We live for the weekends, especially the three-day Memorial Day kind. After the longest winter ever here in the Northeast, we are SO ready to pack up the SPF and start working 9-to-5 on a tan. And like many of us city dwellers, we plan to swap the drab concrete for warm sand, drop our "Rs" and kick it wicked for a getaway in Cape Cod.
Luckily we got Travelzoo-wise to a Memorial Day weekend deal at the Radisson Hotel Hyannis for only $99 per night - which is up to $110 off regular room rates. And it's Hyannis, the very heart of Cape Cod. You know, Kennedy-clan heaven and all that.
Yet true WASPs beware: there are purple leather couches in the lobby here. Perhaps you should make nice with Muffy and Buffy again.
April 22nd is Earth Day so all this week we will be bringing you the latest news on Green Hotels. Got some eco-friendly news you wanna share? Let us know.
If you're a regular at Carlson Hotels which has the Regent Hotels, Radissons, Park Plazas, Park Inn and Country Inn and Suites under its name, then you might want to consider going Carbon Neutral on your next trip.
The hotel chain just announced that it will match the contribution of every goldpoints plus member (that's their loyalty program) donating points to Carbon Neutral, starting April 30th.
Carbon Neutral is a UK-based carbon offsetting company that aims to offset CO2 emissions associated with travel. Last year, Carlson revamped its frequent guest program to include, on a global basis for the first time, the opportunity for its members to donate points to community-based carbon reduction projects that neutralize the CO2 pollution that results from global travel.
Members can redeem points starting at 2,000 points by logging on goldpointsplus.com or by contacting the member service centers which vary depending on your location. More information on the promotion can be found here.
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.
There's two ways to think about a hotel that includes the words "Harbor View" in its name. First, you might expect to have a beautiful room overlooking a harbor--that's one of those places with water, a few boats, generally a pleasant sight. The second way is the "glass half empty" method which definitely applied for the traveler who snapped this Anti-View out of their window in the Radisson San Diego Harbor View.
Freeway, endless rows of buildings and the roar of landing aircraft are not the standard components of a harbor view.
Obviously there is a right and a wrong side of the Radisson San Diego, so try and get into a room with a view that lives up to the name. It's about two miles from the airport so it's probably going to be hard to avoid the drone of airplanes, but you could at least arrange to skip the sight of jams of commuter traffic on the freeway and try to enjoy the water.
Being shortlisted for an industry green award doesn't necessarily make a hotel green, but the environmentally friendly actions of the Radisson SAS Edinburgh in Scotland are fairly admirable.
To begin with, they hired a full-time "green guru" in charge of eco-friendly measures at the hotel. Her first action was to install energy-efficient light bulbs which immediately saw a 26% drop in energy use for the same month of the previous year. Pretty impressive.
But it doesn't stop at lighting. We're quite impressed with the "e-cube device" they use in fridges at the Edinburgh Radisson. These clever gadgets measure the temperature of the food rather than of the (often empty) fridge space and don't overcool the air: another saving of around 30% of energy costs, they say.
From the guest point of view, there are the usual "don't wash my towel" programs, a reminder to turn off taps and an optional one pound per night levy to "carbon neutralize" your stay. Plenty of simple things but with a big effect: that's the green philosophy at the Edinburgh Radisson.
In the not-so-shocking-news department, Amy Winehouse and her husband have been arrested in Norway for possession of about 7 grams (0.2 ounces) of marijuana. She was fined $714 and then released.
Winehouse, 24, was arrested at Bergen's Radisson SAS Hotel together with her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, and a man identified as Alexander Foden, Lars Morten Lothe, a police lawyer at Bergen Police Station, said in a telephone interview today. Fielder-Civil was also fined 500 euros, while Foden was ordered to pay 240 British pounds ($491), Lothe said.
What is shocking is that it was just weed. Doesn't Amy do like harder Class-A type of drugs? And we also learned that Amy doesn't mind shacking up in Radissons but perhaps in the future Amy should check-into more drug-friendly hotels such as this one.
Until recently we thought hotel loyalty programs were for Account Executives rolling their business travel points into a family vacation at a bland resort every year or two. However, funny thing happened when we started investigating these programs -- we found some of them are downright useful if you know how to cut through the red tape. This series is meant as a jumping off point to full fledged discussions on each loyalty program we feature. So comment, contribute, question, and cajole here.
Radisson Hotels is in the midst of completely overhauling their rewards program but the good news is that the new Goldpoints Plus will debut on October 28th so if you aren't a member yet, it won't be long to join the new program.
Some of the "enhancements" include earning more points and faster and redeeming more points at more properties and use your points at frequent flyer program.
With Bastille Day approaching our thoughts have turned to Paris once more. While some of our favorite spots (the Louvre, the Rodin museum and the Versailles palace) close up shop on this French national holiday, there are plenty of other things going on, and one interesting place to be is on the Champs Elysees where the huge military parade takes place.
One tip for the Bastille Day weekend--with rooms still available for Saturday night starting at €400 ($545)--is the Radisson SAS Hotel Champs Elysees. The location is great, just off the Champs Elysees, with views to both the Arc d'Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower from some rooms (or for people with long necks). They offer a deal with guaranteed Arc d'Triomphe views and with English breakfast included, so check if they're available (even if, like us, you're not so keen on the English breakfast idea).
As we mentioned yesterday, we spent some time over the weekend at the Radisson Resort in South Padre Island Texas. It was quite a trip and while we didn't loooove the Radisson, we did like the room king-sized bed we had. Also a plus? The bed has lots of pillows which always makes us smile.
And that's not all. This Radisson featured Sleep Number beds by Select Comfort. Remember those infomercials with the old woman tossing and turning on her bed at night and then whose life is changed after she orders one of those mechanical beds that allow you to sleep sitting up or sleep with your legs elevated? Well, that's what these contraptions are like but you can adjust the bed for each person sleeping in it.
There's a handy remote with instructions to let you know how to operate it. Basically, you adjust it up or down until you feel comfortable and when you do, the remote spits out a number. So that next time, you can just go right to your number rather than fiddling around.
If you're staying at a Radisson in the near future and want to know if the hotel will have Sleep Number beds available, Radisson has listed all their participating properties here.
As for us, we would have liked to try the Sleep Number but truth be told, at the end of long wedding reception, we were lucky to remember to remove our contacts before we passed out.
If you're a regular at 
Until recently we thought hotel loyalty programs were for Account Executives rolling their business travel points into a family vacation at a bland resort every year or two. However, funny thing happened when we started investigating these programs -- we found some of them are downright useful if you know how to cut through the red tape. 
