Get your hot dogs, sunscreen and beer guts ready: Independence Day is just two weeks away! If you're headed to a big city for some fireworks fun, we'll be taking a look at hotels with prime fireworks views. Have a favorite hotel for gawking at bombs bursting in air? Send it our way.
We've hit all the major Fourth of July hotspots in the Northeast, but for those of you looking to catch fireworks on the beach, we suggest heading down to Miami.
There's always a stuff going on in the city so there are going to be fireworks all over the place, but we recommend you make the swanky new Regent Bal Harbouryour temporary headquarters for the Fourth of July weekend.
The long-awaited Regent Bal Harbour (which was supposed to open on New Year's Day then in February) has finally opened this week.
And guess what? Those of you who are watching your disposable income, in these worrisome days of a possible recession, will probably rule this hotel out of your vacation plans.
For instance, we looked at dates for today March 11 through March 13 figuring that weekday rates might be a little lower. Nope. The hotel is offering opening rates for a Premier Deluxe Room at $775 a night. However, you do get a panoramic view of both the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay along with several high-tech room amenities.
A lower categories of rooms--the Superior rooms--were found to be about $200 cheaper but not available on the dates we selected. Go to the opening exclusive page to fiddle with the dates and rates.
Sources have assured us that Miami's The Regent Bal Harbour, first scheduled to open January 2, then February 1, is really, truly, opening March 1. Indeed, we were able to make an online booking for the hotel's opening weekend (not so when we last checked in January). There even are a few opening rates available for bay-view Superior Rooms, panoramic Premier Deluxe Rooms and ocean-view Deluxe Spa Rooms--in some cases as much as $100 off regular room rates.
Why all the fuss? Well, The Regent Bal Harbour is said to be the first major property to open in Miami's famed Bal Harbour Village in nearly half a century. Plus, the hotel also was supposed to be the first to feature a Guerlain Spa here in North America, until New York's Waldorf Astoria beat them to it by opening theirs this past December, way ahead of its spring 2008 schedule. See what happens when you dilly-dally?
Never, ever plan your vacation around a hotel that promises it's going to open right at the start of said vacation. Our experience here tells us more and more that very few hotels hit their opening day. We've been excited about the Regent Bal Harbour having a New Year debut for a few months now--anticipating just how relaxing that Guerlain Spa was going to feel--and dumbly believing that their promised January 2 open date would take place.
Alas, January 2 has now come and gone, and you can no longer make online reservations for January. These days the website says (in small print, after you try to make a booking) that the Regent Bal Harbour is now accepting reservations for arrivals from February 1, 2008. Let's hope they didn't make a small typo and mean 2009. Because we don't want to have to rely on these hotel photos with weird airbrushed clouds in the windows for much longer.
Some good news for hotel spa lovers. The highly-anticipated Guerlain Spa at the Regent Bal Harbour is set to open to both hotel guests and outside visitors on the same day as the new hotel's debut. The website is now taking reservations starting January 2, with nightly rates starting at $475. And yes, these are their "exclusive" opening rates.
But you will get a lot for your money. The guestrooms will have an "Asian flair", both ocean and bay views and are accessed by semi-private or private elevators. to ensure the utmost privacy.
The amenities include 52-inch plasma screen televisions, Anichini® linens, free-standing bathtubs set before 10-foot floor-to-ceiling windows plus a new contraption we hadn't heard of before, a "toe-tap" groove in the shower for testing water temperature before entering.
Lovers of luxury take note: there's a new spa a'coming. Down in Florida, the Regent Bal Harbour is about to get a "new generation" Guerlain Spa, which should be opening ready for the winter season of 2007.
Next to the Bal Harbour Shops in North Miami Beach, the Spa will be open both to hotel guests and outside visitors, but it's designed to keep it all private anyway, so it doesn't matter who else is there - each of the 15 treatment rooms even has its own ensuite bathroom, so you don't need to socialize at all. But if you want to, then you can relax on the waterfront terrace before your treatment, and afterwards get ready for "real world re-entry" in their "reflecting room" (healthy stuff like juice and tea provided).
There are a number of Guerlain Spas located around the world, and they all use the Spa Therapy Questionnaire to design your treatment: and if you travel to another Guerlain Spa, even on another continent, the staff will be able to access your questionnaire results and treatment records and continue your program exactly how you want it. Not bad.
You can get full-day packages with names like "Totally Transforming", or half-day, three-hour treatments like "Jet Lag" and "Pre-Flight". But the most impressive-sounding service is just a facial: the Exceptional Orchidée Impériale Treatment. For those with imperial qualities, of course.
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by Jenna
