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Hotel Amenities / Hotel Technology / Hotel WiFi / Portable WiFi / JW Marriott Hotels / Kuala Lumpur Hotels / Park Hyatt Hotels / Tokyo Hotels / → All Tags

Are Personal WiFi Hotspots The Next Hot Hotel Amenity?

Are wireless hot spots the next hot hotel amenity? Judging by these two recent reports from luxury hotels in Asia, they just might be!

First up, a guest sent in this snapshot, above, and description, below, of the YES personal 4G station called the Huddle found at the JW Marriott in Kuala Lumpur. He writes:

YES has a table in the lobby, adjacent to the Front Desk, where guests can borrow (deposit, but no rental charge) a 4G station, called a “Huddle”. Then, for RM50 per day (USD15/day) you get all the wifi data you can eat. That includes downloading their app and turning your iPod Touch or iPhone, or iPad, into a VOIP phone for free… and, you can connect up to 5 devices at one time.

I’m on it right now with my laptop, and have also connected an iPad and my US iPhone 3GS. I now have all the data and calls I can consume, all at a flat rate.

The Huddle is slightly smaller than the iPhone, and would easily slip into my pocket. I now have a wifi hotspot with me, throughout KL… It just needs to plug in and recharge overnight.

Right now, this is only of value in KL, but what a great connectivity platform! Is this what 4G can do for hotels? No more data roaming overseas at randomly high rates?

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Cubicle Dreamin' / Kuala Lumpur Hotels / → All Tags

Fantasizing About Hangin' With Sharks In Kuala Lumpur

Where: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 50088

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 company's 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.

With some friends hanging out in Kuala Lumpur this week, without me, pretty much the only revenge I can get is by daydreaming of staying in a hotel that's far superior to their youth hostel. Getting a killer view will probably help to make my pals jealous, and so the choice comes down to the swimming pool and tennis courts of the Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur or the view of the famous Petronas Towers from Traders Hotel Kuala Lumpur - two hotels which, incidentally, are the current top two on the TripAdvisor list.

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Killer View / Kuala Lumpur Hotels / Shangri-La Hotels / → All Tags

See the World's Biggest Twin Buildings Without Leaving Your Room

Where: Kuala Lumpur City Centre, Malaysia, 50088

We are suckers for a room with a killer view.  We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.

It sounds kind of dirty to say that you can see the world's biggest twin buildings without even leaving your hotel bedroom, but in this case it's true in the most non-sexual sense: this photo was shot from a room at the Traders Hotel in Kuala Lumpur by davidduran. And yes, those are the Petronas Towers. Straight out the window.

The Petronas Towers are officially the tallest twin buildings in the world (once upon a time, they were the tallest buildings on the planet — but they've been dethroned by Taipei 101). And you can see 'em pretty well (that is, well enough to tell your friends you "saw" the towers) from The Traders, which is a 571-room Shangri-La property in the middle of the city.

Make sure you ask for a "Park View" room (the "City View" rooms, though they sound better, actually don't face the towers) and be prepared to shell out at least 700 MYR ($200-ish) for it.

[Photo: davidduran]

Raffles Hotels / Kuala Lumpur Hotels / Hotel Openings / → All Tags

Raffles Opening Not-So-Soon in Kuala Lumpur

Management at Raffles Hotels continue to sit in a room and throw darts at a globe – in other words, they've just announced yet another new Raffles in another new corner of the world. This time the dart has landed on Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

The Raffles Kuala Lumpur won't be ready until 2011 but they're promising to bring "unparalleled service" to KL. This new hotel will include 200 rooms and suites and will be found in the main business district of the city, within the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, one of KL's enormous shopping mall complexes.

Six different restaurants and bars sound like you won't need to leave the hotel for your entertainment at all – and one of them has opened already. Café Stelle is billed as a "light and refreshing" Italian café and they say it'll be an indication of the great service the Raffles Hotel itself will offer come 2011. It's been open for a few days and can be found in the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur.

Finally, there'll also be a Raffles Amrita Spa at the new Raffles, and although we've never had the pleasure of a treatment at an Amrita, we've certainly heard on the grapevine that they're not unpleasant. It's just a pity 2011 sounds so far away.

[Photo of KL Pavilion: Filo.mena]

Hotel Video Tours / Tune Hotels / HotelChatter Reviews / Kuala Lumpur Hotels / → All Tags

Inside the Tune Hotel Kuala Lumpur

Where: 316 Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 50100

So uniq isn’t a fan of the Tune Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. But it must be doing something right, because it’s about to open three more branches, and then some, across Malaysia. Here’s what we thought.

Tony Fernandes is a clever man. Not only has he pioneered low cost flying in Asia and now cross-continent to Australia and the UK, but he’s also started the Tune hotel brand – a bit like an even more budget easyHotel.

The idea is simple – charge rock bottom prices for a room (current offers range from 0.05 Malaysian ringgits, or $0.01) to a max of about 75RM ($20). Keep said room as basic as possible. Then ratchet up the bill by charging for the extras, and top up by turning the hotel into a giant billboard with ads everywhere –from the rooms to the lift.

For instance, we just spent three nights there. Our room rate? 75RM, or $20, a night. But add in a service charge, tax, admin fee, wifi, aircon and towel rental, and we spent 382RM ($104) in all. Was it worth it?

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