Sex is one of the last fun, free things to do in this world. You get a workout without a pricey gym membership. You get to kiss someone. It feels good; it's nice. If the sex doesn't suck, it's fun -- and if it does suck, then you at least have a fun story to tell the next day.
But leave it to Thompson Hotels to put a steep price tag on your sexytime!
When we stayed at the Thompson LES this weekend, we spied this Sensuality Kit chillin' in the minibar. How hip and trendy! Sex kits! Hooray! Oh, but wait: this is a sex kit that will run you a hot $195.
The little box -- from upscale intimacy boutique Kiki de Montparnasse -- contains personal lubricant, condoms, silk ties, and a teeny signature vibe.
Guess they're hoping we'll dive into the minibar in the heat of the moment looking for something to make the sex a bit hotter.
And we will! But we'll go straight for the vodka, thank you.
We've been waiting on this hotel for so long that walking into the front doors to see lights on and people moving about the lobby felt like watching our child's first steps. If our child were a trendy Manhattan hotel fathered by a dude with the initials JP.
And even though the restaurant wasn't finished, the wireless Internet wasn't set up yet, the pool was still majorly under construction and a bit of an incident with the elevator left us walking down eight flights of stairs, we were very, very pleasantly surprised.
And now that we think about it, fantastic surprises were sort of the theme for our Thompson LES stay.
See, we booked a Standard Queen room online at a rate of $299, but when we arrived, the front-desker greeted us with the words no guest ever wants to hear: "Unfortunately, due to a full house tonight..." Crap. No! But then: "...we had to upgrade you to a King Studio Suite for the same rate." Oh. Yeah, okay. If you insist, dude.
A tipster on the slowly-openingThompson LES scene sent Curbed this photo of the soon-to-be-awesome pool from the third floor pool deck.
If you'll recall, the pool area is set to be all sorts of hot and sexy, with Andy Warhol's lovely face shining through the chlorinated water (it's photolithographed onto the pool's floor, 'scuse us). The poolside furniture looks pretty sleek, too.
The whole feature is scheduled to be completed and open by October 15th, according to the Observer, but ... wait for it ... it is Thompson, so no promises (have we used that dig enough?)
By the way, we wonder what Andy would think about this whole situation. Like, the dude once said "it would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor's finger." But instead, he lives on as a portrait at the bottom of a Manhattan hotel's indoor pool.
Whatever, maybe he'd think it was cool. Cause we kinda do.
This morning, we reported (with a "we'll believe it when we see it" attitude, natch) that the Thompson LES might finally, finally open today.
And it sorta did! A Curbed correspondent checked out the scene and said he "noted a phalanx of Adrien Grenier-types eager to welcome me to the hotel."
While the hotel is officially open and taking reservations, they're fully booked tonight and tomorrow night. For all you eager beavers, the online booking system still shows some availability for Thursday night with rates starting at $299.
Also, Curbed spoke with a staffer and came up with a super-handy Ready/Not Ready Guide for the hotel. Check it out here.
We can't be sure that the Thompson LES is actually going to open today--that would be too much of a "boy who cried wolf" kinda thing. But their website is now showing availability for this Thursday July 31, which is four days sooner than our last attempt.
Whenever the exact day is, the Thompson LES is obviously going to (finally) open in the very near future. And when it does, we are especially keen to try the pool. They decided to throw a few images of Andy Warhol on the bottom of it (apparently the technical term is that they've photolithographed him on). Probably the effect is totally lost up close with chlorine-soaked eyes or fogged-up goggles, but the idea appeals to us.
Of course, if the hotel does open today we know Thompson all too well to know that the pool won't actually open until much later. We just hope that when it does, breast-stroking over Andy is free.
Opening rates still look like going at $299 for Queen rooms plus $40 in taxes.
We got word that Thompson LES will now (not) open on July 29th. But don't go booking your hotel room yet. The hotel doesn't even have a phone line open. And the online reservations system wouldn't take any requests for that day. We were however able to find a Queen Superior room for the following week on both August 4th and August 11th for $299 a night. So perhaps you can try back then.
"Yeah...I'm gonna need you to come back next week. We're just a little behind on our TPS reports."
We should have seen the signs. Curbed scoped out the Thompson LES and was skeptical that the hotel would open on time. Then a commenter alerted us that the hotel's website wasn't taking reservations until August and even our Thompson source said the hotel might not make the opening day.
But we must have been sun-drunk or just plain old margarita-drunk because we still thought Thompson would do it on time. There were several reasons we had faith this time in Thompson--namely, we had heard nothing from our friend with reservations at the place.
Yet finally we did. Thompson LES will not be opening today. Word is, it might open next week. Or more likely, August. Til then, guests with reservations will be bumped to other Thompson properties.
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by Jenna
