Hotel News We Noted: July 27, 2012

by McLean Robbins on




Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware that this is the month of the Olympics – and we’ll be doing our due diligence by bringing you the best hotel news, packages and trend data over the next few weeks in this column and elsewhere. This week, however, we’re highlighting spots of summer with a slew of new hotel stay reviews, openings, trends and far-out amenities.

As always, if you have a comment, thought, or want to share details from a great hotel you’ve recently experienced, send us an email.

Now Open: Scrub Island
If it’s private island luxury you crave (who doesn’t?) try the newly opened, yet unfortunately named, Scrub Island Resort on the east end of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands (shown at top). As the first luxury resort built in the destination in more than 15 years, the hotel is part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection. Set on a private island and rugged cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, you’ll enjoy a choice of 52 rooms as well as two-, three-, and four-bedroom villas, a spa, restaurants, three private beaches and a 55-slip marina. Rates for a July stay start at $400 per night.

Opening Soon: Margaritaville Atlantic City
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, on a blanket with my margarita, that’s where I’ll be. More likely, we’ll be in the casino at the Margaritaville Atlantic City, predicted for a May 2013 opening. A hotel-within-a-hotel at the Resorts Casino, the Jimmy Buffett hotel will not be the first – there are already casinos in Biloxi, Mississippi, and Las Vegas, as well as a hotel in Florida and a number of the iconic restaurants nationwide. USA Today reports that the complex will have a restaurant, bar, shops, year-round beach bar and the first ever Margaritaville-themed coffee shop.

Fun Perk: Sing-A-Long Movies at the Westin Resort & Casino, Aruba
This fun Starwood resort adds a twist to their traditional “dive-in” movie theme with a family-friendly Sing-a-Long Movie Summer. Every Tuesday through the end of August, guests gather in the resort’s free-form pool to watch and sing along with classic films like “Mary Poppins,” “The Sound of Music,” “The Wizard of Oz” and more. Summer rates at The Westin, Aruba start at a reasonable $179.

Hotel Review: The Reef at Atlantis, Paradise Island, Bahamas
We are going to give the most positive review we can of our recent weekend at Atlantis in the Bahamas‘ Paradise Island. Keep in mind, we’re probably not the hotel’s target demographic – we don’t have kids, weren’t traveling on a company’s incentive trip budget, and don’t generally love gigantic hotels. The famed casino-resort-cruise ship stopping point was to be our home away from home at the wedding of a friend, the one reason we didn’t book a stay at the One & Only Ocean Club on the island instead.

The price for The Reef? A steep $398 per night pre-tax, which totaled out to an additional $120 per night … and this with a near 50 percent wedding rate discount. The rooms were spacious and the kitchenettes offered a good perk – we ordered from the handy FoodStore2Go to stock up for breakfast and other munchies. Red Flower bath amenities were a lovely touch; the horribly scratchy sheets (we’ve had better at a Hampton Inn for sure) were not.

Generally speaking, service was beyond, even the expected, “Caribbean time” slow. The staff (with the exception of housekeeping) was rude and unhelpful, and the resort was packed to the gills with the patrons dropped off from cruise ships each day. The Cove, the resort’s most luxe portion, was by far the best for adults, but even then, a DJ spinning morning and night at the pool made it feel more like Las Vegas or Miami then a relaxing Caribbean escape.

Rooms in other towers – the Beach, Coral and Royal – looked dated and in need of refurbishment. Sadly, rain deterred our plans to visit amenities like the Dolphin Cay and our time was cut short at the Aquaventure water park, but those definitely seemed worthy of a visit, particularly for families with children. The Mandara Spa, however, was a standout – the spa was still very crowded (go early in the day) but the treatment was one of the best we’ve had.

The final verdict? It’s the perfect day visit from a cruise ship or another resort. If you have kids and want to entertain them, it’s an easy alternative to Disney World. If you’re on someone else’s dime, enjoy! The island is beautiful. If you’re coming as a couple, save your money and go elsewhere.

$10 Cups Of Coffee, $5 Cookies And $175 For Wi-Fi: The Ugly Truth About Hotel Conference Costs

by Dave Seminara on

A glass of filtered waters costs $7.50. An order of whole-wheat ricotta pancakes goes for $39. A cookie will cost you $5.25. A bowl of pretzels is 40 bucks and Wi-Fi will set you back $175 per computer. These are just a handful of price quotes my wife received from a chain hotel in Washington, D.C., while planning a recent meeting for the hospital she works for in our nation’s capital.

If you’ve never planned a meeting at a hotel in an expensive city you might not be aware of how outrageous the prices can be. Hotels take advantage of the fact that the employees who plan conferences aren’t spending their own money and often don’t care what the prices are. But some people, like my wife, lose sleep over the high prices even though they aren’t spending their own money.My wife helps manage a research study for a group of children’s hospitals and every time she has to plan a meeting, she’s outraged by the sky-high prices because every dollar they spend on meetings is a dollar they can’t put to better use in the study, which seeks to find a cure for an often fatal disorder that affects children.

She showed me the list of food, beverage and tech options for their most recent conference in D.C. and I had a hard time deciding which item was the most egregious. Here are a few ridiculous examples:

Bottle of water or soda- $5.50 each
One gallon of coffee- $97- Works out to almost $10 per 12 oz. cup.
Iced tea- $87 per gallon- Works out to almost $9 per 12 oz glass.
Roasted Chicken Breast topped with Prosciutto,
Provolone and Pesto atop a
White Bean and Fennel Ragout- $50.00 per guest
Traditional Eggs Benedict- $41 per guest
Bowl of chips or pretzels- $40
Wi-Fi- $175 per computer

But those fees are just the tip of the iceberg. Hotels can really crush you on the A/V and technical charges. At this hotel, if you need an LCD projector to show a power point, they charge you $1,500, and even if you bring your own projector, as my wife did, they still charge you a mandatory setup fee of $800.

Perhaps the most laughable fee is a $250 charge for putting on “background music” during a reception. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could sell $2 bags of chips for $40, get $250 for popping in a cd of elevator music, and charge $5 for cookies or a bottle of water that costs you only 25 cents?

My wife has also planned meetings in other parts of the country where prices are lower than these but still way off the charts. With prices in D.C. as they are, one can only imagine how much U.S. taxpayers squander on government agency meetings. Hotels in D.C. all shift their prices for government employees to match the maximum allowable reimbursable per diem, which currently fluctuates between $169-$226 per night depending on the time of year.

Foreign Service Officers who relocate to D.C. temporarily between assignments have a sliding scale per diem, where they receive the full per diem for the first month and then lesser amounts for subsequent months and many hotels will gladly give them the lower rate after the first month is up if they agree to pay the inflated rate for the first month. It’s all a nasty little scam and the taxpayers are the ones who get screwed.

Hotels claim to offer conference participants and other groups special rates but always double check what’s being offered. Often times you can find a better rate right on the company’s website. But sadly, you can’t go online to get a better price on cookies, bottled water, Wi-Fi and all the other goodies the hotel charges meeting participants through the nose for.

(Photo via Ha-wee on Flickr)

Harrods Expands Into The Hotel Business

by Jessica Festa on

While most people know of Harrods as a lavish department store in London, the brand will soon be opening a chain of luxury hotels. Owned by the Qatar Holding Company, who purchased Harrods two years ago, the plan is to build properties in major cities like New York, Paris, London, Kuala Lumpur and Sardinia.

“Qatar Holding ultimately intends to grow Harrods into a global enterprise that defines the luxury retail and leisure sectors,” said the company.

Qatar Holding also owns the recently completed The Shard, Europe’s tallest building, so we’re interested to see how the hotel project turns out. Construction is slated to begin next year in Kuala Lumpur. They’re looking to invest more in Malaysia, as they believe the economy there is growing. The project is estimated to cost about £406 million.

What do you think of Harrods expanding into hotels?

[Image via Sokkk y]

London Unveils Europe’s Largest Building (For Now)

by Jessica Festa on



The Shard, Europe‘s tallest building, has recently finished external completion. Located in London, the building is 1,016 feet in height, and is being promoted as an icon for the city. While visitors won’t officially be able to go to the top of The View from The Shard, the building’s viewing platform, until February 1, 2013, tickets have gone on sale.

With 95 stories, 44 elevators, 206 flights of stairs, 600,000 square feat of office space and 11,000 panes of glass that will be angled to reflect the sky and change with the weather, the building is impressive. It will feature apartments selling for about £50 million pounds, office spaces, restaurants, a five-star hotel and the viewing platform. Plans for The Shard were approved in 2003. While some believe the building is a disgrace to London’s heritage, creation of the project moved forward.

Later this year, the building will have to change its title to tallest building in Western Europe, as the Mercury City Tower in the Moscow International Building Center will be completed, at 1,089 feet.

On July 5, a laser light show was held to celebrate the building’s external completion, which can be seen in the video above.

The Most Modern Hotel In The World … In 1908

by Sean McLachlan on


Here’s a fun little silent film from way back in 1908 called “The Electric Hotel.” At that time technological progress was all the rage, new inventions seemed to pop up every day and electricity was just becoming commonplace. In this film we see how the hotels of the future will look. The amazing invention of electricity will shine your shoes, undress your wife and unpack your luggage. It all works great until a drunk hotel employee messes with the switches and chaos ensues.

This film was the work of Segundo de Chomón, a Spanish director who at that time was working in France. He was an early innovator in special effects and color film and many of his films feature hapless tourists getting into trouble.

For modern hotels that actually exist, be sure to check out our Gadling hotel articles.