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Intercontinental's Next London Hotel: Way Better Than We Thought
When it was announced this weekend that Intercontinental were opening up a second hotel in London, we weren’t too excited.
For one, we’re not the biggest fans of the Park Lane branch - totally lacking in fizz, if you ask us. For another, the location they’ve chosen - Queen Anne’s Chambers in Westminster is a place we used to pass most days on our way to work, and it always seemed like more of a commuter ratrun than somewhere you’d actually want to stay. Also, it’s next door to police HQ New Scotland Yard, and that made us feel a bit queasy too.
But to give it a fair hearing, we popped over to see the building site today – and we take it all back. Intercontinental Westminster has the potential to be a fabulous hotel.
For a start, it’s not as small as it looks from the façade in the picture here. Because that’s just the front façade. The hotel’s actually going to take up four buildings, across three streets. Yup, three: Broadway, where the entrance will be, along a block of Tothill Street and down Dean Farrar Street round the back. Think of it as a triangle shape, with all the space in the middle belonging to the hotel as well. It sounds fantastic.
Tags: Hotel Video Tours / Intercontinental Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / Convention Center Hotels / → All Tags
Inside the Intercontinental San Francisco
Last week, we told you about the Michelin-starred grub at Luce, the restaurant at the Intercontinental San Francisco, but today, we’re going to take you on a video walkthrough of a standard guestroom there so you can get a feel for the entire hotel experience.
Our favorite features of the room? Enormous windows (though not such awesome views), a cozy work desk-sitting area, a huge flat-screen TV on which to watch Anderson Cooper spout off on CNN, an iPod docking station, huge marble bathrooms (though the sliding doors were kind of unwieldy and didn’t lock!), neutral-toned patterns and fabrics, and well stocked minibars.
Tags: Hotel Restaurants / Intercontinental Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / → All Tags
What The Michelin-Starred Grub is Like at The Intercontinental San Fran
Though Michelin decided to skip rating Los Angeles restaurants this year, we caught word of their just-released 2010 San Francisco rankings and noticed that Luce at the Intercontinental San Francisco just got its first star under the direction of recent Iron Chef competitor, Dominique Crenn.
After our meal there this past weekend, we totally understand why.
The meal begins with an unassuming amuse bouche of panna cotta-textured celery root mousse with citrus foam to get your palate ready for the unexpected flavor combinations still to come. Appetizers on the menu, which is small but still impressive and diverse, run the gamut from a warm and hearty autumn vegetable medley, to a streamlined Kona kampachi tartare served with pickled apples and shaved cauliflower with bright green celery sorbet, to a combination of both styles in the modern dressing up of an erstwhile working-class comfort food: roasted bone marrow (served in-bone lest you have any doubts) with garlic confit, fried capers gremolata and grilled bread.
Smear it all together and you’re transported back to a 19th century farmer’s table.
Tags: NFL Hotels / Intercontinental Hotels / Hotel News / London Hotels / → All Tags
Did a Practice Session in the Hotel Ballroom Cause Tampa Bay to Lose the Game?
The weather in London isn’t quite on a par with the weather in Florida, as the poor Tampa Bay Buccaneers found out to their cost this weekend. According to the St Petersburg Times, the Bucs had to practice for their NFL Wembley gig against the New England Patriots in the ballroom at the Intercontinental Park Lane because it was too wet to hit the turf at Wembley itself.
NFL officials did offer them a room at Wembley to practice in, but they stuck to the ballroom – which holds up to 750 people, and, according to the hotel website, features “natural daylight through floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Park Lane and the Royal Parks”. Perhaps they were hoping for a little more grace on the pitch, too.
It didn’t work, unfortunately – the Pats thrashed them 35-7. Still, it’s not every day you get to exercise within spitting distance of Buckingham Palace is it, chaps? That’s something to tell the kids. Maybe.
Tags: Hotel Video Tours / Guadalajara Hotels / Mexico Hotels / Intercontinental Hotels / → All Tags
The Intercontinental Guadalajara: A Tale of Two Hotel Rooms
So remember that hotel keycard we showed you the other day with the um, interesting ad on it? Yeah. Well, that belonged to the Presidente Intercontinental Guadalajara where we stayed for four days during the Society of American Travel Writers conference.
Before we go any further, we must tell you the most crucial bit of information: Request a room above the 16th floor. Do not settle for a room on the 14th, 15th or 16th floors.
The reason being is that the hotel has recently completed a massive renovation of its lobby and floors 17-23. However, the renovation has not yet extended to the other floors. These rooms are very old and in terrible condition. We heard reports from fellow conference-goers of broken phones, missing mini-bar keys, broken lights and the like.
But upstairs in the "gated community," as some other folks referred to these new rooms, it's a different story. The rooms are light and happy, spacious and modern. Our only issue with our room was that sometimes the toilet wouldn't flush. But other than that, everything worked perfectly.
Tags: Anti-View / Convention Center Hotels / InterContinental Hotels / San Franciso Hotels / Business Traveler Hotels / → All Tags
Lovely View of the HVAC at InterContinental San Francisco
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.
This morning we let you know that the chef at the Intercontinental San Francisco would be leaving the property to fight it out on "The Next Iron Chef" and as we were browsing for photos of the hotel, we came across this anti-view. Eee.
Then again, this hotel is adjacent to the Moscone Convention Center, making it the best choice for folks who plan on spending most of their days in the convention hall. But as large as the hotel looks, there are only 550 rooms in the hotel--22 per floor and as you know, InterContinental is a chi-chi business traveler brand.
So hopefully, the amenities in-room--like flat-screen TVs, iPod docks, bathrobes and especially, the private in-room bars--make up for some not-so-chi-chi convention center views.
Tags: Hotel Restaurants / Celebrity Chefs / Intercontinental Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / → All Tags
InterContinental Chef Leaves the Kitchen for 'Next Iron Chef'
Dine at the InterContinental San Francisco's Luce restaurant and you just might get a glimpse of the next Iron Chef. Luce's Chef de cuisine Dominique Crenn will battle for the title in the Food Network's second season of The Next Iron Chef, which will debut Oct. 4.
Crenn and nine other contestants seek join the ranks of Iron Chefs such as Cat Cora, Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto and first-season winner Michael Symon. Just being on the show can greatly help the French-Moroccan chef's career, as past alumni have gone on to become Food Network stars.
Tags: US Open Hotels / Melanie Oudin / Marriott Hotels / Intercontinental Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
US Open 'Savior' Melanie Oudin Booted From The Marriott
Update: We're hearing that Melanie may be back inside a Marriott hotel on the East Side. Developing....
American tennis player Melanie Oudin has brought some much-need young blood to the U.S. Open this year (she's only 17), advancing to the quarter-finals and being heralded by much of the New York press for making tennis exciting again.
But this U.S Open savior apparently can't get any respect from the Marriot Marquis Time Square Marriott East Side Hotel which booted her out of her room on Sunday because her reservation was up.
SportsBusiness Journal reports:
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Willard InterContinental Is Good For The Earth But Still Too Expensive For Us
While we continue to ponder the hefty price tag on DC’s very-soon-to-open Jefferson Hotel, another chi-chi Washington hotel has caught our attention. The classic Willard InterContinental received a Conde Nast Traveler “World Savers” award for its commitment to the environment and communities in need.
This is CNT’s third year to give out the awards, which honor global travel companies for their leadership in social responsibility causes. The Willard was the overall winner in the City Hotel category (we guess living across the street from the White House must be inspiring). You can find the rest of the winners here.
Tags: Labor Day Hotels / Intercontinental Hotels / Scottsdale Hotels / TravelZoo / → All Tags
Spend Labor Day in Scottsdale For Only $95 a Night
President Obama might be requesting privacy in Martha's Vineyard during his vacation but for your Labor Day getaway you can hit up the hotel he checked into a few months back, The Intercontinental Montelucia in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The hotel is offering rooms over Labor Day for just $95 a night through September 7. That includes a $25 daily resort credit and an upgrade to a Kasbah Village Poolside Room or Oasis Village Room (if available.)
The deal can only be found on TravelZoo. Guests must use the code TZ8 to book. We went and tested it ourselves and unlike some other low rates we've seen, this one actually worked. Without the code, a signature room was going for $160 a night. The Presidential Suite, where we assume President Obama stayed, was going for $10,000 a night. Hmmm...we'll pass.
Tags: Hotel News / Venice Hotels / Intercontinental Hotels / → All Tags
Booking Error Results in Venice Getaway Deal for One Cent
There's nothing we love more than a good booking mistake—when it falls in our favor, of course. Lucky travelers and locals who caught Italy's Crowne Plaza Quarto D'Altino's major, accidental price cut scored a weekend at the four-star resort for a mere one cent. Rooms at the hotel normally run for up to $214 per night, and its location is an accessible 20-minute train ride away from Venice.
Tags: Hotel Commercials / Hotel Ads / Holiday Inn / Hotel News / InterContinental Hotels / → All Tags
What Do You Think of the New Holiday Inn Commercials?
So, Holiday Inn has a new look. It's had this new look for quite some time now — we stayed in one of the first-to-be-refreshed properties in Chelsea last summer (and quite liked it, might we add) — and now they're spreading the word out to Holiday Inn's peeps by way of baseball fans and racing fans. They've rolled out two new ad spots to finally start promoting the total brand makeover the chain has been undergoing (the ads come in conjunction with Holiday Inn's "brand relaunch.")
Promising that this brand relaunch is the "largest in hospitality history," more than 3,200 properties are undergoing the upgrades and these ads — which also promote the partnership between HI and Major League Baseball and Richard Childress Racing — actually show images of the newly-refurbished rooms; a big step from the ads that came when the first whispers of the HI redesign were happening (the previous ads showed only a new logo).
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