Things have not been going well for hotels in Orange County, Cali., recently. Last year, a man and wife were killed in a bizarre murder-suicide at the Montage Resort. The other month a woman's body was found on dry ice inside the Fairmont Newport Beach and now an Olympic ice dancer was slipped the date-rape drug at the St. Regis Monarch Beach.
Grishuk, who won Olympic gold medals for Russia in ice dancing in 1994 and 1998, was attending a business meeting at the St. Regis Monarch Beach on April 12 when she began to feel ill and numb, sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said.
While eating dinner, she spotted a partially dissolved pill in the bottom of her drink. Investigators later found another dissolved pill in the bottom of a drink she ordered in the hotel's lounge.
Amormino says toxicology tests that came back Tuesday were positive for GHB, but it wasn't immediately clear how the pills got in Grishuk's drinks or who put them there.
Grishuk, 36, is native of the Ukraine but now lives in Los Angeles. The St. Regis has not issued a statement to the press as of yet.
In the meantime, you may want to avoid these $400 a night rooms. You never know what will happen during your stay.
Vietnam's president Nguyen Minh Triet made a trip to Laguna Beach, Calif. this weekend, making it the first time a leader of Vietnam has touched American soil since after the end of the Vietnam War. Triet hit up Starwood's St. Regis Monarch Beach, a popular luxury hotel amongst celebrities, rich people and now, politicians. The hotel is also where Triet hosted a reception for invited business leaders.
But the event was interrupted by about 2,000 demonstrators who marched against Triet's communist government for their consistent violation of human rights.
Demonstration leaders with megaphones walked up and down Niguel Road urging the crowd on. Many waved American and pre-Communist Vietnamese flags and held up pictures calling for the release of a prominent priest who has been jailed by Vietnamese authorities. One man carried a hanging effigy of Triet on a pole.
Still, we are sure Triet sought some solace in the hotel's 3,100 sq.ft. Presidential Suite which includes "multiple outdoor full ocean view balconies, including one large tiled terrace with a grand fireplace and outdoor speakers", butler service, a piano, a dining room for 10 people, and artwork by Picasso.
The This is Broken blog has a funny post on the Mandalay Bay elevator buttons where the hotel seems to "add" on floors, making guests believe the building is taller than it is.
This reminded us of the elevator buttons we saw at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel last week which look akin to those telephones they make for old people with gigantic buttons.
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
This view from Room 2548 at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel is sooo close to being a Killer View. If we had gotten a room a little more to the right (i.e. close to the elevator which would have prevented us from walking like 1/2 a mile to our room), we could have had a blissful view of the Pacific Ocean.
Instead we were stuck staring at the outdoor massage cabanas. And those things are actually closer than they appear. Fortunately, (or maybe unfortunately?) no one was getting a massage when we chose to eat our breakfast on the in-room balcony.
[Note: This screenshot was taken from our reservation confirmation email. The policy is subject to change, although we doubt it.]
Our first impression of the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel is that it's massive. It's a sprawling hotel on top of cliffs that overlook the Pacific Ocean. Naturally due to the views, it's also a popular wedding destination as there were three weddings in place on the day we checked-in.
The resort recently renovated its public areas such as the bar and the restaurants to capitalize on the ocean views, making it a special place to do lunch or dinner.
But the resort is so massive that's its a maze trying to get to your room. And once you get there, its really not worth the $400 room rate. We did have a partial view of the ocean, but we also had a head-on view of the outdoor massage cabanas. The bathrooms are quite amazing and luxurious as is the bed. But the rest of the place didn't seem that special. The furniture and setup just wasn't quite as nice as we were expecting.
However our view of the place may have been tainted thanks to a certain hotel policy. What got under our skin about this Ritz Carlton was not only the $400 room rate and the No Pets Allowed policy (have they not been following the pet trend?) and the vague $20 resort fee. Oh and did we mention this place does not even offer wireless access? Nope, they still do the old school ethernet for $9.95 a day.
But back to our initial gripe: What really irked us is the insane cancellation fee charge. If we were to cancel our reservation seven days or less before our arrival date, we would have to pay DOUBLE our room rate.
Since we saw this cancellation fee before we got to the hotel, we have to admit that might have led us to be a little prejudice against the resort and prevented us from truly enjoying it.
Things have not been going well for hotels in Orange County, Cali., recently. Last year, a man and wife were killed in a bizarre murder-suicide at the Montage Resort. The other month a woman's body was found on dry ice inside the Fairmont Newport Beach and now an Olympic ice dancer was slipped the date-rape drug at the St. Regis Monarch Beach.
0 Comments - Add Yours
by juliana
