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Inside J.W. Marriott Grosvenor House in London: This Is Luxury?
We just got back from London, and as you can see from our review of the Dean Street Townhouse, we slept around the hotels a fair bit. Our longest stop however, was at the J.W. Marriott Grosvenor House, where we spent three nights right on the edge of Hyde Park in the posh Mayfair neighborhood, on a row with other 5-star hotels like The Dorchester, The Metropolitan and The Intercontinental.
To tell the truth, the location was of course the best part about the hotel, and we would have been disappointed with the value for the money if we had paid full price ($350 a night) for the stay, but instead we scored it with our last ditch resort—a "Name Your Own Price" Priceline search that yielded us the unbeatable rate of $160 a night for this 5-star hotel in London.
So what was wrong and what was right with the place? Find out after the jump
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Inside The Fairmont Battery Wharf Hotel in Boston
Last week we revisited our old stomping grounds in Boston and decided to shack up at the Fairmont Battery Wharf Hotel. With all these new hotels in town (like the Ames and the W), our Boston hotel standards have been ratcheted up quite a bit. Yet the Fairmont didn't wow us.
It wasn't that we didn't have a pleasant stay, we did. It isn't that we had a terrible view--watch the video to see our killer view--but if you are looking for a wow factor in a Boston hotel, move along.
Come to think of it, residence hotels hardly ever excite us, so this hotel is not alone. However, if you are looking for a quiet, comfortable place to stay with good, free connectivity (just sign up for the Fairmont Presidents Club) and service that feels more personal (think high end residence doorman type stuff) than big hotel brand, you will be happy with the Fairmont Battery Wharf.
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Inside The Dean Street Townhouse, The Newest Soho House Hotel
The moment that we read that the chic members-only Soho House group was opening a new hotel in London with room rates starting at 90 GBP ($143), we hustled over to their website and booked a 95 GBP ($151) run-of-house special rate, which pretty much left room choice up to the front desk. However, we did check the availability calendar again on their site a few days before arriving, and our Saturday night was indeed sold out. Thus, we're pretty sure we slept in their infamously named "Broom Cupboard" room.
The hotel, a fresh 39-room townhouse in the heart of London's Soho, is appropriately named the Dean Street Townhouse, and it delights in homey chintz and handing guests heavy-keychained door keys, just like in the olden days before programmable key cards.
After the jump, the full review of our stay in a "broom cupboard"
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Inside the Thompson Beverly Hills Hotel
The other week we were a little dismayed to find that while we've been inside almost every hotel in Los Angeles, we were lacking a little on the Hotel Video Tours, compared to other cities like New York and Las Vegas.
Then we remembered we had this gem from last November of the Thompson Beverly Hills Hotel.
This is room 817, a king deluxe with a bathroom that looks nearly identical to the hotel's sister property in New York, 60 Thompson. In fact, if you shut the bathroom door you could pretend you were in NYC. Except you have a little bit more wiggle room.
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Inside the Hotel Missoni Edinburgh's Lobby Bar and Restaurant
We've already taken you on a tour of our room inside of the first (and currently only) Missoni Hotel in Edinburgh, but a look at a hotel with this much detail and vibrancy wouldn't be complete without a tour of the public spaces.
Although we opted not to add the breakfast onto our room bill, we still explored the hotel's Cucina Restaurant, the lobby bar/lounge, and we even made it to the small gym on the hotel's second floor, which is called the first floor in Europe. We were thrilled to see that the Missoni touch was not lost on anything, and even the gym featured brightly-painted walls, Missoni towels, and the quirky addition of a mini Smeg refrigerator. You'll only find our tour of reception and the bar in the video above, but after the jump, we've got a full gallery of all the public spaces inside of the Missoni Hotel Edinburgh.
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Inside the Element Las Vegas
Back in December we told you all about the amazing free breakfast that Element Las Vegas had on hand for its guests. We decided then and there that this was the future of free hotel breakfasts. Delicioso!
But we totally forgot to show you inside the rooms. So here you are. This is a one-bedroom suite that we nabbed for $89 a night. As you can see, these rooms are meant to make extended-stay guests feel at home. It comes with a living room area, a desk, a full kitchen and a hideaway table that can seat four to six people.
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Inside The First (And Only) Hotel Missoni, In Edinburgh
Clothe yourself in your best Italian knitwear and hunker down for this story, since we're taking you inside of one of the most anticipated new hotels: The Hotel Missoni in Edinburgh, Scotland. After making a special detour to Edinburgh just to get up in the place during a European trip last week, we now have tons of photos and the room tour video above to share; the largest look at this fashion hotel, the first in what will become a worldwide chain.
We stayed for two nights, after scoring an unbeatable advance purchase rate of $130 per night on Orbitz. Considering how their usual nightly price is closer to $250, we already counted this a bargain, but would their interiors and service live up to the hype and our expectations? We broke out our Missoni scarf and headed for Scotland to see...
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Inside the Presidential Villa at The Sunset Marquis
The other month we were fortunate enough to get a tour of the Sunset Marquis' presidential villa and it is loaded with services to pamper the richest rock star, the richest movie mogul, the richest tech guru or the richest anybody, really.
The Sunset Marquis has always been known as a "hidden hotel," tucked below the Sunset Strip but the two-story, two-bedroom oasis that is the Presidential Villa is even further elusive, hidden at the back of the hotel's property and accessible from the underground garage by a private elevator. If privacy is your main desire here, these luxe digs will deliver.
Of course, the suite will deliver a few other things as well.
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As The Andaz Wall Street Cube Closet Turns...
And now we come to the close of what has been like unofficial Andaz Wall Street opening week here on HotelChatter. You've seen the rooms, you've vicariously tasted the cocktails, and now? Well, now you can twirl the spinning cube closet with us.
While touring the hotel this week, we held up traffic for a moment in one of the deluxe rooms, determined to really get a feel for this David Rockwell-designed piece of space-saving brilliance by capturing it on video. Thanks go out to our helper doing the spinning, and to the Andaz, for making us covet a piece of hotel furniture so freaking much.
All four sides of the spinning cube closet are utilized; there's the minibar, the robe and slippers nook, the full closet, and ginormous mirror. The Andaz is now officially added to our list of hotels with mirrors that can enhance sexytime—just point it at the bed...or the shower...or the bathtub. You get the picture.
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Inside the Somewhat Stealth Fairmont Ghirardelli Place
Now that our hangover has finally worn off, we can tell you that we were lucky enough to stay at the Fairmont Ghirardelli Place on New Year's Eve, part of the Fairmont Heritage Collection. We still consider this very much a stealth hotel, as it was developed, billed and marketed as a "residence club" when it opened in the first quarter of 2008.
While FGP is still very much in the fractional residence game, a lot has changed since 2008, especially in the "luxury fractionals market." Hmm....Come to think of it was there ever really a luxury fractionals market or was it just a lot of marketing speak? We tried to run the numbers on fractional ownership of the unit 214, the unit we stayed it, but our numbers kept crunching in the negative.
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Inside The Argonaut Hotel in San Francisco
Longtime readers of HotelChatter know The Argonaut Hotel is one of our go-to hotels in San Francisco. Why? Good rates, comfortable beds, kitschy nautical theme and free WiFi (for Kimpton's InTouch members.) Oh, and most importantly, we don't have to deal with the glut of Union Square that makes life with a rental car extremely difficult.
Caveat emptor; you must be able to put up with Fisherman's Wharf (we actually have grown to love the area if you take a left instead of a right out of the Argonaut front door and avoid the Powell & Hyde cable car debacle), and on this trip we figured out parking was a whopping $43.00 a night.
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HotelChatter's Los Angeles Hotel Video Tours
The Andaz West Hollywood
Ah Los Angeles. How quick we are to forgive your smoggy air, crowded freeways and plastic people when the weather is a warm 75 degrees and sunny in the first week of January. Yes, we shall think twice before we complain about your silly faux celeb residents (Kardashians, we are talking to you.)
As we head into awards seasons, you may find yourself wishing to rub shoulders with A-listers and their agents or at least, talk it up with some of the stalkerazzi outsid STK and The Ivy. We can't promise you a celeb sighting but we can truthfully tell you what hotel rooms in Los Angeles look like.
Admittedly, this list has much room for improvement. While we've covered the LA/Hollywood/Westside scene in-depth, we're lacking in footage. So consider it one of our New Year's resolutions for 2010. In the meantime, we're happy to take your questions.
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