33019 Travel Guide
Tags: Budget Hotels / Fort Lauderdale Hotels / South Beach Group / Hostels / → All Tags
South Beach Goes Hollywood, Budget Hollywood
No, no, the SoFla folks aren’t coming west, just heading north. The self-described “hip hotel group” The South Beach Group has just announced a new property in Hollywood Beach, Florida. But don’t look to their Miami Beach boutique hotels—Catalina, Riveria South Beach, Whitelaw, et. al—for clues to the new digs: this baby is a two-in-one, the Hollywood Beach Hotel + Hostel.
Tags: TV Set Hotels / Spring Break Hotels / Miami Hotel Mambo / Westin Hotels / → All Tags
Maury Povich Will Keep it Classy at the Westin Diplomat
Ah, Maury Povich. You make the long weekdays go by so much more quickly with your endless paternity-test disasters, the verbal assaults that take place on your stage, your insane makeovers and crazy-kid-rehab bootcamps; it's only sensible that you pack up and take it all to Miami during Spring Break to place your Maury-ness squarely in the epicenter of young American debauchery; the capital of poor decisions.
And yet: why did you choose the Westin Diplomat hotel as the backdrop to film segments of your Spring Break-edition shows? According to Page Six, you've opted to tape some "sexy segments" there — but why not, like, some segments on Ocean Drive at 3:15 a.m.? Surely the Delano and Fontainebleau are a wee bit too classy for the likes of Povichery, but a Westin just seems sort of like, well, a conservative choice.
Then again, we wouldn't want a set that is so not conservative that it upstages your guests. Not like that's any easy feat.
Tags: Hotel Sex / Miami Hotel Mambo / Hotel News / → All Tags
Miami Hotel (Horizontal) Mambo :: World's Largest Swingers Party Going Down at Westin Diplomat
We'd be lying if we said we had much more exposure to the swinging lifestyle than watching that one episode of The O.C. where Sandy and Kirsten attended a swingers' party (and subsequently chickened out), but we understand the idea of swinging and assume you do too.
What we don't understand is how Pearson Media Group, a children's educational book publisher, is going to react to sharing Miami's Westin Diplomat Resort with the world's largest swingers' party going on this weekend.
Ha! Awesome! Almost as awesome as the time the Crowne-Plaza Orlando double-booked a swingers' party and a Disney youth soccer tournament. Awkward.
Tags: TV Set Hotels / Marriott Hotels / → All Tags
Tony Soprano Whacks the Marriott Smoking Ban
Tony Soprano and Paulie Walnuts take a quick getaway (from the Feds) to a Marriott in Florida. The hotel name wasn't prominently featured---we had to look real closely at the parking rates sign in the background of this picture to even see that it was a Marriott.
Our first guess is that it's the Marriott Hutchinson Island in Stuart. It definitely doesn't look like South Beach. Plus it has a marina so Tony could take Paulie away on a "bonding" sport fishing trip. Then in the credits we noticed Thank You to the City of Hollywood, FL and we can now say it was the Marriott Hollywood Beach, which used to be a Holiday Inn but recently got a $30 million Marriott makeover.
It still maintains a somewhat outdated Art Deco exterior but guests like the beachfront property and the new interior decor. Another sign that it's perfect for Tony Soprano? A reviewer says this:
The town itself is more like a working-class Jersey beach town than a swanky resort area.
And so much for that Marriott smoking ban. Tony and his lady of the evening enjoy a post-coital smoke.
Related Stories:
· Marriott Hollywood Beach reviews [TripAdvisor]
· Marriott Smoking Ban [HotelChatter]
Tags: Hotel Deals / → All Tags
Last Minute Florida Hotel Deal
One of HotelChatter's advertisers, The Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa, is feelin' all Crazy Eddie today.
The hotel has slashed rates from $250 to $185 through December 18th, 2005.
Available dates with this rate are currently:
December 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, & 19.
Westin definitely picked a good weather day to try and get people to jump on this one.
Related Stories:
· Secrets of the Hollywood Florida Westin [HotelChatter]
· The Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa [TripAdvisor]
Tags: Hotels / → All Tags
That's Life In Hollywood...Florida
[Publisher's Note: Gabe is back. Taking us on another fantastic voyage through the bizzaro world of South Florida's hotel scene. He will be taking us to SoFla hotels once a week from now until infinity, or ad nauseam, whichever comes first. Enjoy]
If you're a fan of the black socks and sandals look, South Florida's Hollywood Beach is the only place south of Niagara Falls where you won't fall victim to disapproving looks from the fashion police. Locals like myself will most definitely laugh at you behind your back (or sometimes in front of it) but regardless of our sophomoric snickering, we do appreciate and get along with our neighbors to the north.
What am I talking aboot?
Canadians. Thousands of them. Sporting black dress socks on the beach. In the winter, they flock to Hollywood Beach like those penguins in that penguin movie.
Recently, the area is starting to simmer with sassiness and the newly refurbished Marriott Hollywood Beach is an upscale vacationing milieu for Canucks and red-blooded Americans alike. Sans the socks and sandals of course.
Story continues, with photos, post click...
Tags: Hotels / → All Tags
Secrets of the Hollywood Florida Westin
A FlyerTalk blogger visits the Westin Diplomat, an old Florida Rat Pack hotel which was torn down, rebuilt, and reopened in 2002.
They give away a couple secrets about this 1000 room ocean side hotel:
(One secret about the property: I understand that the mattresses were purchased before Westin came on board. So while the sheets are all of the Heavenly variety, the mattress is a different -- though quite nice! -- brand.)
During high season regular rooms are well north of $300. Labor Day is still the off-season and lowest rates were around $189. That values the points component of my rate at a bit over 3 cents per point.
It was interesting to see the diverse mix of guests constantly walking through the busy lobby. It came as a bit of a surprise that people coming in from the pool and beach would traipse by without changing clothes or even cover up their swimsuits with a towel. A downside to sum [sic], no doubt a bonus for others.
Related Stories:
· Westin Diplomat [View From the Wing]
· Westin Diplomat Reviews [TripAdvisor]
Tags: Hotels / → All Tags
Ramada Inn Hollywood Beach: Ten Points to Consider
[Editor's Note: Here is Gabe's quick follow up to yesterday's Hollywood Ramada story]
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - Ten Points to Consider:
- Free continental breakfast
- Wi-fi? Yeah right. But tin cans connected by a long string are available free of charge.
- The first floor "mall" is a sea of empty stores but there is a pizza place and a Chinese food place (there's a morgue joke in here, but I'm going to leave it alone)
- The hot tub by the pool is just about a degree less than scolding. As I was trying to get my big toe accustomed to the temperature for about twenty minutes, the food and beverage director showed up to boil some lobsters.
- And the band played on...this hotel is humungous so no matter the occupancy, it perpetually feels empty. Sort of like an abandoned cruise ship.
Second five after the jump.
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