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Tags: Cubicle Dreamin' / Madeira Hotels / Portugal Hotels / Orient-Express Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / → All Tags
Relaxing at Reid’s Palace in Madeira
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 Eric Rosen visits Madeira...in his mind. Enjoy.
I’ve always been intrigued by the emerald isle of Madeira, a strange whalers’ haven that also produces such fine fortified wines, and one day, as I happened upon the web site of Reid’s Palace, a sprawling 19th century hotel that perches on a cliff 150 feet above the azure Atlantic in the island’s capital city of Funchal, that first opened in 1891. The resort is equal parts Riviera redoubt, tropical forest lodge, and seaside getaway. With 128 rooms and 35 suites, surely there was an accommodation for me there.
Tags: Hotel News / Manhattan Hotels / Orient-Express Hotels / → All Tags
Orient-Express Checks Out of NYC Library Hotel Deal
Back in '07, we gleefully announced Orient-Express Hotels' plan to snap up a little piece of The New York Public Library (specifically, the Donnell Branch) to convert it into a hotel. What is currently a five-story libe building on West 53rd Street was going to become an 11-story hotel, but the first floor and underground would have still been owned and occupied by the library. The rest of the floors would have been deciated hotel space, and five of those floors were going to have direct access to the storied 21 Club on 52nd street (also owned by Orient-Express).
Kinda awesome, right? And the NYPL had agreed to the plans because the branch was in dire need of renovations that the system couldn't really afford — so everyone was supposed to get something out of this.
Tags: Hotel News / Starwood Hotels / Morgans Hotel Group / Orient-Express Hotels / → All Tags
The Ceiling Falls In On Major Hoteliers
You know it's never good when we bring out the "I has a sad" kitty.
Remember those Starwood stocks you bought a few months ago? Yeah. You might want to get rid of those -- or buy them up, depending on how you like to play the market.
The AP reports that shares of hotel companies dropped on Monday morning and even more so following the House's rejection of the $700 billion bailout plan later that afternoon. Analysts all over -- wait, who are we kidding? There's only a few financial firms left -- are lowering their expectations for travel in 2009, with one Goldman Sachs analyst predicting that revenue per available room in the U.S. will remain negative well into 2009, the AP says.
Hoteliers that saw the biggest hit to their stock prices? The aforementioned Starwood, Morgans Hotel Group and Orient-Express.
So get out there, folks, go book some hotel rooms and save the travel industry!
[Photo: icanhascheezburger]
Tags: Hotel News / Hotel Hype / Orient-Express Hotels / Miami Hotel Mambo / → All Tags
Miami Hotel Mambo :: Orient-Express Hotels Wants to Cut In
Adding to the ever-growing list of new developments cropping up in the Miami area, Orient Express Hotels has announced plans for a luxury hotel/condo complex in South Beach:
The Sun Sentinel reports:
The $150 million South Beach project will have 100 hotel rooms and 28 condos priced from $2 million and is expected to open in three years.
The condos are starting at 2 million? Yikes. Then again, after getting wind of a Plaza condo selling for $24.6 million, that doesn't seem too bad.
Tags: Cipriani Hotels / Laura Landro / Venice Hotel Reviews / Orient-Express Hotels / Paula Abdul Hotels / → All Tags
Hotel Cipriani :: That "Anniversary Facelift" Can't Come Soon Enough
Introducing our first submission for a Paula Abdul Hotel.
Earlier this month we wrote about how the Hotel Cipriani in Venice was undergoing an 50th "anniversary facelift", but too bad the Wall Street Journal's Finicky Traveler got there before the new look was completed.
Our fave hotel critic Laura Landro spent a few nights there and the opening of her review says it all:
Our suite at Venice's legendary Hotel Cipriani has stained mauve carpet, ratty faux-bamboo furniture and a platform bed looking into a whirlpool tub-for-two that seems not to have been scrubbed out since the 1970s. We feel positively transported -- to a honeymoon motel in the Poconos.
Tags: Cape Town Hotels / South Africa Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / Orient-Express Hotels / Monica Guy / → All Tags
The Cape Town Hotel Scene: Dine in Style at the Mount Nelson Hotel
Our roving correspondent Monica Guy has recently blessed the rains down in Africa--South Africa--and is giving us the scoop this week on the Cape Town hotel scene. Have a question or a suggestion? Let us know and we'll do our best to answer it. Enjoy.
How the other half live. Or rather, not half, but the small minority of wealthy (almost all white) travellers who stay in the Mount Nelson Hotel, Cape Town's Grande Dame.
The drive up to the hotel entrance (a guard salutes you on the way in) is via a tree-lined road through their vast, landscaped grounds - smoother than most of Cape Town's main roads. A huge, white columned building, and inside, a marble-floored entrance hall complete with antique décor, oil paintings, stuffed animal heads and suited butlers.
We didn't stay overnight so we can't tell you more about the rooms. But we did try out the restaurant, however, which is allegedly the best in Cape Town for Cape Malay-style fine dining.
Tags: Mexico Hotels / San Miguel de Allende Hotels / Hotel Video Tours / Orient-Express Hotels / → All Tags
San Miguel de Allende Hotel Guide: Casa de Sierra Nevada
Once again, HotelChatter contributing editor Tim Leffel is moving around Mexico, checking out the hotel scene in the colonial heartland. If you have a question about where to stay in Guanajuato or San Miguel de Allende, hit us on the tipline, or just comment below, and we will do our best to get you some sort of answer. Enjoy.
Prior to 2006, Casa de Sierra Nevada was already the top hotel in town. But then the Orient-Express company took over, making it their second hotel in Mexico after Maroma in the Riviera Maya. They got straight to work, sprucing up the place and renovating the main restaurant (in what was once the home of the local archbishop). While they were at it, they bought a cooking school just down the street.
Two years later they're still adding on to their collection of rooms in different buildings. A new spa will be finished next month and some additional guest rooms will up the total from the current 31. The newest section of the hotel (for now) is Casa Limon, where six suites surround a courtyard, a library, and a swimming pool set in a grassy lawn.
The video tour here is a trip through one of the Colonial Room Suites in that Casa Limon section. With this one--number 444--you get your private plunge pool/whirlpool on a terrace, two big flat-screen TVS, an iPod dock, and a spacious double-vanity bath with separate tub and shower--both lit by a skylight.
Naturally, the room comes stocked with all the pampering goodies: thick towels, robes, Molton Brown toiletries, and soft cotton sheets with a high thread count.
Published rates are roughly $300 to $600, with the suite featured here at the top of that range.
Tags: Russia Hotel Guide / St. Petersburg Hotels / Orient-Express Hotels / Super Secret Hotel Mavens / Russian Hotels for Ballers / → All Tags
Russian Hotels for Ballers: The Grand Hotel Europe
Our Super Secret Hotel Maven network extends far and wide and thanks to another SSHM, we have a mini-guide to Russia's luxe hotels--perfect for ballers, high-rollers and Russian mobsters. It's a mini-guide because it's really only a few hotels in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Up next: The Grand Hotel Europe. Enjoy.
Now on to my favorite hotel in St. Petersburg, Grand Hotel Europe. I actually didn't want to like this place, because well, it's an Orient Express property. And frankly, when I think of Orient Express, I think of Ben-Gay stank old ladies. The hotel is thankfully in a bustling part of St. Petersburg.
Before I made my way over to this area, known as Nevsky Prospekt, I thought that all of St. Petersburg was sitting at home, scared to come out... but no! People shop here! They go on walks! They go out to eat! Before I even saw the building itself, just seeing the neighborhood of this hotel had me at hello, but those hellos just kept coming.
Tags: Sydney Hotels / Four Seasons Hotels / Orient-Express Hotels / Travel and Leisure / → All Tags
The Observatory Hotel Is The #1 Hotel in Australia
Yesterday we wondered if Travel+Leisure had made a mistake when they deemed the Four Seasons Sydney the #1 hotel in Australia when clearly The Observatory Hotel had achieved a higher score of 87.41 to the Four Season's 86.93.
Today we have our answer from T+L:
You're right - the Observatory Hotel in Sydney is, in fact, the number one hotel in Australia in the T+L 500 2008. We've updated the list on www.travelandleisure.com/tl500 so the correct information is available online.
To be honest, both hotels are deserving of the #1 spot. After all, the ranking scores are very close. But in the end, it depends on what you prefer. The Four Seasons rises up in the Sydney skyline to give you killer views of the opera house and the Harbour. It's also located just near Circular Quay, the central business district and the Rocks, a shopping and bar area on George Street.
The Observatory is a smaller hotel on a quiet street and has an older feel but it also has the best service we have ever encountered in a hotel. Aside from the famous high tea, not to be missed at the Observatory is the Day Spa and the large indoor pool with a domed ceiling painted to resemble a Southern Hemisphere sky "filled with twinkling stars."
[Photo: Charlie Brewer]
Tags: Hotel Hype / Orient-Express Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Use Your Indoor Voice: A New Library Hotel for NYC
The New York Public Library has recently agreed to sell its building and property for the West 53rd Street branch, The Donnell, to Orient-Express Hotels for $59 million.
Normally, that would just be another hotel transaction in the news but what's different about this sale is that the library will still maintain a presence on the hotel's first and underground floors. The rest of the floors will be for the hotel, with five of those having direct access to the storied 21 Club on 52nd street.
The sale may strike some as an odd mix of culture and commerce, but the library said it had little choice because the branch, built in 1955, was in dire need of renovations that the system could ill afford.
But have no fear. Guests won't have to check in amongst the stacks and deal with stares from mustachioed librarians. The hotel and the library will both have separate entrances and will be divided by a wall. The hotel will have 150 rooms but unlike a free public library, rooms will start at $750 a night.
And since it's connected to the 21 Club, the hotel name will have 21 somewhere in the name. A 2011 opening is expected. If you can't wait until then to sleep amongst the Dewey Decimal system, check into the Library Hotel on 41st and Madison.
While there will be a restaurant on the top floor, a hotel nightclub in the lobby is out of the question. And that's exactly the sentiment of Orient Express' CEO Paul White who said, "We don't want to be like everybody else," he added. "Why not share a building with a major institution like the New York Public Library? I'd rather have them in my basement than a nightclub."
[Photo: Michael Nagle for NYT]
Related Stories:
· New York Public Library's Donnell Branch to Share Space With Hotel [NY Times]
· The Donnell Branch [New York Public Library]
Tags: Riviera Maya Hotel Reviews / Geraldine Fabrikant / Orient-Express Hotels / → All Tags
In Riviera Maya, Maroma Resort and Spa Wins Praise
The NY Times headed to Riviera Maya in Mexico to "check in and check out" the Maroma Resort and Spa, a 65-room hotel and a four-bedroom villa.
Reviewer Geraldine Fabrikant informs us that five years ago, Maroma was just a boutique hotel with about 32 rooms. Then Orient-Express Hotels bought the place, added new rooms, two swimming pools and the Kinan Spa. When Hurricane Wilma walloped Mexico in 2005, Orient Express forked over $16 million to make repairs and finish the upgrades.
In short, no expense has been spared here which is always nice to know when traveling to Mexico, if you know what we mean.
Tags: Honeymoon Hotels / Sydney Hotel Reviews / Honeymooners Down Under / Orient-Express Hotels / → All Tags
The Honeymooners Down Under: The Observatory Hotel
HotelChatter's Senior Editor Juliana borrowed a page from vintage Britney Spears' 2004 playbook and got hitched after a brief engagement. Juliana and spouse went a little further than Brit and K-Fed's honeymoon in Fiji by spending their first few weeks of newlywed bliss in Sydney, Australia with a sidetrip to the Whitsunday Islands. For the rest of the week, she'll be telling you where she stayed and whether or not it was honeymoon appropriate. So, if you have any questions about honeymoon or Australia travel, send 'em our way.
Unfortunately, we checked out of our first hotel in Sydney, the Park Hyatt, all too soon, as we missed Sylvester Stallone and his goumbas allegedly throwing growth hormones things out of their hotel window. So you must be wondering if our next hotel had such excitement? Hmm...not quite.
Click through to read the full Observatory Hotel review
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