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A Toronto Budget Hotel View That's Worth the $30 Upgrade

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 280 Bloor St. W. , Toronto, ON, Canada, M5S 1V8

| June 18, 2009 at 3:12 PM | 0 Comments

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.

The photographer who snapped the shot of the Toronto Days Inn with the budget view actually switched hotels in between two conferences — and then upgraded (well, the view at least) to a Holiday Inn with this view.

He reportedly paid $30 more here at the Holiday Inn Midtown than he paid at the Days Inn, and we'd most certainly be happy with a window like this.

But it's possible that all you're really paying for is the location and view; TripAdvisor reviews seem to mostly say positive things about the hotel's area and convenience to U of T (though, to be fair, those are only the most recent reviews — earlier posts say the hotel is "consistently fine").

Rates here look to be startin' at $135.99 CAD ($120 USD).

[Photo: Rick's Pics]

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Skip the Minibar, Hit the Bar Late at the InterContinental Park Lane

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: One Hamilton Place, London, United Kingdom, W1J 7QY

| June 12, 2009 at 9:34 AM | 0 Comments

You know when you’ve been out late somewhere, and you get back to your hotel wanting one more before you go to bed, but you don’t want it to come from a minibar because it’s way too expensive (and also a bit depressing)?

The Intercontinental Park Lane hears you. Its bar used to be open till one a.m. on weekdays and midnight on Sundays, and although we have some extremely happy memories of drinking there with the Miami Dolphins when they were in town, it was a bit too hotel lobby-like to have a proper atmosphere.

So we were intrigued to hear today that on Tuesday, the hotel will open what it calls its Late Lounge. For a start, it’s open seven nights a week till three a.m., which should do just fine for most people. And they’ve jazzed up the old bar space: there used to be the bar area, then a ramshackle cluster of chairs in what felt like a room next door, backing onto the corridor; now there will be floor-to-ceiling curtains to snuggle you away from the corridor, extra seating (on velvet chairs, no less), waitress service and a DJ.

There’s a new menu, too, although that won’t be perusable till next week. Sounds promising though. Now all we need is a repeat visit from the Dolphins, please.

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InterContinental Struts Its Stuff In L.A.

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 2151 Avenue of the Stars [map], Los Angeles, CA, United States, 90067

| June 4, 2009 at 2:42 PM | 2 Comments

Last night, sales and press reps from several of Intercontinental’s hotels in the western U.S. gathered in the ballroom of the InterContinental Century City to tout their hotels to an assortment of travel agents and writers.

The point of the evening seemed to be primarily to introduce the new Andalucia-themed Montelucia Resort in Scottsdale, and to showcase the deft cuisine of French-born Chef Dominique Crenn, whose restaurant, Luce, is at the new Intercontinental San Francisco in SoMa. Luce has already made such an impact on the S.F. foodie scene in its short life that Crenn won Esquire Magazine’s 2008 Chef of the Year Award.

In addition to the edible treats, guests got to check out the toiletry and spa products at a few of the properties, and learned about Intercontinental’s first branded resort, the Montelucia, which was on Conde Nast's 2009 Hot List of New Hotels. The two facts that stood out about the new Arizona property? First, the fact that you can get a room there for just $145 this summer thanks to low season rates; and second, the fabulous Moorish-themed spa with healing crystals and a room that is lit up like the nighttime sky in Granada, Spain. Fancy!

We’ll be sure to bring you new deals from ICH as we get them in, so stay tuned for more.

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The Ceylan Intercontinental Is a Decent Hotel with An Excellent Breakfast Buffet

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: Asker Ocagi Cad 1, Taksim, Istanbul, Turkey, 34435

| May 29, 2009 at 3:08 PM | 0 Comments

Last week Shira Levine spent a few days getting her Turkish Delight on in Istanbul, Turkiye ("Turkey is a bird; Turkiye is the country") and checking out the transcontinental Eurasian city's hotel scene. Any questions about where to stay in Turkiye? Send 'em to us and we'll have Shira answer them for you.

First Impressions
It's nice when a medium hotel surprises us with doing things right we weren't even expecting. That way there is some balance to our disappointment when something isn't right. Istanbul's Ceylan Intercontinental Hotel is one of those hotels. While it's been awarded five stars, our feeling is that it has a five star quality in a very 1992 kind of way. Nevertheless, the lobby is classic. It's wide open and bright with shiny and gilded decor and dramatic stairs that lead to some good early morning dining.

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IHG, Shawn Johnson Stage World's Biggest Bed Jump

| May 8, 2009 at 10:00 AM | 3 Comments

We already told you about InterContinental’s sweet buy-two-get-one-free deal, but we’re sorta smitten with the big promo IHG staged yesterday and just had to share.

The global hotel chain installed extra-springy, extra-huge “beds” in Shanghai, Paris, London, and New York, and invited celebrity athletes, staffers, and schmucks on the street to jump on the beds — a gimmick they’ve dubbed the World’s Biggest Bed Jump. Olympic darling Shawn Johnson helped christen the bed in New York’s Bryant Park (see photos and videos here).

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Stay Any Two Nights at InterContinental Hotels, Get One Free

| May 5, 2009 at 9:00 AM | 0 Comments

With the recent influx of buy-two-get-one-free deals, we sort of wish there existed a cutesy acronym we could employ for this sort of arrangement — you know, buy one get one free has its "BOGO" and rate kickbacks have their easier-to-articulate percentage-off slogans.

But regardless of whether or not it lends itself to especially cutesy headlines and billboards, we've got a pretty good deal to report out of IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group), the company behind not only the InterContinental-branded hotels, but the Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites chains as well: IHG Priority Club Rewards (the loyalty program) members score a free night after they stay at any IHG hotel for any two nights between May 4 and July 3, 2009.

If you're not a Priority Club Rewards member, you can hit up GetAFreeNight.com and register to become one. From there, any two nights you stay in an IHG hotel between May 4 and July 3 (the nights don't have to be consecutive and they don't have to be at the same hotel brand), you score a free night to redeem between July 3 and December 26 as long as you book through the IHG site.

You can earn up to four nights through the promo (that is, stay eight nights, earn four) and Priority Club Rewards members earn these free nights instead of base and Elite points/miles. More info here.

[Photo: InterContinental Chicago]

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Bollywood Content Coming to a Hotel Room Near You

| April 29, 2009 at 4:40 PM | 0 Comments

Can't satisfy your thirst for Bollywood entertainment? Never fear, it's spreading faster than swine flu. The Acentic digital TV people have set up a deal with Shemaroo Entertainment (a "leading Bollywood content house") to get more gleeful song-and-belly-dance onto your hotel room television.

They say they've recognized that there's a high demand amongst hotel guests for this kind of programming, although we don't remember putting Bollywood requests on any guest suggestion forms ourselves.

The South Asian video-on-demand content will include Bollywood films, yoga instructional videos and Indian documentaries. Acentic has deals with hotel chains like Intercontinental Hotels, Marriott Hotels and Movenpick Hotels across the Middle East, Europe and Africa, so there's a high probability you'll be switching on to a screen full of Bollywood sometime soon.

[Photo: Generation X-Ray]

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InterContinental's Loyalty Program Launches Social Network

| April 15, 2009 at 8:56 AM | 0 Comments

Er, okay. We know you're already being inundated with Facebook friend requests and application notifications and, like, Zombie pokes from people you probably met once at the tender age of 7 years old (translation: we're on shaky ground with social networks already), but it's looking like your fave hotel loyalty programs are going to be getting in on the social networking game, too. Yes, really.

InterContinental Hotels Group has, apparently, launched its own social network for its Priority Club Rewards members called Priority Club Connect. This isn't really like a Facebook (thank goodness — can you imagine, like, getting friend requests from total randoms just because you appear to be attractive and happen to be a member of IHG's loyalty program?); rather, it's an opportunity for users to get involved with IHG to share travel experiences, become bloggers on the site, upload photos, and share videos in an online community sort of setting. Also:

Priority Club Connect participants will also be able to communicate with IHG executives. Based on questions that members submit through Priority Club Connect, executives at IHG will create a video to answer the questions and post it on the site for all members to view.

We poked around on the site a little bit, and it seems that people have already started to get in there and are taking it seriously (and it's not full of trolls posting annoying things in the forums. Yet.) Die-hard IHG fans, check it out for yourselves here.

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InterContinental Tampa Sizzles With Hot Deal During Hottest Months

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 4860 West Kennedy Boulevard [map], Tampa, Florida, United States, 33609

| April 7, 2009 at 4:06 PM | 0 Comments

While summertime in Tampa, Florida is hot as hell, so are the hotel rates at the InterContinental Tampa hotel. The nearly two-year old luxury hotel is offering a "Buy One, Get One" (BOGO) free deal where guests can pay as little as $159 for two nights. The BOGO package also includes a disposable camera and a 5x7 picture frame, "so guests can document their fabulous summer escape to Tampa."

We have to say this is a pretty unreal deal for an Intercontinental Hotel, even when you're down their sweating your huevos rancheros off. BOGO! And especially when you consider that part of the luxury of living in the free world is that you are indeed free to blast in-room air conditioning at no extra cost. However some things to beware of are its location inside an office building that's close to the airport, say TripAdvisor reviewers. The pool is also kind of small.

The deal lasts from May 1 through September 30, 2009. Just in time for most of the rest of the country to start getting cold again! BOGO! (Sorry, this marketing term is growing on us.)

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Another Reason to Avoid Hotel Parking

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 3315 Peachtree Road [map], Atlanta, GA, United States, 30326

| April 3, 2009 at 3:13 PM | 5 Comments

We've already griped about the insane parking fees at hotels and now we have another reason why we should just avoid hotel parking altogether. Or at least, self-park our own cars.

The owner of a $284,000 Lamborghini left his whip in the care of the valet at the Intercontinental Buckhead but when he went to check-out the car was missing. It wouldn't turn up for another month. From WSBTV News:

Eric Vargosko said he learned that his car was missing from a valet lot at the Intercontinental Hotel when it came time to check out.

“They looked for the car for about an hour, and the manager told me the car was missing -- they did not have the car,” Vargosko said.

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What Kind of Internet Can You Expect at Hotel Indigo?

| March 24, 2009 at 3:42 PM | 0 Comments

InterContinental's hip, "branded-boutique" Hotel Indigo chain has been expanding on the double.

Some say Indigo is IHG's answer to Starwood's W Hotels; some say it was the precursor to all those lifestyle boutique hotels going up all over the place these days, like Aloft, Element, Hyatt's Andaz and good ol' Denizen. The first property opened up in 2006 and since then it has been targeting the younger business traveler in U.S. locations from Scottsdale to NYC. So yes, Indigo: you have arrived; you are expanding — but the real question is: what's your Internet sitch?

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Intercontinental Works Some Melbourne Magic With Rialto

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 495 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3000

| March 20, 2009 at 8:53 AM | 0 Comments

What was once the Rialto Hotel on Collins in Melbourne is now the Intercontinental Melbourne the Rialto and judging from some early guest reviews and a very warm Age review, the change has really done the place good.

Being on Collins Street in central Melbourne gives this Intercontinental the advantage of a good location to start with, and since Melbourne's a place where a lot of stuff happens right there in the city center, location is an especially important factor.

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