Gibraltar, the British-owned peninsula on the southern border of Spain, is famous for its Barbary apes, which tourists love to attempt to take pictures with, only to be peed on or have their wallets stolen by the wily creatures. But these monkeys are now in the process of being culled, partially for messing with the wrong people: hotel guests.
Rooms at Gibraltar's Caleta Hotel recently were vandalized by a "rogue pack" of the apes scouring for food. "What has to stop is the damage that apes are doing to Gibraltar--private properties and individuals--without anyone taking responsibility for it," the hotel's general manager Franco Ostuni recently told Reuters.
Of course, animal rights groups are in a tizzy over this, with the International Primate Protection League (who knew there was such a thing?) calling for tourists to boycott Gibraltar if the cull continues. So we wonder, would such a thing make you curtail your travel plans? Or are you more apt to book a room at the Caleta Hotel now?
Because if the Capitol Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC really wanted you to work out, they wouldn't ask you to cough up $10 to use their fitness center.
This is what happened recently to a hotel guest:
They charged ten dollars for the gym. Is that normal in the States now? The whole place was pretty mouldy to be honest. Unfriendly and inefficient service.
May we add that this was a hotel guest who was staying there and not some schmoe off the street?
Typically we hear of gym fees at big resorts and at the Vegas casino-hotels but for a Hilton in Washington, DC, this sounds pretty silly. And with rooms starting around $300 a night, it's practically a crime to charge guests to stay in shape.
That said, silver, diamond or gold Hilton Honors member get to use the gym gratis.
During today's lesson you may get a bit choked up, find your body temperature rising and a shiver shooting down your spine. If you haven't guessed already, we're talking about Legionnaires disease, symptoms of which include coughing, high fever and chills.
Similar to pneumonia, Legionnaires was first identified in 1976 and got its name after a spate of guests at what is now the Park Hyatt Philadelphia--who happened to be attending an American Legion convention--contracted the disease. It was later discovered the bacteria spawned from the hotel's cooling tower.
Why should you care? Because Vermont's Cortina Inn & Resort was closed yesterday after water tests showed evidence of the bacteria, confirming it as a source of recent cases. It is not yet known when the hotel will reopen, thereby squashing any hopes hotel guests may have had of catching the last ski runs of the season.
Hotels without climate control systems are known breeding grounds for the disease, but lest you think quaint country inns like the Cortina are only susceptible (we're unawares if the hotel has climate control), the last reported outbreak of Legionnaires occurred as recently as last month, at a Quality Inn in Orlando.
Perhaps climate control could be the hot new amenity hotels can start touting?
Simon Van Kempen, general manager of the Hotel Chandler and star of The Real Housewives of Manhattan, better get his pipes checked. We mean, at the hotel of course.
A 79-woman is suing the hotel for negligence to the tune of $79 million after a too-hot shower caused her to faint. The Houston Chronicle reports:
Ethel Tropez, a Hurricane Katrina refugee from New Orleans who lives in Live Oak, Texas, says in court papers she was badly burned and suffered scarring and disfigurement in the mishap on March 29, 2007, in the Hotel Chandler. The hotel, where deluxe rooms go for up to $510 a night, is on East 31st Street near Fifth Avenue, three blocks south of the Empire State Building.
When the paper interview Van Kempen, he said "no idea about any of this." His response is still being awaited.
Is there a real-life Ocean's 13 team working in Vegas? Casino bosses certainly hope not.
But no one can explain how a transformer at an intersection on the south end of the strip caught fire last night at 8pm, leaving four hotels without power for 90 minutes. The Luxor, The Excalibur, The Mandalay Bay and The Four Seasons were all affected. There are some reports of guests getting stuck in the elevators, which is personally our biggest fear ever.
A tornado roared through downtown Atlanta on Friday night, damaging the city's convention center, the Georgia Dome (which was hosting the SEC basketball tournament) and Centennial Olympic Park. The storms left two people dead and caused about $150 million in damage to city buildings.
On the hotel front, when such a large convention center is damaged, adjacent hotels dependent on the center's business suffer as well.
Walls said that guests were relocated in the hotel or to another hotel after the storm, but that there were no injuries. The hotel's glass elevator, located on the outside of the building, was also damaged.
Yet another hotel got hit much worse. The Omni Hotel at CNN Center had about 467 of its 1,067 rooms damaged by the tornado (above). The hotel has downsized to 50 percent of its normal capacity while the Westin remains fully functional.
It's not just us and Garfield that hate Mondays. Hotels do too. Here's a look at how Monday is biting hotels in the ass today:
· Gas leak at the National Hotel in South Beach on 17th and Collins, leave guests seeking treatment for carbon dioxide poisoning. [CBS4] · Fire breaks out at the site of the Mandarin Oriental Boston construction. [Boston Globe] · Hotels won't be making as much money in 2008 [BTN Mag] · Australia's luxury hotel workers have the nation's worst "injury rates for women, spiralling workloads, bullying and more low-paying jobs." [The Australian] · Guess what? Monica and Bill totally hugged at the Mayflower Hotel, now known as Spitzer's call girl meeting place. [NY Daily News]
TripAdvisor has just published a hot-list of the top 10 Dirtiest Hotels in the US and UK.
The one that touched our hearts is the Europa Gatwick in Crawley, near Gatwick Airport in the UK, because we had the misfortune to grow up there.
The Europa is currently only 4th on the list, but we reckon the fact of being located in one of the most revolting towns in the UK would bump it right up to the top.
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by jennm
Because if the 
