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Please Welcome The Peninsula And Its Fleet Of Phantoms To Shanghai
We can talk about Art Basel Miami hotels and hotels for the holidays all we want, but we can't ignore one of the biggest hotel openings of autumn, that of the Peninsula Shanghai. It officially welcomed its first guests back on October 19, and yet it's already like a landmark on Shanghai's Bund—the street of shops, other high-class hotels, and historical buildings right at the bend of the Huangpu River.
The main thing to know about this Peninsula is its relatively low starting room rate: $295. With it, if you can score the deal (and we recommend searching for dates far into the future), you'll be sitting pretty in a room with the feeling of a suite, as each room is divided into living spaces and even features a dressing room in lieu of an itty-bitty closet. More on that dressing room, after the jump.
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Pinky Up For High Tea at The Peninsula Beverly Hills
Los Angeles is a city whose locals are fueled by lattes, energy drinks, or sated by cocktails. Yet, that doesn't mean that Angelenos are averse to taking a breather and enjoying tea time, that serene mid-to-late afternoon tradition that's become fashionable at high-end hotels like The Peninsula Beverly Hills. The hotel's cushy, semi-Victorian decor is redolent of a traditional salon, and like most swanky tea rooms, it also bears a "you break it and you buy it" air. That just means you'll have to mind etiquette rules when sitting down with that pot of Darjeeling.
Tea is served in the hotel's Living Room, where a harpist—sadly not Joanna Newsom—sets the mood. There are two seatings per day, one at 2:30 and the other at 5:30, plus a noon seating on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. At these times you're handed a menu and allowed to choose from spreads that range anywhere from $29-59. There's the rub. High-tea is high-end at a place like the Peninsula, not a grab-and-go affair like that $1.50 cup of Tazo you can get at other places.
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We Ate 'Whipped Chlorophyll' At The Peninsula Chicago's Avenues
Only days before Chicago's Peninsula Hotel was voted second in CN Traveler's Top Hotels in the United States, we finally sat down for a meal at the hotel's celebrated and highly awarded Avenues Restaurant. Already intimately familiar with the hotel, including their afternoon tea service, we expected that this last missing piece to completely blow us away.
And the thing is, our meal at Avenues did so much more than delight our tastebuds; it caused an epiphany in response to the service from the maitre d' and wait staff. Read on for the whole story and the drool-worthy concoctions including "whipped chlorophyll."
Having lived in Chicago for a period and experienced most every hotel—not an exaggeration—through their afternoon teas, restaurants, bars, or actual rooms, we nonetheless have remained always a few steps away from dining at Avenues. For one, the pricetag stopped us (an 8-course meal, with each course consisting of about three bites, costs $118), and we also could never rustle up friends to accompany us and appreciate it.
But with the electricity out in a friend's apartment on his birthday, we decided that it was time for Avenues.
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Peninsula Chicago Offers Pink Ribbon Dining and Spa Specials
Jumping on the pink-ribbon-filled Breast Cancer Awareness Month bandwagon, The Peninsula Chicago offers month-long specials to benefit the cause.
The hotel shows its true colors with a rosy-hued backlit entrance and logo as part of the Lynn Sage Cancer Research Foundation's annual Light the Way to Find a Cure campaign to remind ladies about the importance of doing self-exams on their tatas. The two marble lions flanking the Pen's entrance also got swathed in pink ribbons for the occasion.
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Peninsula Shanghai Opening October 19 for $295 a Night
The ninth addition to the posh Peninsula collection of hotels, The Peninsula Shanghai, opens on The location is out of this world – on the banks of the Huangpu River and conveniently located near the shopping capital of Nanjing Road. But it’s the super huge rooms – larger standard rooms than any other major hotel chain in Shanghai – that have set size queen’s tongues wagging.
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Annie Leibovitz Captures Unexpected Portraits At The Peninsula
Another year, another awesome series of portraits of the staff of Peninsula Hotels by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. It's the fifth year for the partnership between the luxury hotels and Leibovitz, and they've given her free rein to roam the Peninsula Chicago and Peninsula Tokyo properties in order to capture what truly is the spirit of the brand in its employees.
The resulting images will delight both hotel dorks and lovers of black & white photography, as we'd not only love to have the picture above hanging over our couch, but we find it moving in terms of illustrating the Peninsula's tradition of ultra-attentive service. Other pictures feature the doormen, like Chicago's lead doorman Timothy Hitchcock helping a young girl into a car, and even laundry staff and room attendants.
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'Summer Splendour' at Peninsula Hotels Means More Perks for Guests
Peninsula Hotels do not usually put out big discounts on their hotel rooms, so when we hear of one we often perk up--especially if that discount includes a resort credit and a free night.
This summer, the luxury hotel collection is offering guests who book their "Summer Splendour" package daily breakfast for two, a $100 hotel credit and a gift certificate for a complimentary night's stay at any Peninsula Hotel.
Similarly, guests who book a stay in a suite at select Peninsula Hotels will get a complimentary second night's stay with a "host of special benefits." Stateside participating hotels include Chicago, New York and Beverly Hills (whose rooftop is pictured above.)
More details on the Peninsula's summer offers can be found here.
By the way, we learned about this deal from the Peninsula Hotels newsletter which you can sign up for on their web site. That way you can learn about their special offers right away, rather than wait for us to take our sweet old time posting about it.
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New Rooftop Cocktail Hour At The Peninsula Beverly Hills
If you’re anything like us, and enjoy the finer things in life without necessarily having the spare cash to indulge in them (especially these days!), the Peninsula Beverly Hills is launching a new Summer Cocktail Hour so you can swan around rubbing shoulders with media moguls and celebrity wannabes without shelling out for one of the pricey rooms.
Starting today and on every Thursday through Labor Day, this new happy hour will be held from 5:00-7:00pm at the hotel's recently renovated Roof Garden bar. Guests can enjoy cocktails, glasses of wine and beer for half-price while milling around the teak bar or fire pit (summer nights can be chilly here in LA.) The deal also includes perhaps that most elusive of L.A. perks: complimentary valet
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Swap the Subway for a Helicopter at The Peninsula Hong Kong
One of the most stressful parts of arriving at a new destination can be figuring out how to get to your hotel from the distant airport. Is the subway convenient and can you handle it with your luggage? Should you spring for a cab, even if the ride costs more than a nice dinner? If cash isn't the least of your worries or you are simply seeking to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience, then The Peninsula in Hong Kong has got you taken care of with the ultimate airport transfer: helicopter service.
They've essentially kept alive that vintage dream of beginning a trip by setting off via chopper from the top of the Pan Am building, just transferred to Hong Kong. Arrange to be flown to or from the airport to The Peninsula Hotel's twin helipads, take a jaunt to Macau, or go for a short sightseeing spin. Flights are operated with the hotel's own twin-engine Aerospatiale Squirrel 'copter and can be combined with dining or spa packages for one humongous charge on your Amex.
The many times we passed The Pen during our visit to HK, we witnessed some landings and heard action up on the helipad; so apparently the economy hasn't yet hurt the desire for arriving in style. Nonetheless, with prices starting at $780 for a 15-minute tour and lunch for two people, we think we'll stick to the good old Airtrain and subway transfer.
[Photo: DoSomethingDIfferent.com]
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Peninsula Beverly Hills Offers Guests a Free Night
Here's another for the Room Rate Drop Watch files…
The Peninsula Beverly Hills is offering a "Four Days, Free Night!" promotion (the exclamation point—comes on a little strong for such a posh hotel, no?), which gives guests who book a two-night stay in a Superior King or Double room a special rate of $495 per night, with the third night free. The hotel helpfully points out that since the regular room rate is $555, the savings amounts to $675 over a three-night stay.
Plus with this deal, you can get even more bang for your buck, since at The Peninsula guests can arrive as early as 10 a.m. and depart as late as 10 p.m. on their last day.
And if you're really lucky, you can make all your money back when you snap a pic of some celebrity doing something stupid at the hotel bar.
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The Peninsula Lights Up Hong Kong's Harbor
In case you haven't heard, we're tearing it up across the Pacific for the next week, focusing our energies on the quaint little town of Hong Kong. After arriving in the afternoon after a 15-hour direct flight, we quickly decided rallied in order to get the tourist traps out of the way.
Because Hong Kong is so nicely situated on a picturesque harbor, now rimmed with skyscrapers of all flavors, the top tourist attraction is actually the skyline itself. More specifically, visitors flock to the Kowloon waterfront every night at 8pm to witness light shows put on by the buildings across the harbor.
While we were dazzled by some of the elaborate creations (Santa Claus down the entire facade of a 45-story building), we couldn't help but be distracted by the stately and glowing presence of The Peninsula Hotel right behind us.
Awash in bright white light and with her front fountain at full blast, she looked every bit the Master of Ceremonies. Having just celebrated her 80th birthday in 2008, "The Pen" is wearing her age well and continuing to hold her up against some literally massive competition in the rest of the HK skyline.
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The Peninsula to Up Shanghai's Luxury Quotient
Before both the W and Waldorf-Astoria come and wave their flags on both sides of the Huangpu River, The Peninsula will have a good solid year of being the premiere new luxury hotel in. Scheduled to open in autumn of this year, The Peninsula on the Bund will sit right on a throne of land right at the bend in the river, affording awesome views of everything from the highrise-filled neighborhood across the river to the former British Consulate gardens below.
With decor inspired by the Art Deco era, we can expect the Peninsula Shanghai to surprise with little unnecessary, yet appreciated, additional touches of pomp. For instance, all 235 guest rooms will be subdivided into separate living spaces, so as to give the feeling of a suite even if you've booked a regular room. This extra space will function as a dressing room, yes a dressing room, because having a designated space for storing your shoes and all your black-tie ensembles is the epitome of extraneous luxury.
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