HotelChatter

Tags: Hotel Lust / Africa Hotels / Luxury Hotels / Cape Town Hotels / → All Tags

This Week in Hotel Lust: White Picket Fences at Cape Town's Mount Nelson

Where: 76 Orange Street, Cape Town, South Africa, 8000

This week, a combination of wanderlust and hotel lust led us to research the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa, which a roving HotelChatter correspondent briefly had the chance to visit last year. We deemed Mount Nelson worth a second look from afar, because of the consistent buzz it garners for its exaggerated sense of luxury. Then again, if it weren't exaggerated it wouldn't be lust-worthy, would it?

Fat cats who travel to areas of the world deemed "exotic" aren't usually in the game of roughing it. Maybe they've come for a safari, but they better be welcomed home at the end of the day by plush linens at the very least.

No need to worry about that at Mount Nelson, where Garden Cottages located away from the main hotel building offer grown-up Richie/Regina Riches their very own white picket fence, rose garden, marble bathrooms, and use of an adults-only pool. Socialite's kids can be notoriously snotty, so this division of property is welcomed by singles and child-free couples alike. The price of privacy: approximately $1,478 per night, according to listed rates and our currency conversion.

more ›

Tags: Hotel Lust / India Hotels / Luxury Hotels / Beach Hotels / Beach Resorts / → All Tags

This Week in Hotel Lust: The Leela Kempinski Goa

Where: Mobor, Cavelossim, Goa, India, 403 731

Goa, India is an attractive resort state associated with equal parts bohemianism and luxury frills. Spirituality seeking backpackers enjoy it just as much as their richer-than-rich counterparts, who have a good number of opulent hotels to choose from as the tourism industry has taken off over the years.

The Leela operates a family of high-end hotels in some of the country's most popular destinations, among them Bangalore, Udiapur, and Goa, of course. It's the latter that we're focusing on in this installment of "This Week Hotel in Lust," with plenty of near-royal touches to qualify among the ranks of last week's Villa D'Este in Italy. And we do mean "royal"—they've had the audacity to include the word "Palace" in their name, a buzzword for anyone hoping to live the high life while traveling abroad.

more ›

Tags: Hotel Lust / Italy Hotels / Luxury Hotels / Royal Hotels / → All Tags

This Week In Hotel Lust: Villa D'Este, Lake Como

Where: Via Regina, 40, Cernobbio, Lombardy, Italy, 22012 Lake

Views of the lake and villa

If comments made in recent months by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are to be believed, then "the recession is very likely over." Most of us continue to scoff in disbelief, and inversely, there are others that may have missed the memo that the economy was in upheaval at all. We're talking about the well-monied types that have continued to swipe their Black AmEx cards with reckless abandon—on Michelin-rated dinners, sports cars, and certainly pricey vacations and hotel suites.

Even for those of us sans trust funds or Swiss bank accounts, reading about what's luxe in the hotel world proves to be endlessly entertaining. It could inspire fantasies about staying in the $15,000 Imperial Suite at Paris' Park-Hyatt Vendome, or lead to a few "you must be kidding me" laughs.

So, we're going to seek out exclusive resorts and amenities the world over and highlight what the luxury hotel world has to offer. Yes, we'll be confessing our Hotel Lust to you all, starting with the Villa D'Este in Italy.

more ›

Tags: Cubicle Dreamin' / Conrad Hotels / Maldives Hotels / Hotel Lust / → All Tags

Cubicle Dreamin': The Lust for Conrad Maldives is Never-Ending

Where: Rangali Island, Sourth Ari Atoll, Maldives

Cubicle Dreamin' is a feature in which we ask the hotel mavens to take some time out of their busy work day, surf the Internet, and tell us what hotel they wish they could beam themselves to right that very second--all on the slave driving companies dime, of course. Oh, like these people aren't surfing aimlessly anyway--at least now their purposeless clicking will be cobbled together into useful hotel stories--we hope. Have a destination hotel you are just dying to leave your cube for? Send the story our way.

In this episode, Hotel Maven Jennifer Merritt heads to the Maldives...in her head. Enjoy.

Ever since a PR person's pitch for the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island arrived in my inbox, I cannot stop thinking about this place--and that was a year and a half ago.

Set on two private islands accessible only by seaplane, the hotel is surrounded by coral reef and a lagoon. It features an all-glass, undersea restaurant, two spas and various levels of luxury water villas scattered throughout miles and miles of white sandy beaches.

more ›