by Laura on December 23, 2009
Lobby of the Hotel Madera, one of our picks for the capital's gay-friendliest hotels
Washington, D.C. could soon become THE hot new wedding destination if a same-sex marriage bill recently passed by the city council gets past the U.S. Congress, which must approve new laws in the nation’s capital. That could happen as early as March, so the city’s hotels have already begun to ramp up their marketing campaigns in an effort to attract spouses-to-be. We did our homework before the bill passed, however. Here’s our list of D.C.’s best gay-friendly hotels, all of which have been approved by the Travel Alternatives Group and/or the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association:
Read More »
L.A. is a bit of a celebrity-spotting safari. And even though plenty of celebs call the City of Angels home, the area’s hotels are still teeming with famous faces (sometimes drunken, messy faces). For the glitziest, go-home-and-brag-to-your-friends celeb stalkage, we’d like you to know that there’s quite a bit more to the Los Angeles star-studded hotel scene than the ol’ Lindsay Lohan standby, the Chateau Marmont.
We’ve compiled the ultimate guide to who’s been seen where — and where you may have the best shot at an A-list sighting. Here are our picks for the best celebrity hot spot hotels in Los Angeles.
The seldom-seen lobby of the Chateau Marmont
Chateau Marmont, a discreet movie star hideaway since it opened in 1929, attracts celebrities to its popular Bar Marmont, see-and-be-seen restaurant, and private guest bungalows (John Belushi overdosed in one in 1982). An Oyster reporter spotted both Stevie Wonder and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke at coveted patio tables. Jennifer Aniston, John Mayer, and Billy Crudup have been spotted together in the courtyard, Eva Longoria and Christina Applegate were seen on the patio, and Sienna Miller and Josh Hartnett cozied up in the restaurant’s living room. And Lindsay Lohan, Charlize Theron, Mary-Kate Olsen graced Chateau’s halls on a single night.
by admin on November 5, 2009
Oyster.com-reviewed Hotels in the Dominican Republic – make thousands more decisions on Hunch.com
Please note: This post is best viewed in Firefox.
Our mission is to bring you the most authentic, honest, and comprehensive reviews of hotels around the world to help you choose the accommodations that best suit you and your needs, but we understand that we cover a LOT of properties — and sometimes you simply don’t have the time to search for a hotel that’s tailored to each and every one of your exact specifications.
If you’re, say, looking for a kid-friendly hotel in Punta Cana with less than 150 rooms, separate living areas, a golf course, all-inclusive options, and offerings that could better be described as “value” rather than “luxury,” it’s going to take you a couple of minutes to find exactly which hotels fit the bill (though we wish we could make pocket-sized clones of ourselves that are capable of throwing out hotel recommendations anytime, anywhere).
Enter Hunch.com’s Dominican Republic Hotel decision-making tool. The geniuses over at Hunch have created an embeddable widget based on our hotel reviews that ask you, in 10 questions or less, what you’re looking for in a Dominican Republic hotel — and then it generates hotel recommendations tailored to your exact specifications. Like a magical hotel recommendation genie. Awesome.
by admin on October 23, 2009
This weekend, we stayed at the just-opened Surrey Hotel, a 190-room Upper East Side newbie perched on a posh block just off Central Park. Inside a pre-war building fresh off of a $60 million renovation, the luxe property (a member of the Affinia Hotels family) has only been open since October 15th. We got in there to check the place out for you — you know, before you shell out the $500+ for a night there.
Take a peek at some of the photos we snapped; stay tuned for the full review in the New York section of Oyster.
A Deluxe Salon Room
Read More »
by admin on October 5, 2009
Despite what the Starwood exec says below, the Westin New York at Times Square claims to recycle
The New York Times ran a story today attempting to explain the question many of us ask each time we resign ourselves to pitching empty water bottles into the single wastebaskets provided beneath our hotel room desks: uh, would it be so hard to drop a recycling bin here?
It seems the answer is more complicated than you might think. Adding a recycling program to a hotel involves more than just throwing a pretty-colored bin into a guest room — well, some hotel execs tell the NYT so, at least:
“It’s challenging,” said Brian McGuinness, a senior vice president at Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which offers in-room recycling at its Element hotels and plans to introduce similar programs at other brands by the end of 2010. “These initiatives sound easy in theory, but in practice it’s quite a different story.”
Housekeeping carts have to be modified to keep recycled materials separate from other trash, workers have to be trained in new procedures that may involve union negotiations and the recyclables often have to be sorted and stored at the hotel before being taken away — but not too far away.
Mr. McGuinness said Starwood required that the recycling center “be within a 50-mile radius of any given property” and noted that some Starwood properties would therefore be exempt from the requirement. “Otherwise, we’re hauling recycling materials in a truck burning fuel for 80 miles.”
Read More »
by admin on September 29, 2009
Here’s a special surprise for everyone: beaches in Hawaii are crowded. Just like Vegas pools.
Listen, all we’re saying is that you shouldn’t expect the beach behind your Hawaiian hotel to look much like the beach that particular hotel has pictured on its website. The real thing may be a different beach altogether, a big patch of sand densely populated with children and their inflatable beachgoing companions, or, you know, up against a mammoth construction site.
These wouldn’t necessarily qualify as photo “fakeouts,” per se — more like “somewhat misleading inclusion of photos of deserted beaches in photo galleries on hotel websites.”
Observe:
In Hyatt Regency Waikiki's photo gallery
Our Hyatt Regency Waikiki beach experience
Hilton Hawaiian Village shows no people in the water
Oh look! People in the water. And a parking lot!
In conclusion: you won’t have the beach to yourself. You know, in case you were confused.
by admin on September 21, 2009
Renaissance Relaunch Party
Last week, we hit up Renaissance Hotels’ official brand “re-launch” at the Hotel 57 in Manhattan (which is now a Renaissance property). Across the pond, plenty of folks were partying in Paris at the Renaissance Arc de Triomphe several hours earlier to celebrate the new look of the Marriott-owned chain the same way.
So: when a not-too-trendy hotel chain like Renaissance gets the word out about a total image revamp by throwing much-hyped, almost-simultaneous parties on two different continents, what kind of vibe might we expect the newly-refreshed brand to deliver? From what we saw at the Hotel 57 party, Renaissance is going for trendy, chic, and modern — and according to David Marriott (Regional Vice President of hotel operations for NYC, Baltimore, and Philly), the brand is aiming to compete with W Hotels.
Renaissance, listen: we’ve gotta be honest. We never knew you had it in you to pull off a W-ish vibe, but we’d be inclined to believe you’ve got the goods to go head-to-head with Starwood’s trendiest brand after this party. At the soiree, we mingled with (er, “mingled with” is a little strong — let’s go with “followed around”) Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley and the beautiful Brooke Shields while sipping on Absolut cocktails among the funky, fresh, inventive decor. There were sparkly dresses a-plenty, a few A and B-list celebs, DJ’s, drunk people, and contemporary light fixtures. If we squinted real hard, we would have thought we were hanging out at one of W’s Living Room bars.
Read More »
by admin on September 15, 2009
The Money Shot.
Thinking of grabbing the fam (or the fiance) and jetting to Hawaii? Well, if you’re a faithful reader of travel news, you’d be inclined to believe that the scene in Hawaii right now is…dismal. Surely you’ve seen the reports: hotel occupancy in our 50th state is down. Way down. The number of visitors has declined sharply. Room rates are plummeting, but the people still aren’t coming – and the numbers are especially distressing when compared to an astoundingly-weak July 2008. It’s bad over there.
But we’re going to let you in on a big secret: our reporters just got back from Hawaii (yes, Hawaii is our next destination to launch – that’s what we were hinting at last week) and they’ve got plenty to say about scene. So before you go picturing abandoned hotels and eerily-empty beaches with palm trees swaying in the wind, allow our reporters to offer up a glimpse of what things are really looking like out there in the Aloha State:
Read More »
by admin on September 3, 2009
Bathroom mirror TV's: Not what we mean by 'radical innovation'
Here at the ol’ Oyster HQ, we like to think we’ve seen it all – but, uh, we haven’t. And neither have you.
No, seriously: have you seen the plans for a hotel suspended over the Grand Canyon? No? Thought so.
Business Week gave us the heads up on a little something called the Radical Innovation in Hospitality Awards, a program aimed to “discover, identify and explore ‘radically innovative hospitality concepts’ that are either currently open and operating, in the development stage, or in conceptual form.”
And these aren’t your typical hotel “innovation” ideas like in-room workout kits or TV’s in bathroom mirrors – oh, no, no. This year’s award nominees (the program is in its third year) are a wee bit more – dare we say – radical. Out there. “Ridic,” as the kids say these days.
Read More »
by admin on August 21, 2009
In case you haven't been camped out in the Trump Tower Las Vegas business center...
Craving up-to-the-minute news on hotels, airlines and travel as it all unfolds? The @OysterHotels Twitter stays on top of the hot gossip flying around the web 24/7. Today’s highlights from around the Internet:
- A passenger on a Southwest airlines flight was arrested (naked) after he exposed himself to the woman seated next to him and then punched her in the face. Oy. [MSNBC]
- Warning: there is an entrepreneur out there who is planning on launching a “zero baggage” concept that involves renting clothes when you travel. Not for the faint of heart – or for those of us who feel itchy in thrift stores. [Consumer Traveler]
- So, about that $599 unlimited JetBlue pass? No mas. Sold out. All gone. You lose. [USA Today]
- …But you can watch all the fun everyone else is having by checking out the @599Club Twitter community. [Twitter]
- Our friends at Jauntsetter have rounded up a pretty hot roster of up-to-date travel deals, from Bangkok hotels to a full four-night London getaway. [Jauntsetter]
- Hawaii celebrated its big five-oh with a hula party in Times Square today – and, now that we mention it, The Aloha State has been in the news quite a bit lately. Not that we’re hinting at anything… [AP, NY Times, CNN]
