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Hotel Villa Caletas Needs To Quit It With Those Ads For Its Spa and Residences
| July 2, 2009 at 4:02 PM | 0 Comments
We got all Diane Lane “Under the Tuscan Sun” as we pulled up the windy hill to Hotel Villa Caletas in Herraduras, Costa Rica. We’re a sucker for sweeping panoramic views of the Pacific (especially from cliff side vantage points) and all the pomp and circumstance en route led us to believe we were in for something really special. As in five star special – the elite status this misguided member of Small Distinctive Hotels of Costa Rica fancies itself to have. Reality check: three stars is more like it.
We must’ve suffered a bad case of beer goggles, because as soon as we starting paying close attention to our surroundings, it wasn’t all that pretty.
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Suspect Arrested in Tragic Murder At The Hotel Le Bristol
| June 9, 2009 at 4:27 PM | 0 Comments
You know the all publicity being good publicity theory? The Hotel Le Bristol (the one with the cute cars) must be keeping its fingers crossed at the moment. It hit the news the week before last when the body of 36-year-old businesswoman Kinga Legg was discovered by a chambermaid in room 503. (Note: Last week was not a good week for hotel housekeeping. See: David Carradine.)
Luckily for the hotel, at least, it seems that this wasn’t a random attack – her boyfriend, Ian Griffin, was staying with her and went on the run after the murder. And now it looks like justice has been swift – he’s been arrested while sleeping rough in Cheshire in the UK.
Will it affect the Bristol’s popularity? Probably not, unless it turns out he used one of their snappy little cars to make his escape. Let’s hope they get another good celeb story soon.
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Shootout At The Trump Taj Mahal
| May 28, 2009 at 9:50 AM | 0 Comments
Ugh. An employee of the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City was killed yesterday after sustaining gunshot wounds during what appears to have been an attempted robbery at the Casino. The victim, a shift manager who had been working for the hotel since the first day it opened (almost 20 years) died after a frequent patron of the casino shot him in his office.
Eerily, nobody on the casino floor really noticed all the ruckus going on. According to CBS news:
The shooting and its aftermath were not visible from the casino floor, and the gambling hall remained fully open until management shut its table games down Wednesday evening and sent home workers assigned there. Slot machines remained open.
Yeah. Gotta keep those slots open, no matter what, apparently.
This is the latest in a string of unfortunate incidents at the hotel: in January, there was an 11-hour standoff with a man waving a gun around and, in February, the hotel filed for Chapter 11.
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Inside Caesars Las Vegas Augustus Tower: Checking-In
| May 12, 2009 at 5:16 PM | 0 Comments
We want to make something clear upfront: Caesars Palace Las Vegas Hotel has a great nightclub, some tasty restaurants, and the best sports book on the strip.
Yet while we know check-in mix ups can happen at any hotel, when they happen late at night--after a long flight--you tend to not be quite as forgiving.
Luckily, you get to learn from our experience so the next time a Vegas hotel tells you your reservation is not good, our sister site VegasChatter has got your back. Oh, and of course, our full review, which focuses on the aforementioned check-in incident is below.
Check In
Sometimes you check into a hotel, reservation confirmation code in hand, but the hotel doesn't have a room for you. So what do we expect in this situation? A comparable room. That is it. Apparently Caesars doesn't feel the same way.
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Confirmed: A Week of Quarantine In a Hong Kong Hotel Is Not Awesome
| May 4, 2009 at 10:53 AM | 0 Comments
This morning, we were perusing the ol' headlines and noticed a very special one out of Hong Kong that read, "Quarantined guests at Hong Kong hotel get free accommodations." Well, um, yeah — we would assume that the 300-or-so people holed up in the MetroPark Hotel on a seven-day quarantine (due to a confirmed case of swine flu in a hotel guest) wouldn't have to pay for their rooms.
And as awesome as seven free nights in a pretty nice hotel might sound, rest assured that the quarantined guests are not having the time of their lives. Today's Wall Street Journal ran a dispatch from a guest on the inside of the hotel, who calls the seal-up her "seven-day 'life in prison.'
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Hong Kong Hotel Quarantined Due to Swine Flu Case
| May 1, 2009 at 4:37 PM | 3 Comments
Oh noes. Here comes the first report of a hotel completely sealed off because a guest staying there has been diagnosed with swine flu. Seriously. An entire hotel is under quarantine for seven days.
BBC News reports:
About 300 people at a Hong Kong hotel have been placed under quarantine after a guest there became China's first confirmed swine flu case.
The 25-year-old man, who is now in hospital after testing positive for the virus, had travelled from Mexico via Shanghai, Hong Kong's leader said. Local TV footage showed police wearing masks guarding the hotel exits.
Guh. Can you even imagine being sealed up in your hotel for seven days? Talk about hotel hell.
The Mexican man who was diagnosed with the virus sought treatment at a hospital on Thursday evening, and his hotel — The Metropark Hotel — is now under a seven-day quarantine, and Tamiflu had been given to the 200 guests and 100 staff inside.
[Photo: Reuters]
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The Scariest Thing That Could Happen at an Airport Hotel...
| April 22, 2009 at 1:26 PM | 0 Comments
This is the stuff of nightmares. Via a story reprinted over at Hotels Mag, we just caught wind of an incident in Ireland that is really, really terrifying: Recently-released reports have now confirmed that a commercial jet narrowly avoided disaster in 2007 when it flew towards a Dublin airport hotel after the pilot mistook its rooftop lights for a runway. Seriously.
From a story printed in the Herald today:
The plane, with 112 passengers and six crew, started its approach to Dublin Airport at around 23.24hrs on August 16, 2007. Weather and visibility were good [...] At around five miles from touchdown, the aircraft began to deviate left of the approach course.
The Aviatjet plane was just 200ft above the height of the hotel before the pilot took corrective action, less than 570 yards from the building. "The aircraft continued to descend below the minimum descent altitude, without proper visual identification of the runway in use, and continued to descend to an altitude of 580ft above mean sea level, before executing a go-around," the report said.
Can this happen? Seriously? Apparently, these reports reveal that the pilot had mistakenly identified the lights of the hotel — which has been identified as the Days Hotel Dublin Airport — with the approach lights of the runway he was supposed to be landing on.
Um, this should never happen. Ever.
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Boston Hotel 'Craigslist Killer' Arrested
| April 21, 2009 at 8:56 AM | 0 Comments
Wow. Surprising news out of Boston today: police have tracked down and arrested the man they suspect to be behind the two attacks we mentioned last week that took place in the Marriott Copley Place and the Westin Copley Hotel.
One victim was attacked and robbed, the other was shot and killed. Both victims had advertised services on Craigslist — earning the suspect the nickname 'Craigslist Killer' — and the manhunt ended yesterday.
Police arrested (surprisingly) a 22-year-old BU Medical School student who was traced based on "forensic evidence including fingerprints, electronic evidence, and photographs of the suspect taken by hotel surveillance cameras," according to the Boston Globe. The young, clean-cut-looking med student was arrested yesterday and will be arraigned today.
Let this be a lesson to all of us: while he is off the streets (yay!), we can never be too careful when it comes to hotel safety.
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Yet Another Reason to Steer Clear of Hotel Parking
| April 20, 2009 at 8:56 AM | 0 Comments
We've made our distaste for hotel parking quite clear here in the past. When we're paying (usually) more than 20 bucks a night to keep our car at our hotel, we expect our shiz to be taken care of properly by the valet — and yet, day after day, we hear horror stories about leaving cars in hotel custody. There's the story about the valet who racked up parking tickets and stuck the guest with the bill; there's the one who took a $284,000 Lamborghini out for a spin and then, um, completely lost the car altogether.
And then there's the valet parker who drove a car straight into a hotel. Whoops.
According to the Miami Herald:
Five people were injured after a valet at a landmark hotel inadvertently put a car in reverse, sending it through a set of double doors and into the hotel lobby. The crash happened Thursday at the Casa Monica hotel in downtown St. Augustine, a castle-like structure built in 1888.
Officials said two men were standing near the doors when a Honda crashed into the lobby, flinging glass and plants across the room and knocking paintings from the wall.
According to reports, the staffer behind the wheel thought he'd put the car in park and hit the brake — but, unfortunately, he'd put the car in reverse and hit the gas. Oy.
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Boston Police Search for Marriott and Westin Hotel Killer
| April 17, 2009 at 9:16 AM | 0 Comments
Ugh. Frightening news out of Boston this week: police in Beantown are searching for a man who attacked two female victims at two upscale Boston hotels, killing one.
Julissa Brisman from New York City was staying at the Marriott Copley Place and had, apparently, advertised herself as a masseuse on Craigslist.
Per an AP report:
Police said they think she was fighting an attacker during an attempted robbery when he shot her several times in the torso. And the same person may have been involved in the robbery last week of a woman at the Westin Copley Hotel, Police Commissioner Edward Davis said.
The victim at the Westin was bound with a plastic cord and robbed of a debit card and $800 in cash; she had also advertised massage services on Craigslist, but police believe she was involved in prostitution.
People: be safe in your hotel rooms. It doesn't matter where you are or what kind of hotel you're in — you've gotta be smart. Oh, and be careful with your Craigslisting.
Tags: Hotel Hell / Snapshot / Capsule Hotels / → All Tags
Be Careful Which Button You Push in Your Capsule Hotel Pod
| April 16, 2009 at 11:31 AM | 2 Comments
Whoopsie daisy. Here's an example of, um, too-easy, anything-you-want-at-the-touch-of-a-button hotel technology gone awry. Or just an unfortunate incident in a Japanese capsule hotel (one that, for a change, does not involve passing gas).
Flickr user Omer van Kloeten posted this snapshot of what appears to maybe be a lightswitch (or something) inside his pod at a Japanese capsule hotel. Um, however:
In an effort to find the light switch (which ended up being the last one I tried), I pressed this one, which turned out to be the porno pay per view channels. Only later did I notice that the note above it said, among other things, 300円 (yen).
Oh noes. We probably would have done the same thing thinking it was a lightswitch. That's what we'd call a total Hotel FML, right? Except that 300 Yen is, like, 3 US dollars. So, eh.
[Photo: Omer van Kloeten]
Tags: Business Travel Hotels / J Jennings Moss / Buenos Aires Hotel / Hotel Hell / → All Tags
Not Much Cool at the Five Cool Rooms
| April 15, 2009 at 4:26 PM | 0 Comments
Allow us to introduce our newest contributor. J. Jennings Moss has started a new business travel blog over at Portfolio.com which focuses on business travel. Recently, he scoped out the hotel scene in Buenos Aires. Got any questions about biz travel? Send 'em to us and we'll have him answer them for you.
Don't be fooled by the name. There isn't much that's "cool" about the Five Cool Rooms Hotel in Buenos Aires.
A disclosure to begin with: Five Cool Rooms was not our first choice for a boutique hotel. That honor, based on reviews in HotelChatter and word-of-mouth from friends, was Home Hotel. But Home was booked during our trip in early April, and we were swayed by the generally positive write-ups we’d seen of Five Cool Rooms, as well as by its advertising and jazzy website.
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