Hotel News We Noted: May 11, 2013

by McLean Robbins on

It’s the weekend, and you know that that means – it’s time for “Hotel News We Noted,” your annual wrap up of the best, wackiest and downright odd hotel news of the week. Spring has sprung in the hotel world, and we’re seeing tons of openings from major brands and boutique properties alike, as well as a slew of packages, many of which incentivize travelers to book early for summer stays. Time is running out for Memorial Day bookings in prime locations, but you’ll still find some great last-minute specials in major cities. Of course, don’t forget that Mother’s Day is this weekend. It’s not too late to snag a special at an area hotel there either – Saturday night stays and Sunday brunch offerings abound.

So without further ado, here’s the news you need for this week:

Crazy Hotel Package: Cockle Fishing (With your TOES!) at Hermitage Bay in Antigua
We’ve heard of hotels that will take guests out to “catch” their dinner, but never one quite like this. The ultra-luxe Hermitage Bay in Antigua will escort guests cockle fishing in in a hidden mangrove near the property. What is a cockle, you ask? It’s a small saltwater clam that lives in the deep, swampy mud. Desi, the Chef, and a local fisherman named Deon take guests hunting for the sweet things. Guests stand submerged to mid-thigh, calf-deep in mud, and find the clams by wiggling their toes! This sure brings new meaning to the idea of working for your home-cooked meal.

Haute Hotel Openings & Re-Openings
There are so many hotel openings this week and last, we simply can’t whittle down the list. Here are a few of the world’s most notable.

Located on the southwest coast of Bali, Starwood Le Méridien Bali Jimbaran is housed in a tranquil location that once was home to a small fishing village. The property features 119 guest rooms and suites that open around a unique 1,300-square-meter saltwater lagoon-style pool, as well as four restaurants and bars onsite. The hotel also features a six-room spa, a kids club and an exclusive rotating art program.

Istanbul is hot, hot, hot this year. The latest luxury property to hit the scene is Shangri-La Bosphorus, opening tomorrow. Located on the European side of the Bosphorus Strait, the hotel is housed in a former tobacco warehouse from the 1930s boasting a six-story Neo-Classical facade and a 350-year-old Sycamore tree in the courtyard. Expect a three-story Atrium, an 18-foot silk painting commissioned for the hotel, a CHI spa with eight private spa suites and the most spacious guest rooms in the city, ranging from 452 to 646 square feet, plus 17 suites with large private terraces.

In renovation news, the Hotel Gritti Palace in Venice is re-launching this year after a 15-month, $55 million restoration. Part of an overall $200+ million renovation for The Luxury Collection’s hotel’s in Europe, the newly revamped property features 61 rooms and 21 suites all carefully redone with an eye to the hotel’s historic beauty.

In New York City, the Langham Place has opened their first hotel in North America in the building that was The Setai Fifth Avenue. While at the start, the hotel, dubbed Langham Place Fifth Avenue, will look much the same, the well-known British name in hospitality brings an exciting new brand into New York City and a potential for further acclaim for the property. We’ll keep an eye out for more updates, which include the re-launch of the hotel’s spa in 2014 and a new bar, Measure, later this year.

Great Gift: Hotel Stories
Need a great gift for the luxury travel lover in your life? Luxury book publisher Assouline has just launched the latest in their collection of amazing coffee table books. Part of a partnership with The Luxury Collection, the book, called simply “Hotel Stories,” tells the tales of some of the world’s most famous hotels and their celebrity inhabitants.

Have a question, comment or hot hotel tip? Leave a note below or shoot us an email. We love mail!

[Image Credit: Hermitage Bay]

Mayotte’s Zam-Zam: Restaurant And Launchpad

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Last month I visited Mayotte, an island located between Madagascar and Mozambique in the Mozambique Channel. Mayotte is part of the Comoros archipelago, but unlike the rest of the Comoros, it is part of France.

In 1975, when the rest of the Comoros became independent, Mayotte elected to remain with France. In 2011, the association got even tighter when Mayotte became an overseas department of France. But despite its integration into France, Mayotte is a world apart from the mainland. Its population is largely Sunni Muslim and its most common language is not French but Shimaore, a tongue related to Swahili.

Mayotte is incredibly lush. There are lemurs and lizards on the land, dolphins skipping along the surface of the sea, and huge bats with wingspans as wide as eagles hovering above. The diving and snorkeling is world-class, reefs buzzing with life. The tourist infrastructure is operated largely by métros, or French people from metropolitan France. It would be easy to spend an entire vacation there enveloped by a “métro” bubble. It became clear very quickly that we would have to make an effort to engage with Comorian culture.

I was keen to try Comorian food. Food is a good route to a sense of culture – maybe the best. The Petit Futé guide to Mayotte lists a favorable review of Zam-Zam, a restaurant in the southern town of Bandrélé, conveniently near our guesthouse. One afternoon we set out to find it. After a 15-minute walk we came across a sign for it. A man saw us looking around and pointed to a yellow shack on a side street. He told us the restaurant would reopen later that evening.That man turned out to be Abdou, the owner of Zam-Zam. A friendly fellow originally from the island of Grand Comore, Abdou was charming and eager to chat. His English is good, too. On an island where few people speak any English at all, this was appreciated.

The food at Zam-Zam was fantastic. There was coconut chicken with a delicious, perfumed rice, mataba (cassava leaves cooked in coconut milk with fish) and pilao, a spicy chicken and rice dish sharpened with coriander and cumin. This was the best meal we had in Mayotte without a doubt. It was so good in fact that we returned later in the week for lunch.

Abdou is an entrepreneur. When he brought over the check he handed us a brochure with photos of his rental property and restaurant in Bangoi-Kouni in the north of Grand Comore, the most populous island in the independent country of the Comoros. The images got under my skin. Shot in a friendly, amateur vein, they depict white sand beaches, a simple thatched cabin nearly enveloped by equatorial greenery and Abdou’s son stretching out his arms in front of a lake. The brochure suggests “sea excursions, traditional fishing, cooking classes and musical evenings.”

Mayotte may not be major tourist destination but it has an easy, familiar infrastructure for visitors. Independent Comoros, however, can claim far less in the way of tourist infrastructure. And this is why Abdou’s brochure is of such interest. An invitation turns difficult places into easier ones. Abdou’s brochure, it seemed to me, was a true invitation to take the plunge and visit Grand Comore.

In other words, if his kitchen can take such good care of me on Mayotte, I’m quite sure his rental house would do the job on Grand Comore.

This is one piece of marketing collateral I won’t be recycling anytime soon.

[Image: Alex Robertson Textor]

Mountain Travel Sobek Launches 5-Day Flash Sale Monday

by Kraig Becker on

Adventure travel company Mountain Travel Sobek will launch a flash sale starting Monday that will offer substantial savings on some of their more popular trips. The five-day sale will feature a different discounted itinerary each day, giving travelers just 24-hours to grab the hot deal.

The discounted trips will be displayed prominently on both the company’s website and its Facebook page, although exactly which trips will go on sale remains a mystery at this time. Considering Mountain Travel Sobek offers dozens of itineraries to nearly every corner of the globe, it is possible that the flash sale could send you just about anywhere. With so many options in their catalog, travelers will also have to weigh whether or not they should grab a current deal or wait until the following day to see what is offered next. But once the 24-hour period is up, the sale on that particular trip is over and if you haven’t booked it, you’ve missed your chance.

In addition to the flash sale that runs next week, the company is also currently running a sweepstakes to give away the Ultimate African Safari in celebration of its 40th anniversary. One lucky winner will receive a 12-day trip to Tanzania, including airfare and travel gear, which will send them to the Serengeti to witness the greatest collection of wildlife on the planet. The contest runs through July 18. Enter here.

Although its origins can be traced as far back as 1969, Mountain Travel Sobek was officially launched in 1991 with the merger of two top adventure travel companies. Over the years it has continued the legacy set down by its founders, offering trips to all seven continents and constantly providing customers with exciting new options.

[Photo Credit: Kraig Becker]

Photo Of The Day: Contemplating Lake Como In Italy

by Jonathan Kramer on


In northern Italy, the Alps meet Lake Como at the comune of Bellagio to form some of the most beautiful vistas in Europe. Not only has the region provided inspiration for the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, but it is unequivocally gorgeous. Instagram user Jason Rodman absolutely captured the best thing to do at locations such as this, just sitting alone with your thoughts.

If you have a great travel photo, share it with us and it could be featured as our Photo of the Day! You can do so either by tagging your Instagram photos with #Gadling and mentioning us @GadlingTravel, like Jason did, or by submitting it to our Gadling Flickr Pool.

[Photo Credit: Instagram user jrodmanjr]

‘Fake’ Pilot Wanted By Police After Flying Jets To London

by Megan Fernandez on

An American man found guilty of working as an airline pilot without proper credentials is on the lam after he failed to appear at his sentencing hearing in England last week, the BBC is reporting.

Michael Fay flew for Libya’s Afriqiyah Airways on false credentials, according to the news story that referred to him as a “fake airline pilot.” It claims he forged his pilot’s license and medical certifications to get the position. Calling him a “clever and resourceful man” who had settled in Hampshire County in southeast England, a British law-enforcement official told the BBC that Fay “targeted Libyan aviation at a time when the country’s political and economic standing was vulnerable and volatile.”

During his eight months in the cockpit of an Airbus 320, the former U.S. Air Force pilot landed at London’s Gatwick airport eight times, apparently without incident. But he aroused suspicion on an aviation forum online, prompting another user to tip off the British police. They arrested Fay in 2011, and he was found guilt of fraud. Though he failed to appear for his sentencing hearing last week, the court gave him a three-year prison term. According to the article, Fay might be seeking work as a pilot or flight instructor outside of the U.K.

A quick Internet search turned up a possible explanation for how Fay got the job. In 2010, a secondary school called La Salle Academy in Providence, Rhode Island, printed a letter from a graduate named Mike Fay in an alumni newsletter, under the headline “Mike Fay ’69 Sends A Note From the U.K.” His message:

“Had a few minutes of free time, so I thought I would take a moment and update everyone as to what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic!

I had been working as a pilot for the Royal Family in Abu Dhabi. However, one of their financial interests, Afriqiyah Airways, located in Libya had a very bad crash in May. I am not [sic? now?] the Director of Training there. Interesting would be an understatement to say the least. But, I spend about 2 weeks in Tripoli and then I am back in the UK.

As I write this email, I am sitting in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Via the BBC

[Photo credit: Mauro Orlando via Flickr]