30326 Travel Guide
Tags: Hotels Doing Good / Atlanta Hotels / Hotel Toiletries / Hotel Soap / → All Tags
Atlanta Hotels Want You To Leave Your Used Soap Behind
We just wrote about Hotels Doing Good yesterday, but you know the saying: When it rains, it pours goodwill! Today brings us word of another good cause, one that begins in your hotel bathroom. Specifically, with your soap. Perhaps you pay that bar of soap no mind, or maybe you (cough, cough) try to use just one bar and pilfer the other for your own bathroom. Regardless, if you leave a used bar of soap behind, it gets thrown out by housekeeping once you check out.
Not any more. Enter the Global Soap Project, an initiative started by Derreck Kayongo, a former refugee from Uganda, who first came to the U.S. 15 years ago.
Tags: Hotel Video Tours / HotelChatter Reviews / W Hotels / Atlanta Hotels / Hotwire Hotels / → All Tags
Inside The W Atlanta Buckhead's Close Quarters
We spin you right round, baby, right round. Sorry, for the shakiness at the beginning of the video. The room was a little cramped.
So we told you yesterday we got a stonking deal on Hotwire, bagging a $259 room at the W Atlanta Buckhead for just $95. Here’s how our stay measured up.
Room Reaction
We got a room on floor 10 - just two levels under the Whiskey Blue rooftop bar – and overlooking the Financial Center. It wasn’t the finest view we’ve ever had, to be fair, but we won’t blame the hotel for that.
W have done quite well with the layout – it wasn’t the biggest room you’ll get, but lots of white and an open plan bathroom meant that it didn’t feel cramped. Note: we were staying on our lonesome so the open plan bathroom wasn’t a problem – had we been in a pair, it might have been an issue. But the nice guy at check in had given us the option of a room with a separate bathroom, so don’t lose too much sleep over that.
Tags: Hotwire / W Hotels / Atlanta Hotels / Road Trip Hotels / → All Tags
How Hotwire Got Us a $259 Room at the W Atlanta for Just $95
Have we mentioned before how much we like Hotwire? Well today we’re saying again because we got a smoking deal with them the night before last.
We were passing through Georgia and instead of staying in another B&B with too-thin walls or a motel where strange men phoned our room in the middle of the night, we thought we’d get some sleep in a proper hotel in Atlanta. And seeing as W has no less than four hotels in town, we thought we’d try one out.
Tags: Hotel Parking / Hotel Hell / Intercontinental Hotels / → All Tags
Another Reason to Avoid Hotel Parking
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.
Tags: Hotel Hype / Hotel Openings / Luxury Hotels / Starwood Hotels / Rosewood Hotels / → All Tags
Atlanta's Luxury Hotel Boom
The Atlanta luxury hotel market is booming, with 10 new properties underway. While most of these are still a few years away, early 2008 is the date for The Mansion on Peachtree (above), the St. Regis, Buckhead and two W Hotels.
Besides the Starwood properties, Hilton and the Mandarin Oriental will open their upscale hotels in the future, adding, in all, 1,600 new luxury rooms to the city. One wonky market analyst doesn't think that's a problem:
I don't think that it shows the consumer has been underserved as much as that the amount of demand for high-end products has continued to grow.
The Mansion is perhaps the most interesting property, since Rosewood Hotels & Resorts has only 15 properties world-wide. (Their flagship is The Carlyle in New York.) Seven more are set to open in the next three years in places as varied as Telluride, Costa Rica and Dubai.
Related Stories:
· New Luxury Hotels Incread ATL's Glitz Factor [Atlanta Business Chronicle]
· Luxury Hotels coverage [HotelChatter]
· Atlanta Hotels [HotelChatter]
[Photo: marklarson]
Tags: Hotel Hell / → All Tags
GPS Unit Goes Missing from Intercontinental Atlanta
[Ed. Note: A reader submits his Hotel Hell, courtesy of the Intercontinental Buckhead Hotel in Atlanta, Ga., where an expensive GPS system was stolen from his car while it was parked in valet. As always, this is one person's unique experience.]
My wife and I stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel and although the room was pricey, the service and amenities were wonderful. We were having a great time until we checked out and found that my $1,000+ GPS unit was stolen from our car while in the care of their valet parking service. There was no forcible entry. We were told by the hotel concierge that the valet service was responsible. When we asked to speak to the hotel manager, the concierge called the person in
charge and that person told the concierge to "get rid of us"!
After two weeks, the valet service offered me 25 cents on-the-dollar for
my trouble. When I told them it was an insult, they withdrew the offer
and sent me a letter saying they were not responsible for loose items in
the car. I am in the process of recovery through legal means and it looks like we are headed to Civil court.
Related Stories:
· Intercontinental Buckhead Atlanta Reviews [TripAdvisor]
Tags: Hotel Heaven / → All Tags
Coffee and cognac: Another tantalizing glimpse of InterContinental Buckhead
Business travel writer Chris Barnett has delivered a glittering review of InterContinental Buckhead, InterCon's two-month-old business class addition to Atlanta, Georgia's hotel scene. With striking attention to the value of guest services and a few innovations like the swank new cognac-pushing X.O. Bar, the luxury hotel chain and manager Ronen Nissenbaum have made the Buckhead an area hot spot.
Despite what seemed like a packed house, there were six people at the front desk, so no one waited in line. The clerk flashed a genuine smile, looked me right in the eye and gave me the warmest welcome yet and checked me in an about 90 seconds. A bellman was summoned who took the bags, and he introduced me by name to a nearby concierge - another thoughtful touch - and gave me a brief verbal tour of the hotel before taking me to my room.
Old World service like this at $299 on weeknights and $199 on weekends begs to be experienced. Other features include reasonably-priced Parisian fare, excellent extra services and perks for a $50 ticket into Club InterContinental, and 24-hour access to a posh, wireless-quipped business center for $10.95 a day (no, the wireless service in the rooms is not free). Barnett's room was large and lush, with highlights including a whirlpool bath and complimentary DIY coffee.
It's not quite as cheap (by our standards) as Barnett thinks it is, but it still sounds almost too good to be true. If any of you readers stop in Atlanta, give the Buckhead a look-see and let us know what you think!
Related Stories:
· We Touched the Guest [HotelChatter]
· Love and Kisses Don't Come Cheap [HotelChatter]
Tags: Hotel News / → All Tags
Love and Kisses Don't Come Cheap
HotelChatter recently reported the advent of a diamond-studded $3,000 cocktail being offered by New York's Algonquin Hotel. Perhaps attempting to one-up the Algonquin with a more affordable ridiculously expensive beverage, the InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta has unveiled a $350 shot of cognac.
A former professional cognac taster (there are such things?) and now veep of food and beverage for the InterContinental Hotels Group, Jean-Pierre Etcheberrigaray has equipped the hotel's X.O. Bar with gleaming shelves of rare and special French brandies that go for upwards of $350 a shot. ""X.O. is sexy. It's fresh. It's love and kisses... It's extremely old." (For laughs, re-read the following quote with your thickest French accent)
The bar may be an attempt to harness the power of Atlanta's black consumer market; cognacs like Hennessy and Courvoisier have appeared in everything from Busta Rymes, R. Kelly and P. Diddy videos to SNL sketches like "The Ladies Man." Cognac is showing up in cocktails too: Donald Trump toasted the winner of "The Apprentice" with a drink called "You're Hired" that included Courvoisier.
At 40 to 550 bucks, the InterContinental's new drinks don't come cheap -- but they're a bargain compared to the Algonquin's publicity-grabbing $3000 martini.
Related Stories:
· Don't Eat the Ice [HotelChatter]
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