Luxury London Hotel Offers iPad for Guests

-- Updated May 8, 2010 --

Just saw this article on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) that shares the story of The Berkeley Hotel in London, which will soon offer the use of an iPad to guests staying in qualifying suites (Berkeley, Conservatory, and Chelsea) priced at an estimated $2000/night and higher.  I'm a big fan of the iPad (don't have one yet but I will someday), but I think if I had the money to stay there, I could probably purchase one myself.  Either way, it's a pretty cool offer and it comes pre-loaded with plenty of content.

The Berkeley looks to be a pretty amazing hotel, and it should be given the price point of a night's stay.  Not only does it offer four basic options for traditional rooms, but there are twelve options for suites!  The ultimate selection appears to be the Pavilion Conservatory Suite, which is a 1,582 square foot space with a private 205 square foot conservatory, access to a 646 square foot roof terrace, and a ridiculous list of added luxuries.  For the non-millionaires out there, the traditional rooms can be had for rates starting at around $450/night if you want to set up camp in the Knightsbridge part of town.

I'll keep my eye out for other exceptional perks at luxury hotels in the future.

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Underwater Hotel Room - Hilton Maldives

I've seen this article re-posted a few times now, so I figured I would share it as well.  This link is to the TrendHunter version of the post, which shows the newly converted underwater hotel room available at the Hilton Maldives on Rangali Island (aka the Conrad Rangali Island Maldives Hotel).  The room used to be part of the Ithaa Underwater hotel restaurant and was converted over to the luxury suite with a 360 degree view of the sea after the restaurant's 5 year anniversary.  This would be a cool, unforgettable stay, but the Deluxe Water Villa sure looks hard to pass up!  Oh and by the way, you have to travel to the hotel by seaplane...talk about a remote location!

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New Poll!

Set up a new poll today.  Vote on your favorite style of luxury hotel!  Once the poll closes, I will post a feature on a chosen hotel in that category.  Here are the choices (as you can see in the poll) with an example of a hotel that fits that description:

Grand: Willard Intercontinental Washington
Boutique: Lorien Hotel & Spa
Spa/Beach Resort: Hotel Hana-Maui and Honua Spa
Business: Shangri-la Far Eastern Plaza Hotel

As for the results of the last poll, the favorite part of a luxury hotel to the most readers was the Beach/Pool area.  So I scouted out a great looking beach resort called Moon Dance Cliffs in Jamaica on the JustLuxe travel website.  This hotel is located right on the ocean and features a selection of rooms, suites, and villas (yes, villas!) that you can choose for your stay.  The pool area looks amazing and there's also a spa that features a full range of services at pretty reasonable prices.  The hotel also features an all-inclusive package so you can enjoy your stay without worrying about racking up the bill.  Next time you're headed to Jamaica, give the Moon Dance Cliffs some thought.

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Oyster's Best Luxury Hotels of 2010

Oyster recently posted its 2010 list for the Best Luxury Hotels in the selected locations of Boston, Dominican Republic, Hawaii, Jamaica, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.  The feature ranks 90 of the best hotels in terms of their rooms, service, food, and many other features.  The list is a bit Four Seasons heavy, but hey, they are great hotels no matter where they are.  Here's the listing of the top rated hotels in each of the destinations:

Boston: Four Seasons Boston
Dominican Republic: Sivory Punta Cana
Hawaii: Four Seasons Maui
Jamaica: The Caves
Las Vegas: The Bellagio
Los Angeles: Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons
Miami: The Setai
New York: The New York Palace
Orlando: Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes
San Francisco: The St. Regis San Francisco
Washington D.C.: The Jefferson

It would be great to see this list expanded when Oyster begins to feature more cities.  This is a great resource for finding luxury hotels in the featured locations and is a bit more manageable than some of the other resources that feature hundreds and thousands of hotels to browse.  There are also lists featuring the best boutique hotels, business hotels, spa hotels, and other categories if you're interested in browsing other themes.  More on The Setai in the future.  For more information on Oyster, see post from March 8.

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Featured Article - Best Business Hotels in NYC, Boston, and D.C.

From time to time, I will feature articles from other sites and blogs as I come across interesting ones.  For the most part, I will try to share articles that feature a particular category of luxury hotels or an in-depth look at a particularly interesting hotel.  This week, I'd like to share with you an article from the The Suite Life Blog, which features some suggestions for nice business hotels in three often frequented cities in the Northeast: New York City, Boston, and Washington D.C.  You can check out the article here.  In addition, I have added the Perfect Escapes site to the resources listed at the bottom of the page.


The article offers options in each city at what it calls moderate and luxury levels and also lists links to other favorite business hotels in Chicago, San Francisco, and Hong Kong.  For Boston, the article suggests The Charles Hotel at the moderate level and the XV Beacon at the luxury level.  For NYC, the Affinia Shelburne and The Benjamin Hotel are the locations of choice.  Finally, the article serves up The Churchill Hotel at the moderate level and Kimpton's Hotel Palomar for D.C., which ironically was also featured recently on the TripKick blog and has a great restaurant called Urbana I check out during restaurant week.  I think of the three cities, I love what the Boston selections have to offer the most, and they both have great individual websites so be sure to check them out!

More on The Suite Life Blog and Kimpton Hotels in the future!

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A Luxury Hotel Search Story -- Casa Velas, Puerto Vallarta Mexico

Google has just released a new capability on YouTube to create Search Stories.  It's basically an easy tool that allows you to make short videos about a series of Google searches, which include the web, maps, images, news, blogs, product search, and books.  You can add one of the categorized soundtracks to your video and...there it is!  You now have your own personal search story video that you can upload to YouTube and share with your friends and family.

So I got the idea to do my own search story with a luxury hotel theme to it.  The story basically shows what I might search for in planning my own trip to a luxury hotel destination.  I don't want to spoil the story so check out my Luxury Hotel Search Story video!  What would your luxury hotel search story look like?  Please post your videos!

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First Review - Hilton Garden Inn (Atlanta, GA)

Hey everyone,

I took a trip to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago and stayed at the brand new Hilton Garden Inn, located on Baker Street in Centennial Park near the Aquarium and new World of Coke.  This is the first review for Hotel Hopper, so as a guideline of how I intend to look at things, be sure to check out the rating guidelines page for a more detailed explanation of the review process.  To reiterate, a rating of 5 in a category means that is what you would expect from a typical luxury hotel.  So a 5 is actually pretty good, and a 10 means the hotel far exceeded expectations. A 1 doesn't mean the hotel was bad, it just means the hotel can't compete with the best of the best.  Here's the story on the new Hilton Garden:

Overall (2):  A great place to stay.  Reasonably priced, great location, and very practical.  However, I would argue that this is more of a higher end 'regular' hotel and would not qualify as a luxury hotel.  You certainly would not find this hotel in the Kiwi Collection. But, I won't give it a 1 because they did do a nice job in a couple of the categories as you will see.

Room (2): Decent sized room, although it was oddly rectangular in shape, almost like a hallway.  It did have two big windows and a great view of Atlanta.  Bonus for beds with adjustment controls for firmness for each side.  Nice 32" flat panel TV and also an alarm clock with an auxiliary port for an iPod or other .mp3 player.  The room had a workspace with an office chair and a desk, and also offered complimentary high-speed wireless internet and Ethernet.  There was also another lounge chair in the room if you don't like hanging out in the bed for too long.

Bathroom (3):  This is one area where I though they did a pretty good job.  Nice modern fixtures and a huge tub/shower combination with good water pressure and temperature.  But again, I still think it falls short of what I would call a luxury bathroom.

Lobby (2): Nothing overly special here, but it helps that the lobby is brand new.  There is also a fairly large flat screen TV, lounge seating, and a convenient store.


Amenities (4):  This is the other category where they succeeded fairly well.  The Hilton Garden Inn has two swimming pools, one indoor and one outdoor, and a jacuzzi tub on the 7th floor, all of which are heated.  The outdoor pool also has a pretty great view of the Centennial Park area and Atlanta skyline.  There is also a fitness center on the 7th floor, which again, is helped by the fact that everything in there is new.  Hopefully, all of these facilities will be kept up over the years.  There is also a nice restaurant right off of the lobby and again, the location of the hotel itself gives you great access to the attractions in the area.

Service (1):  Nice staff, but there always seemed to be a slow moving line at the reception desk and they gave away the last king room to the guy in front of me who came in without a reservation.  Didn't get the warm, fuzzy feeling that you get when you are somewhere special.  Parking was also available in an attached parking deck, but you often had to park on the 8th or 9th floor when there was something else going on in the area.

So there it is, the first Hotel Hopper review!  Again, I would highly recommend the Hilton Garden Inn for someone looking for a nice, practical place to stay, but if I had to do it again, maybe I would have sprung a little more for the W Hotel a few blocks away.  The Garden Inn didn't quite cut in this more competitive arena.

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