97205 Travel Guide
Hotel Restaurants / Ace Hotels / Portland Hotels / → All Tags
Lunch at Clyde Common at The ACE PDX Cost Just This Much
We have a serious heart-on for the Clyde Common restaurant at the Ace Hotel Portland and it's easy to see why--we had lunch there for just $10. And it was a phenomenal lunch too as we ordered an aged monterey jack and marinated anaheim pepper grilled cheese served with fries, creme fraiche and the sweet harissa which our bro Jaunted told us all about the other month. Throw in a Coke and the bill came to $10 even. Swoon. Just another reason to love Portland in general, it's way affordable.
Want to know what it's like spending the night at the ACE PDX where rooms are as low as $95 a night? Check out our full review with video and photos right here.
Hotel Toiletries / Portland Hotels / Toiletry Dispensers / → All Tags
Hotel Toiletry Conundrum: Dispensers or Bottles?
Last week, we wondered if toiletry dispensers were unsanitary or not but over at the Benson Hotel in Portland, you won't have to worry about that since the hotel offers both toiletry dispensers and toiletry bottles. And with the good stuff too--Gilchrist & Soames.
There is one exception though. Unless you prefer using hotel soap, you will have to pump the dispenser for the shower gel as that was not offered in bottle form. Go figure.
Hotel Amenities / Hotel Minibars / Ace Hotels / Portland Hotels / Hipster Hotels / → All Tags
More Metal Thingies in Hotels, This Time at the Ace Portland
Okay, it's official; we are totally on the look-out for hotel rooms that feature the little extra amenity of a wall-mounted bottle opener. First, we spotted in the business traveler-oriented, $300+ rooms of the Sofitel Heathrow Airport, and now one has made an appearance in the hipster-centric $95 rooms of the Ace Hotel Portland. Beer—it transcends all economics and demographics.
Truly, having a bottle opener fixed to the wall (and therefore not so easily stealable) makes total sense in a hotel room. No need to call room service at 2am when you've cut your teeth trying to open a bottle you thought was screw-top. And, if you have a special guest up to your room for drinks, the suave movement of popping the cap without having to fuss with a gadget is some minor James Bond seduction stuff. At least, to us.
Portland Hotels / Provenance Hotels / Hotel Employees / → All Tags
The Hotel Lucia's Way of Wearing a Shirt That Says 'Number 1 Dad'
How often do you see a hotel flagrantly bragging about their employees? Almost never, because the job of a hotel is to focus on the guests and brag about them, right? Wrong, if you're Portland, Oregon's Hotel Lucia, because they have it written right on their exterior:
Through these doors walk the most outstanding Employees anyone could ask for
Hotel Lucia
We were just walking by this side, employee-entrance door when the bright green words attracted our attention. You don't even need to be a guest at the Lucia to smile about their employees, because this cute little gesture from the management says it all. We wonder if the workers even look at it anymore, or if employees of other hotels walk past and get a little sour. Regardless, this is something we've never seen before at a hotel, and good on them for showing a little public appreciation for their staff.
[Photo: HotelChatter]
Anti-View / Ace Hotels / Portland Hotels / → All Tags
You Get What You Pay for With This Portland Anti-View
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 is a classic case of "you get what you pay for." A stay at the Ace Hotel in Portland, Oregon comes with the hipster cache that the other three Aces also enjoy, but oftentimes that means sacrificing things like valet parking and chocolates on your pillow at turndown. For rooms starting from $95 per night, however, that's completely understandable.
Hotel Breakfasts / Portland Hotels / Ace Hotels / Hotel Services / Hotel Coffee / → All Tags
Why Everyone's 'Checking Into' Room 215 at The Ace Portland
For the past month now, guests at the Ace Portland have taken a particular liking to room 215, often making daily pilgrimages there in the mornings between 7am and 11am.
It might (just might) have something to do with the following: the ever-innovative Ace has converted a previous Junior Deluxe room into a fully-fledged breakfast nook, whose adorable kitchenette offers yummy, fresh nibbles like yogurt, dried cherries, and hard-boiled eggs.
Without any official announcement or heavy promotional push, the room, which offers a family-style dining table as well as bar seating, opened in early March, and is one of the healthiest hotel breakfasts we've ever had.
A single barista/waitress greets guests as they arrive, offering a choice of brioche or spelt toast. Classical music plays gently in the background, and on a recent weekday morning, we got so cozy, we could have spent hours just eating toast and stirring our coffee. Virtually every ingredient offered on the buffet table is regionally-sourced, seasonal, and, we should add, delicious.
Hotel Packages / Hotel Deals / Portland Hotel Scene / Oregon Hotels / Ace Hotels / Shopping Packages / → All Tags
Stick It To The Man With the Help of Ace Portland
There’s nowt like getting discounts on your shopping, and nowt like going with the flow in a place like Portland and getting all chippy against The Man, so the new holiday shopping package that the Ace Portland has just launched is getting us even more excited than the moment on our first trip there that we were told there was no sales tax in Oregon.
The Stick It To The Man package goes one stage further and offers you 10 percent off a standard room, 10 percent off things you buy at the Ace (including yummy Malin + Goetz smellies) and 10 percent off purchases from a selection of local retailers.
The discount is good for 35 independent shops in Portland including Billygoat Vintage, Muse Art and Design and Camellia Pure Beauty. And if you don’t know what these are, fear not, because they’ll also slip you a copy of eat.shop Portland to navigate your way around the beacons of hipsterdom.
Scandals / Political Hotels / Hotel Sex / Hotel Massages / Portland Hotels / Al Gore / Hotel News / → All Tags
The One With Al Gore and Hotel Lucia's Massage Therapist
UPDATE: Al Gore is no longer an "inconvenient" hotel guest. He's been cleared of all charges in the Portland case.
It looks there's yet another hotel sex scandal involving a politician. This time it's former vice president Al Gore who's been accused of sexually assaulting a massage therapist in 2006 at the Hotel Lucia in Portland.
The National Enquirer says the massage therapist, a woman, recently detailed for Portland police all the unwanted sexual contact between her and Gore. The report is 73 pages long and full of bizarro stuff but here are the highlights--apparently Gore requested an abdominal massage and when the therapist showed up, she said Gore had been drinking. He then proceed to do/say the strangest things over the course of a "massage" including making her listen to a song by Pink, washing down chocolates with Grand Marnier and grabbing her from behind.
Hotel Bookshelves / Hotel Amenities / Portland Hotels / → All Tags
Bringing Sexy (Books) Back at The Heathman Hotel Portland
Flipping pages in bed isn’t exactly our idea of foreplay, but for solo travelers and super geeks, The Heathman Hotel offers a “Books By Your Bedside” package. Home to one of the country’s few catalogued hotel guest-lending libraries, this package includes accommodations for two, a tour of the hotel’s library, a hardcover edition of a book written by the hotel’s most recent guest author and other goodies.
Authors Anthony Bourdain and David Sedaris both made appearances at the hotel within the past two months. Thomas L. Friedman, a popular environmental writer, as well as Annie Leibowitz, the famed celebrity photographer, were at The Heathman back in April. Michael Pollan graced Portland with his politically-correct presence in January, along with Calvin Trillin.
Hotel Amenities / Portland Hotels / Hotel Religion / → All Tags
Scientology Book Available On Demand At Hotel Lucia
Portland's Hotel Lucia likes to include everyone. They've got a packages that invite chocolate lovers (no, really, lovers) that includes an edible chocolate tattoo kit and chocolate whipped cream, and they've got a package called "He/He She/She Whatevah" that offers romantic amenities to all couples.
And as far as religion goes, well, chances are they've got you covered there, too. We were cruising around Flickr when we happened upon user Bryan Veloso's shot from a recent stay at the Lucia. He writes:
Hotel Lucia in Portland had a lot of great amenities despite their $14 internet. This was one of them, press the "Get it Now" button and have a spiritual book of your choice delivered to your room.
Okay, let's ignore the $14 connectivity charge for now and echo the photographer's sentiments here: what? The Book of Mormon to Scientology?
Well, we suppose if we're interested and don't want to pay $14 to Google it, we may as well be happy that we can at least read up on it the old-fashioned way.
[Photo: Brian Veloso]
New Years Eve 2009 Hotels / Portland Hotels / Hotel Packages / New Year's Hotels / → All Tags
Party at Portland's Benson Hotel
The new year is almost upon us, and that means your local free paper packed full with ads for NYE parties and pecial prix fixe menus. If you're not down with drinking away your Christmas bonus (that's if you even got one) with bottle service at a sweaty club, then instead focus on classing it up with good ol' dine and dance. Historic hotels of major cities have a stunning ballrooms just waiting for events like this.
For example, Portland's Benson Hotel is offering up its own tantalizing reason to break out the wingtips; their "Evening of Elegance" package includes a room for the night plus entrance to an extravaganza in their circa 1912 ballroom. It's got an orchestra! It's got an all-night-long buffet! It's got late check-out! We bet they'll even those wiry "Happy New Years" crowns and noisemakers that look like they were bought at a Five-and-Dime during the Hoover administration.
Portland Hotels / Ace Hotels / Hotel Deals / Hotel News / → All Tags
Use Your Ace Hotel Portland Room Key to "Stick It to the Man"
Taking advantage of people's need to watch their wallets and bargain-hunt this holiday season, the Ace Hotel Portland is all about the discounts; they've launched partnerships with neighboring boutiques and even Amtrak to ease the economic pain.
According to the Ace, "shopping in Oregon means no sales tax, and the MAN hates not getting money from your pocket," so take advantage of their deal to show your Ace room key at shops like Upper Playground, Blake, Hermitage, Covet, Lille Boutique and Rudy's Barbershop and receive 20% off your purchases in addition to paying no tax. It's almost like shopping a sale at a Caribbean duty-free mall, except that you're in Oregon.
In case you'll be heading down from Seattle for some Portland retail therapy, the Ace has a sweet little deal with Amtrak to get you half off companion fares on the Amtrak Cascades using promo code H779 when you book Amtrak online through May 19, 2009. The offer extends to 10% off your room at The Ace and free breakfast at Stumptown Coffee; man, they really want you to ride the rails. They've even got a contest going at Trainsetters.com for two free round-trip train tickets and one night at the hotel. All aboard for savvy shopping; Ace Hotel next stop.
[Photo: em.ness]
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