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WSJ Finds Montage Beverly Hills to Be a Little Shaky

Where: 225 North Canon Drive [map], Beverly Hills, CA, United States, 90210

The Wall Street Journal's "Finicky Traveler" spent the night at the Montage Beverly Hills, the urban sibling to the Montage Laguna Beach that was just (finally) completed in Beverly Hills — and she found things to be a little bit, er, up and down, if not kinda shaky for the super-steep price (which, cause o' the economy, had been reduced to $395 nightly from the originally-planned $480 - $595).

Though she was impressed with the sheer size and design of the place — 201 rooms done up in a building that has a Spanish Colonial revival design, with its 20,000-square-foot spa with 17 treatment rooms, salon, fitness center, and yoga and Pilates studio — there was some, uh, room for improvement during her experience.

A few highlights (or lowlights): she mentioned the dining room "could lighten up a little" (the word "pretentious" was thrown around in there too), poopy views (and an unimpressive courtyard her Garden Suite looked out onto), and a comfortable but a bit too high-tech room (she had to call on staffers to help her figure out how the lights, drapes and sheers operated).

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Tags: Wall Street Journal / Washington D.C. Hotels / Mandarin Oriental Hotels / → All Tags

The WSJ Finds Mandarin Oriental Washington Too Loud and Scent-y

Where: 1330 Maryland Avenue [map], Washington, DC, United States, 22024

In today's edition of the Wall Street Journal's Finicky Traveler column, "Ms. Finicky" goes inside the Mandarin Oriental Washington, D.C., and sort of doesn't want to come out because of the hotel's super-noisy surroundings.

While she didn't particularly care for an overpowering "scented air-freshener" in the hotel's corridors, her biggest complaint was about the noise around the place:

Off my balcony at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, it's like my own version of the movie "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" -- jets from nearby Reagan National Airport, a train passing a busy marina and rush-hour cars streaming over the Potomac River.

When a loud helicopter joins the cast, I decide it might be easier to relax inside my suite.

Yikes. Luckily, she seemed to dig the lobby, the spa and the Asian decor throughout, which extended all the way to the lamps, curtains and wall decor in her room.

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