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Why One Guest Won't Be Staying at The Delano For Art Basel
But it looks so pretty!
The Delano is on the list for Art Basel's preferred hotels and if you're interested in staying there during the art fair it will cost you $825 a night, before tax.
But given what happened there last year during Art Basel, one guest is not returning. A tipster wrote into us with her account of The Delano during Art Basel:
My stay at the Delano in '08 was anything but posh. Two mornings in a row I woke up to no hot water, to make matter worse I was at Art Basel for work.
The hotel said a pipe burst and after I complained they took 50% off one night. They assured me it would be fixed, but the next morning still no hot water. What did they give me that day, free breakfast, but no adjustment to the bill.
Needless to say, I will not stay there this year which brings me to my second tip for HotelChatter. There is a campsite available for use in Miami during Art Basel, does this mean the show has finally jumped the shark?
Tags: Hotel Hell / Swine Flu Hotels / Romania Hotels / Hotel Sick / Hotel News / → All Tags
Swine Flu Hotel Closes After 40 People Become Ill
Earlier this year when swine flu first erupted, 280 people were quarantined at the MetroPark Hotel in Hong Kong, we lightly dubbed it a Swine Flu Hotel. But now we have a real Swine Flu Hotel.
Hotel Sinaia, a resort in the mountains of Sinaia, Romania, has been closed after 40 Romainian and foreign law students attending a conference caught the dreaded H1N1 virus.
Health state secretary Adrian Streinu-Cercel says 40 people were hospitalized Sunday in Bucharest, suffering from medium to severe forms of the flu.
Tags: Hotel Renovations / Hotel Hell / Viceroy Hotels / Santa Monica Hotels / → All Tags
Viceroy Santa Monica Will Be Getting a Renovation
The other day we took a look at What's on The Block at the Viceroy Santa Monica, a happening hotel near the beach that is always giving us good enough excuses to get drunk on a random weekday.
But could it be that the guests are also partying too hard? A commenter on our story pointed us to his TripAdvisor review which showed an Empire Suite (about $640 a night) in seriously worn down condition. Cigarette burns in the carpet, wrecked furniture and low shower head pressure were some of the complaints.
Needless to say our commenter was pretty unhappy about having paid so much for just a so-so room. We were sort of shocked ourselves since we've stayed in a regular room not too long ago and the room, while definitely not brand, spanking new, it was in good condition.
We asked the hotel's rep if they could comment on the situation for us and they told us they would answer the TripAdvisor review instead. Here's what Caroline Dyal, Director of Hotel Operations, wrote:
Tags: Hotel Hell / Hilton Hotels / Sharm El Sheikh Hotels / Egypt Hotels / → All Tags
Why We Won't Be Staying at the Hilton Fayrouz in Sharm El Sheikh
Let us preface this post by saying that we are not hotel snobs. We can take just as much pleasure in spending the night in a bamboo shack on the beach (more of that tomorrow) as we do checking out the latest fancypants hotel (although we’ll make sure we’re wearing full-cover, Damian Barr-style PJs in the shack – just to make sure of those sheets).
However, if a hotel is trading under a brand like, oh, say, Hilton, we do expect it to be a certain standard. And that standard is a little higher than a lobby that makes us want to run straight back to the airport:
Tags: Hotel Hell / Hotel Crime / Hotel Safety / Hotel News / TownPlace Suites / Erin Andrews / → All Tags
Hotel Peeping Toms Not Limited to Pretty Sportscasters
We were just starting to get over the uncomfortable idea that the creepy stalker of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was actually helped on his perv mission by a hotel staffer when we came across this news last night--a family staying at a TownPlaces Suites Hotel outside Denver were also the victims of a hidden camera placed inside their hotel room.
Robert Reams and his family checked into their hotel room during a vacation in August. But while they were there, they had no idea that someone was watching them. WOWT TV reports:
From a hole nearly invisible to the eye, David Fugate was in the room with the family. The hole caught the attention of a hotel employee after the family checked out. "The maintenance people poked a pin in the hole and it poked back. They went and got a knife and cut it open to look inside," says Reams. "When they looked inside the wall they found a camera." Fugate had been observing the Reams family from an adjacent room using a wireless camera.
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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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Bermondsey Square Hotel Gets a Roasting For its Restaurant
Poor old Bermondsey Square Hotel. Things were looking so great for it before it launched, but it simply doesn’t seem to have lived up to expectations. We didn’t think much of it when we went round in May. Neither did the Observer, which published a particularly scathing review.
And now Time Out has joined the sorry chorus with its review of the hotel’s restaurant, Alfie’s. First up, the decor: “the only thing swinging about it is a hanging ball chair,” they say. “The rest of it is very slick, in a hotel restaurant sort of way.” Ouch!
As for the food – the “determinedly British” menu (ham and eggs, coronation prawns) gets a mixed reception, but the “definitely British” service earns a big thumbs down. The verdict? “Average food, average service, a sarky chef and a £70 bill”.
Hmm. Wonder how long it’s going to last?
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NH Hotels Runs Ad With Child in Bikini; Gets Banned
Oopsies – we may have been impressed by NH Hotels this week for plugging their cheap rooms and offering us a dream holiday, but they’ve got in a teensy bit of trouble elsewhere – the UK advertising watchdog has just banned one of their ads because they reckon it showed a child in a “sexually provocative pose”.
The picture was part of an email campaign and series of ads called The Organizers (ridiculous tagline “an organized group with a license to save”). Supposedly, the ads have been promoting good deals – although we found them so baffling, seeing as they seemed to consist of photos of models rather than telling us what the deals were, that we never realised this, and used to just hit delete.
Tags: Budget Hotels / Ibis Hotels / Etap Hotels / Golden Tulip Hotels / Travelodge Hotels / Holiday Inns / Hotel Hell / → All Tags
The Five Worst Budget Brands In Europe
You’re headed to Europe and despite all the talk about airline deals, getting there has eaten up a lot of your budget. So you're going to stay on the cheap. Yesterday, we listed our Five Best Budget Brands in Europe so that you will know the best hotels to hit up and what you get for your money.
But you also need to know which ones to avoid. Sure, the prices are right at these budget brands but there are times you may want to pay a little more for your peace of mind.
Tags: Hotel News / Crowne Plaza Hotels / Hotel Hell / → All Tags
The Crowne Plaza Secaucus Not Helping The Dirty Jersey Stereotypes
We were born and raised in the Garden State and it's always been understood that Secaucus just smells bad. Imagine bringing your boyfriend home to meet your family and a few minutes after you leave Newark Airport, he's assaulted by a pungent stench in the air. Nervously, you tell him: "Oh that's just Secaucus. It always smells like that. Out where we live, it doesn't smell at all." Then you continue to blame Secaucus for any other bad smells he encounters in New Jersey.
But it's true. Secaucus has always smelled bad, due to the landfills in the area and decades of environmental abuse that the marshlands have suffered. Fortunately, in recent years there's been a large environmental rescue effort going on here to save the marshlands from being just a nasty dumping ground. So when a hotel is accused of pumping sewage into the area's Hackensack River, it's pretty shocking--even for Jersey.
The Crowne Plaza Secaucus has been charged by the New Jersey state attorney general with just that--dumping wastewater contaminated with sewage into the Hackensack River, a flagrant violation of the New Jersey Water Pollution Control Act. The Star-Ledger reports:
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Great Scuba, Sucky Service at Captain Don's Habitat
Think all press trips are free caviar and roses? Think again. What happens when a hotel invites a writer to cover their hotel for multiple publications and she ends up itching and scratching?
Though HotelChatter does not usually accept comp'd stay reviews, this was a situation we thought you needed to know about. After all, as GlobeTrotting Gourmet says: "if this is how the concerns of hosted media guests of the hotel are met, what can other guests expect?"
As an R&R/dive-centric island destination, we think Bonaire is the bee’s knees. However, events that unraveled during our recent stay at Captain Don’s Habitat during a hosted press trip really set the bar for how not to handle customer relations.
We get that Bonaire is not a destination for luxury-seekers. It’s all about the ocean, aquatic creatures and coral reefs. We like it that way. We’re more than happy to make certain concessions in creature comforts and amenities in the interest of enjoying this island paradise free of big box, high-rise hotels. We expect the occasional stray spider, gecko or bug in our room – it’s the Caribbean, duh. But what we cannot handle is a hotel that cuts corners on cleanliness and comes up short on customer service.
This is where the subpar part of our stay at Captain Don’s Habitat comes into play.
Tags: Anti-View / Hard Rock Hotels / Hotel Fees / Hotel Hell / → All Tags
The Paradise Tower Paved Paradise and Showed Guests a Parking Garage
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
We really hate to do two of the same anti-views in a row but this one from the Hard Rock Hotel's new Paradise Tower is worse than last week's construction eyesore.
A recent guest sent us these photos, which not only show the crap view that some rooms get of the Employee Parking lot but also just how much wear and tear the hotel rooms have suffered--and the hotel just opened on July 31st!
The disappointed guest writes:
I checked into a room at the new Paradise Tower at the Hard Rock yesterday, and found it to be a prefect specimen for your "anti-view" segment. Though I’ve never taken photos of a hotel room before, this one I couldn’t resist.
The room number was 30521. It was supposed to be a "mountain/ city view," but I’d categorize it as an "employee parking lot view," or, "some random guy’s Dodge Ram view." They have draconian policies (like a $100 an hour charge for late check-outs beyond 11AM), and they really don’t keep the place up (the old tower is in shambles).
Frankly, the only reason to even consider staying there is to go to Rehab (their Sunday pool party). Otherwise, the place is ridiculously expensive and has horrible service and food options.
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