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GADLING TAKE 5: week of 2-15-2008

by Catherine Bodry on Feb 15, 2008

Happy Day After Valentine’s Day! If you’re crashing after yesterday’s massive sugar rush, why not just sit down, relax, and peruse the best of this week’s Gadling? Really, it’ll feel good. Better than Valentine’s Day even.

We welcomed new blogger Kelsey Mulyk. Kelsey and her husband are driving from Canada to the tip of South America, and Kesley will be blogging along the way. I can’t wait to vicariously get out of Alaska.
Iva wrote about the upcoming Dubailand, which will be twice the size of Disney World — the current biggest theme park in the world — and include over seven theme parks across 107 sq miles.
Aaron asked us which presidential candidate we’d most like to travel with. I know my answer and it stems from a photo of one particular candidate frolicking around in the ocean. You?
Jerry told us the secret to getting exit row seats.
Anna introduced us to the language of IKEA. I still can’t pronounce anything, but I did learn that the store has an interesting method to naming their products….

That’s all! Enjoy.

Want to travel with Anthony Bourdain? Here’s your chance.

by Aaron Hotfelder on Feb 15, 2008

If I were to make a list of my dream travel companions, Anthony Bourdain would be just about at the top. Finally, here’s my (and your) chance to travel with Tony.

His show No Reservations, now in its fourth season, has put out a casting call for an upcoming show, the No Reservations FAN-atic Special, which will be taped during a ten-day stretch in May. Applicants are asked to submit 3-minute videos detailing why they would be the best ones to accompany Bourdain, and full contest guidelines are available here. Videos can be submitted until March 15.

You can check out your already-submitted competition here (it looks weak, you can beat it), read Bourdain’s blog here, or go to the show’s website here. Good luck! Also: read Gadling’s interview with Anthony here.

“Do Not Disturb” sign winners

by Catherine Bodry on Feb 15, 2008

In September I posted about an Embassy Suites contest to create unique “Do Not Disturb” signs. Well, the winners are out — here are the top slogans from over 7,000 entries:

First place (which won a trip to Hawaii): “Shh! I’m hatching a plan to bust some little soaps out of here!”
Second place: “Pillow Fight In Progress”
Runners-up: “There are days when I wish I could wear this around my neck” (which sort of sounds to me like a Garfield caption); “I’ve built a pillow fort and I am not opening the door for anybody!” and “Aww, Mom. Just five more minutes. Please?”

What do you think? Have any good slogans you wish you entered?

Do chocolate spa treatments leave you sticky?

by Jamie Rhein on Feb 15, 2008

After writing about the chocolate hotel room fantasy weekend and the chocolate spa treatments at the Hotel Hershey, I wondered about others. The idea of a chocolate treatment makes me feel sticky. I have had massages with oil. Those left me feeling slick. Jeannette of Intelligent Traveler who wrote the original post about the Godiva/Hotel Bryant fantasy weekend left a comment on my post that she has had a chocolate wrap and there is a temptation to lick oneself. I can see that.

I have never felt tempted to lick myself after a massage that involves regular massage oil. This chocolate beauty treatment has me curious about its merits. These treatments have been around awhile. In this 2005 article posted at FoxNews.com, Samantha Jonas-Hain writes about her chocolate body tour that took in Hershey, Pennsylvania as well as Ajune Spa (see Godiva Chocolate Body Wrap) and Charm Beauty Salon in Manhattan.

Jonas-Hain interviewed people who attested to the benefits of doing more than eating chocolate. For example, one person said that caffeine stimulates the circulatory system and tightens the skin. One benefit, another said, is that if you use chocolate as a beauty treatment, the smell alone can satisfy your cravings for the good stuff. You might not eat it which can help keep the weight off. So you see, don’t eat the Godiva chocolate you received for Valentine’s Day. Melt it and use it as a facial.

Here are some other places for chocolate spa treatments I came across.

The Spa at Norwich Inn – Norwich, Connecticut. Three chocolate inspired treatments from which to choose.

Four Seasons Hotel George V – Paris. Check out the chocolate body scrub or the chocolate body wrap.

Relâche, the Spa at Gaylord Opryland® Resort & Convention Center, Nashville, Tennessee has a chocolate spa treatment in February only. Hurry.

Poets Cove Resort and Spa— Pender Island, British Columbia – For treatments with yummy sounding names.

WHS Tentative List: Place to Love — San Antonio Franciscan Missions, Texas

by Catherine Bodry on Feb 15, 2008

For the Gadling series “World Heritage Site new “Tentative List”: Places to Love” we are covering the 14 sites that have been submitted for possible inclusion as an official World Heritage Site in the United States. The sites will not be posted in order of importance or in the order they appear on the list.

Name of site: San Antonio Franciscan Missions

Location: San Antonio, Texas

Reason for importance (in a nutshell): According to the National Park Service website, the five Franciscan missions, which are spread around San Antonio, “are a remarkable concentration of surviving structures that superbly represent the Spanish colonial influence in this part of the New World. The religious, economic and technological systems of the missionaries created settled communities that became the basis of the region’s ethnically diverse society.” The most well-known of the five, the Alamo, was established in 1718 as a way station between missions.

Catherine’s take: We have so few structures in the US that are truly old. And while 350 years may be positively newborn to a European, that time frame marks a lot of history for the New World.