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Hotel Opening Rates / Hotel Renovations / Sydney Hotels / Park Hyatt Hotels / Australia Hotels / → All Tags

Park Hyatt Sydney Will Reopen March 1 at $855 a Night

Where: 7 Hickson Road, The Rocks, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000

We knew the big, big revamp of the Park Hyatt Sydney was going to be a big deal. But deal is not a word you're going to hear in any other capacity when it comes to this harbour-front icon.

Apparently the hotel is on track to re-open in mid-February but is taking reservations from March 1 onwards. And the starting rate for a night on March 1st? $AUD 855 a night.

Before you think, but hey, that's Aussie dollars. It's got to be cheaper when you convert it, right? --check out how strong that Aussie dollar is. The rate converts to $893 US dollars. Ouch.

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Hotel Club Lounges / Intercontinental Hotels / Sydney Hotels / → All Tags

Inside the Club Intercontinental Sydney

Where: 117 Macquarie St., Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000

Over on Jaunted, you can get our inside looks at some of the world’s best airline lounges, so we thought we’d do something similar here and start talking about some of the hotel lounges we’ve frequented lately for our new series on Hotel Club Lounges. Today, HotelChatter contributor Eric Rosen takes us along with him to the Sydney Club InterContinental.

During our last stay Down Under, we spent a few days at the Intercontinental Sydney, and spent a fair amount of our time hanging around the hotel’s Club Intercontinental lounge, which has to be one of our favorites in Australia.

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Hotel Openings / Hotel News / Sydney Hotels / Hotel Opening Rates / → All Tags

Sydney Gets a New Hotel with Park8

Where: 185 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000

The folks behind Australia’s privately owned mini-chain, 8Hotels (the Diamant, the Kirketon), recently opened up a new boutique hotel called Park8 in the center of Sydney a block from Sydney’s sprawling Hyde Park, in what used to be the Central Park Hotel.

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Hotel Bars / Sydney Hotels / Hilton Hotels / → All Tags

Hilton Sydney Transforms Into Covent Garden on Fridays

Where: 488 George Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000

We might be in for record-breaking temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere this summer, but if your travels are taking you to Australia in the next few months, there’s already a brisk chill in the air foretelling of crisp winter days and nights to come. To mark the changing of seasons the Hilton Sydney is throwing a Winter Party that will transform the outdoor terrace at Zeta Bar into Covent Garden starting at 6:00pm every Friday evening.

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Hotel Construction / Hotel News / Sydney Hotels / Australia Hotels / → All Tags

Sydneysiders Afraid New Harbour Hotel Will Turn City Into a Mini-Dubai

Where: Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000

The best hotels in Sydney are undoubtedly the ones with harbour views—the Shangri-La, the Park Hyatt, the InterContinental, the Observatory. It's been years since a new hotel had the chance to muscle in on this priceless real estate but now there's one in development, it's causing a ruckus. The biggest complaint? That the proposed 698-foot-high hotel perched on a pier jutting into the water will turn Sydney's skyline into a mini Dubai.

The yet-to-be-named hotel is part of the larger Barangaroo project at Darling Harbour—a mixed-use retail, public domain and housing plan for the last remaining piece of harbour foreshore available for development. Many of the project's plans are still under public review, and unfortunately the Aussie public is giving a big thumbs down to the plans for the hotel.

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Room Service / Australia Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / Shangri-La Hotels / → All Tags

Room Service Breakfast at the Shangri-La Sydney is Pricey In Any Language

Where: 176 Cumberland St [map], Sydney, NSW, United States, 2000

While shacked up at the Shangri-La Sydney recently, we could barely tear ourselves away from the gorgeous views. But then we decided to flick through the room service menu and off came our rose-colored glasses... We all know that hotel food is expensive, and room service items even more so. But seriously who pays $44—plus delivery charges—for bacon and eggs?

Now, we love love love an Aussie breakfast—the bacon there is out of this world and we may have eaten a whole pig's worth of the stuff in two weeks. But we could most definitely not drop a bright yellow Aussie fifty dollar note on a few strips, even if it did come with fruit, toast, hash browns, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, eggs, juice and Darjeeling.

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Sydney Hotels / Killer View / Hotel Service / Australia Hotels / Shangri-La Hotels / → All Tags

It's Hard To Beat The Views At Shangri-La Sydney

Where: 176 Cumberland St, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000

Yeah, mate, yesterday's Guess The Hotel shot was taken from level 14 of the Shangri-La Sydney, where we can barely tear ourselves away from the window.

Back when this was the ANA Hotel, the bar on level 36, now known as Blu Bar was the place to wow tourists. The newly renovated bar still provides knockout views, but there's nothing quite like knocking the socks off longtime Sydneysiders by inviting them into your hotel room to see this more personal view of their city.

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Guess The Hotel / → All Tags

Guess The Hotel With The Double-Banger View Of Sydney Harbour Icons

Welcome to a special Down Under edition of Guess the Hotel!

This is one of those instances where we're going to have to give you the location of the hotel because, frankly, if you can't guess that from the photo, you really should head back to your third-grade geography class.

Yes, we're here on a whirlwind visit to our one-time hometown of Sydney, and will bring you some more observations from this spot on the harbour tomorrow. (Notice we're even using the Aussie spelling of 'harbour'? When in Sydney, and all that ...)

But in the meantime, here's how our little game works: we give you some hints, you put your guesses in the comments below, and we'll reveal the name of the hotel tomorrow.

Got it? Good. Here we go...

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Celebrity Scoop / Lady Gaga / Sydney Hotels / Sheraton Hotels / → All Tags

Lady Gaga Stayed in a Sheraton During Her Visit to Sydney

Where: 161 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000

A huge story broke on Saturday, when a Lady Gaga fan revealed that he was not only able to get hired as local, temporary crew for Gaga's concert in Wollongong, Australia, but that he scored a few pictures of her dressing room and even stole her itinerary for her Australia visit late last week.

Of course the Gaga devotees are geeking out over her schedule, which includes times for prayer before shows, a visit to the Nan Tien Buddhist Temple and also hours for "lite glam" and "glam," but we're most shocked at her choice of hotel in Sydney: Sheraton on the Park.

What's so special about this Sheraton? Find out, after the jump

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Sydney Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / Shangri-La Hotels / → All Tags

Sydney's Shangri-La Upgrades Its Cafe Mix Restaurant

Where: 176 Cumberland Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000

Sydney's Shangri-La Hotel already serves up drinks in a bar we approve of - its Blu Horizon Bar which has amazing views over Sydney Harbour and the Opera House. Downstairs, the all-day dining spot Café Mix has just had a revamp and earlier this month relaunched with a new look and a new menu.

The new look includes extra seating and Café Mix now seats over two hundred guests. You can get nearly anything you want here: there's Indian, Japanese, Chinese and Australian cuisine, plus (something we really like) a dessert buffet which includes a chocolate fountain.

To celebrate the new look there's a special on every Friday night until October 16. It's a seafood buffet with fresh oysters, king prawns, crab and lobster for A$99 ($85) per person.

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Healthy Hotels / Sydney Hotels / Hilton Hotels / Hotel Packages / → All Tags

Get a Taste of the Healthy Life on Hilton Sydney's Health Retreats

Where: 488 George Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000

If you're looking for a vacation that's healthier than the average overindulgent getaway, here's a suggestion: the Hilton Health Retreat which they run four times a year at the Sydney Hilton. The next retreat is coming up soon, from June 12 to 14, so get packing for Oz fast and you'll come away feeling pretty good – or pretty exhausted.

The Hilton Health Retreat is a pretty full-on weekend, led by an expert nutritionist and a fitness pro. You have to undertake a fitness and nutrition assessment before you even get there, so those two experts can set about planning all the right activities for you.

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Snapshot / Hotel Cookies / Sydney Hotels / → All Tags

The Establishment Hotel Woos Us With Cookies

Where: 1 Bridge Lane, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000

If donuts are the new cupcakes, then cookies are the new turndown mint. It's no secret that we at HotelChatter love cookies. If you didn't, well then see our reaction when someone mentioned taking away our cookies.

Thanks to our sweet tooth, we were delightfully surprised to see that the hip Establishment Hotel in Sydney's Central Business District offers cookies at turndown.

And it might be really strange to hear us say this but it's almost as if Doubletree Hotels knew all along the power of the cookie long before the rest of the hospitality world caught on. Imagine that: Doubletree, the hotel cookie pioneer.