user has a video of people doing the macarena...yup again in their bathing suits.
When Wyndham Hotels recently announced plans to kick up their amenities and rework their spa concept to "appeal to Gen X and Boomer travelers," we were not so excited.
In most hotels, this generally means having some sort of iPod docking station and introducing weird packages for divorcees.
But then we heard burgers and wine were involved in this Wyndham stuff, so we investigated.
Central and friendly, but a bit on the expensive side for what you get, has been the general opinion on the Sydney Hilton of late. But now it's got something extra going for it: as well as having Australia's largest hotel gym, it's now been awarded the prize as the 2007 Health Club Facilities of the Year by the Australian Hotels Association.
It's no ordinary hotel gym, having already the quite big name of the LivingWell Premier Health Club, and a big bunch of facilities to match:
Spanning the entire footprint of the Hilton building, LivingWell includes a 25m indoor pool, cardiovascular gymnasium equipped with a free weights area and the latest interactive equipment ... There are also four saunas, steam rooms, a large spa pool and pampering treatments from The Sensory, LivingWell's beauty concept.
And use of the gym, unlike at some money hungry hotels, is a free service for any Hilton guests. Some might say pounding the beaches of Sydney or climbing the Harbour Bridge is enough exercise, but if you're a gym junkie, it's the place to stay.
This one's for the road warrior who can't bear to miss a day of working out while traveling.
The Athletic Minded Traveler has put together their eleven Best Hotel Gyms for 2006. Looking over the 3,000 hotel gyms in the U.S. (but we assume, not actually testing them) the ranking is based on gyms that have the best facility size, equipment options, mult-sport options (like a pool) and overall ambience/atmosphere.
Or as they describe it:
On very rare occasions we stumble upon a hotel gym that rattles our sweat-craving souls and excites our aerobically fit tickers the moment we walk in. Finding one of these treasures is our "kid in the candy store" moment. And the only action that delights us more than uncovering one of these exercise utopias is relaying the discovery to our fellow athletic-minded travelers.
See which hotels made the AMT people practically orgasm during their workout after the jump.
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by Jenna
