We spoke to Brian Harris, the General Manager of the Aloft Charleston who said:
"We had well over 500 guests throughout the night, who all loved the hotel. A lot of people said it reminds them of being in New York City or Miami and is a nice change from the more traditional hotels that Charleston is known for."
We all know about Christmas toy drives, but Four Points by Sheraton brings a twist to the doing-good field. Four Points has asked guests, hotel staff and communities to drop off new Halloween costumes to be donated to local children's hospitals. The program launched last year and resulted in hundreds of costumes donated to children's hospitals across the country.
Do note they ask for costumes "light hearted in nature," so no creepiness or serial killer masks, please. And costumes must be in their original packaging -- this isn't the time to go green by recycling your kid's Spiderman costume from last year.
We think this is a sweet idea - what kid doesn't like Halloween? And it lets those of us with puppies instead of children still take part in costume-shopping fun.
[Ed Note: This reminds us: you can go ahead and donate that costume you bought, because you can probably use clothes already in your home closet to dress up as the Chief Beer Officer! We hear you don't even need a badge.]
Green is the new black. Toting canvas bags to the grocery store, recycling, and buying free-range chicken are no longer fringe activities and no city has benefited more from this trend than Portland, Oregon, home of tree-huggers, granola, and no sales tax.
With six new and updated hip hotels, Portland is offering up even more of it's unique flavor to out-of-towners -- The Oregonian clued us in today.
You know it's never good when we bring out the "I has a sad" kitty.
Remember those Starwood stocks you bought a few months ago? Yeah. You might want to get rid of those -- or buy them up, depending on how you like to play the market.
The AP reports that shares of hotel companies dropped on Monday morning and even more so following the House's rejection of the $700 billion bailout plan later that afternoon. Analysts all over -- wait, who are we kidding? There's only a few financial firms left -- are lowering their expectations for travel in 2009, with one Goldman Sachs analyst predicting that revenue per available room in the U.S. will remain negative well into 2009, the AP says.
Every so often, we feature a hotel review from one of our readers that we feel should be shared with the rest of you dear hotel guests. These reviews are highlighted because they are timely, about cool hotels in cool places and are relatively level-headed. Think you can submit one just like this? Send it in. Now, we present you with reader (and part-time Vail Valley local) Mark's review of the brand new Westin Riverfront Resort and Spa at the base of Beaver Creek Mountain in the Vail Valley, which just opened up last week. Enjoy.
We had lunch and went on a tour of the newly-opened Westin Riverfront. Apparently, there was a big opening party on Friday, Oct 26 that almost everyone in the area was invited to, but I guess our invitations got lost in the mail.
The hotel is beautiful. Very zen-like, not what you would expect in the mountains, but still very, very nice without the pretentiousness of the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch.
ZOMG! The Westin Riverfront is finally open. At least that's what they tell us. We've also heard rumors that there's an opening gala tonight, but we weren't invited. Sad face.
We can't wait to check out this new place for ourselves, especially with it's fancy "green" features: recycling stations on every floor, preferred parking for hybrid cars (not sure exactly what this means, since everything is valet anyway), and an on-site organic garden (nice touch, Westin).
One of the final finishing touches at the SLS Beverly Hills was the placement of the SLS Crest above the main entrance this week.
Crest, you ask? Yep, you see the chandelier with those little monkeys that look like they are up to no good? Yeah. That's the crest - or logo - for SLS Hotels.
So the Crest is up. Construction is finishing up. But when can you stay?
Hey, remember how Aloft and Element opened up together in Lexington, MA and we went on and on about Aloft but then Element kind of went under our radar (comparatively, at least)? We hadn't been hearing too much out of Element division of the Starwood over-the-top marketing department lately, so we got to wondering what was going on with the Element Lexington, the new chain's first-born.
Natch, we dropped in to TripAdvisor to see what guests were saying.
Now, there is a certain image we get in our heads when we think of eco-hotels: grainy materials, a bit more rustic-looking, green and brown colors -- and we've gotta admit that we're a bit more apt to head toward the aesthetic of the super-sleek and shiny vibe we get from Aloft's marketing efforts, you know?
