Archive for the 'Honeymoon, Spa & Romance' Category
A nifty hotel deal for 50-and-over crowd in Central California
November 4, 2009 5:57am
OK, so you’re still 12 years away from drawing Social Security and 15 years from getting Medicare. Aren’t there any perks for turning 50? Well yes, and we’re not talking about getting an invite in the mail to join AARP or receiving snarky birthday cards with over-the-hill jokes. The over-50 set can score reduced room rates and more this winter at five inns in San Luis Obispo County in Central California.
Deal: If you or someone in your party is 50 or older, you’re eligible for the “Nifty Fifty” special at five inns run by Boutique Hotel Collection: Apple Farm Inn in San Luis Obispo, the Cliffs Resort in Pismo Beach, Inn at Morro Bay in Morro Bay, Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort in Avila Beach and SeaVenture Resort in Pismo Beach.
The details of the deal differ from inn to inn. But generally, you’ll get discounts on your room, food and items from the gift shop. Room rates vary by location, and not all rooms may be included in the deal, which is subject to availability and other restrictions.
Oyster Hotel Reviews does L.A.: See thousands of photos and insider reports from L.A.’s best hotels
November 3, 2009 3:53pm
The still-new Oyster Hotel Reviews that launched earlier this year has opened up a new category of Los Angeles hotels on their website. It’s a feather in their cap that Oyster reviews hotels without taking comps or incentives, but it’s their bounty of gorgeous hotel photos and insider content that keeps me coming back to their site. As you can imagine, I was happy when they added Los Angeles to their Caribbean-heavy lineup.
Here’s a website where travelers can get an inside peek at some of Los Angeles’ most-talked-about hotels before they slap down their credit card. Users are able to search hotels by category, price, rating and special amenities like “swim up bar at pool ” or “pets allowed.” Oyster roundup lists provide a great way to ogle the insides of a hotel and get a full review, whether you’re shopping for a room right now, or daydreaming for next year.
The luxe Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Terranea Resort and Shutters on the Beach are on the list of Best Luxury Hotels in Los Angeles, and the Chateau Marmont, Hollywood Roosevelt and the Beverly Hilton are three L.A. hotels that made the short list of hotels from Hotels with Hollywood History in Los Angeles. (Apparently, Oyster has a loose definition of Los Angeles since some hotels have addresses in Greater L.A. like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills.)
Don’t worry, not all hotels in the L.A. section have big price tags. There are also Best Value Hotels and Kid-Friendly Hotels.
40% off Marriott and Renaissance leisure rates in Caribbean, Mexico & Costa Rica Resorts
November 2, 2009 10:55am
If you are a hotel chain snob, you’re going to want to put aside your inclinations and have a second look at this amazing deal. Marriott and Renaissance are offering 12 of their properties in the Caribbean, Mexico and Costa Rica at 40% off during high season this winter. So what? This hotel offer includes the JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa (pictured) a winner of the AAA Five Diamond Hotel Award for 2009. If you go to the Paradise by Marriott website, you can’t miss the sale. It has a great name that I wish other hotel and resort providers would adopt—”Life begins at 40%.”
Deal: Use promo code LLF to get 40% off leisure rates starting at:
JW Marriott Cancun Resort and Spa - $209 (usually starts at $349 without the deal)
CasaMagna Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa - $149 (usually starts at $249 without the deal)
CasaMagna Marriott Cancun Resort - $131 (usually starts at $219 without the deal)
Participating properties: St. Kitts Marriott, Frenchman’s Reef Marriott, Grand Cayman Marriott, Aruba Renaissance, Aruba Marriott, Curacao Marriott, Curacao Renaissance, San Juan Marriott, JW Marriott Cancun, Casa Magna Cancun Marriott, Puerto Vallarta Casa Magna Marriott and Los Suenos Marriott.
Get a third night for free at 35 California hotels
October 21, 2009 5:59am
Buy two, get one free. That’s the idea behind the Third Night Free offer at 35 California hotels run by Joie de Vivre, a boutique chain based in San Francisco. Launched to promote the company’s new “Joie of Life” micro-site that focuses on social networking, the deal isn’t being advertised on the chain’s main website. But you can book it there anyway — if you know the code.
The deal is worth hunting up because Joie de Vivre runs a lot of fun and well-located hotels in a range of prices, such as San Francisco’s Hotel Rex and Hotel Vitale, Hotel Angeleno in Los Angeles and Hotel Erwin at Venice Beach. The 411:
Deal: Pretty straightforward. You book a room for three nights in a row, and the third night is free. There are two ways to get the deal: You can book it through the Third Night Free section of the Joie of Life micro-site or go to the regular Joie de Vivre website and enter the code “JOIE” in the “Promo Code” window when making a reservation. The micro-site lists the participating hotels, with nightly rates that start at $79 to $459, depending on the hotel.
Mexico: Top-rated luxury resort in Riviera Maya offers half off and other perks
October 16, 2009 12:03pm
The consensus on Banyan Tree Mayakoba, a new-ish luxury resort on the southeast shore of Mexico’s Riviera Maya? Phenomenal, if you’re basing it on on TripAdvisor.com reviews.
The resort, which opened officially on the luxury development Mayakoba in March 2009, ranks No. 1 of 179 hotels in Playa del Carmen (Mayakoba is about six miles north of Playa del Carmen). Review descriptions include such comments as “best of the best” and “heaven on earth.”
Yes, this piece of luxury on the Caribbean coast is the kind that you pay a pretty penny for, but a stay here may have just become a little more accessible for some, with a current promotion meant to lure visitors before the holiday rush.
Deal: With the online-only special, book a three-night-minimum stay this fall and receive 50% off of the best available rate on the lowest price-level room, the “garden pool villa.” The starting rack rate on these rooms is $655 per night, pre-tax, so half off that means you pay $328 per night. The special also includes a complimentary daily breakfast buffet at the onsite Oriente restaurant for two people, and one 60-minute massage (plus 30 minutes of spa “relaxation time”) for one person. Read the rest of this entry »
Ritz, Marriott scheduled for Feb. 15 opening at L.A. Live
October 16, 2009 8:26am
Jackhammers pound and saws whine and whirr as workers continue to press forward at the under-construction Ritz-Carlton and J.W. Marriott hotels, scheduled to open Feb. 15 at L.A. Live.
On some days, as many as 1,000 workers are building the interiors of the hotels, pictured above, that will add 1,001 rooms to L.A.’s total (123 at Ritz, 878 at Marriott) and will be among the last components of L.A. Live.
The Ritz rooms, which start at about 450 square feet, will have a “very contemporary feel for a Ritz-Carlton,” said Karen Englund, the director of sales and marketing. (Ritz has moved away from a one-style-fits-all design on its properties and is trying to incorporate the vibe of their locations, company spokesmen have said.) The Marriott rooms, at 350 square feet, also are contemporary “to match the edginess of L.A.,” she said.
Besides the 123 rooms, the Ritz also has 224 residences and will have an 8,000-square-foot spa.
The hotels form a kind of L (the Ritz has 52 floors) but have separate entrances. The fourth-floor pool lounge will be open to the public, a la the Standard Hotel. The hotels will share meeting space in what’s called the Gallery Collection, which includes three ballrooms of 17,000, 21,000 and 25,000 square feet.
Both hotels are expected to announce the names of their restaurants’ celebrity chefs in the coming days.
–Catharine Hamm/Times Travel editor
Photo: The Ritz Carlton and J.W. Marriott at L.A. LIve; Credit: Catharine Hamm/Los Angeles Times
U.S. Virgin Islands celebrates new United States quarter with 25-cent hotel rooms
October 12, 2009 5:56am
If you thought the $19 “Survivor” offer from San Diego’s Rancho Bernardo Inn during summer was cheap, here’s a new travel deal that will really surely raise an eyebrow. Not $10. Not $5. Not even as low as $1 per night. Believe it or not, nine properties in the U.S. Virgin Islands are offering rooms for only 25 cents per night.
The special price is to celebrate their new quarter. For the first time, there will be a United States quarter for the U.S. Virgin Islands (pictured below). And no, you don’t have to get yourself all the way out there just to spend one night for 25 cents. You can count on this special rate for three days. This is a great opportunity to spend some time on the beaches of St. Croix, St. John or St. Thomas.
Deal: To get the “2009 CENTsational Sale,” book a three-night, air + hotel package and get three nights at only 25 cents per night, pre-tax. The deal also entitles you to the following “25″ themed offers:
> $25 per person dining credit
> $25 per person activities credit
> Virgin Islands commemorative quarter Scotiabank coin set
Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas opening Dec. 4 with free-night offer
October 2, 2009 3:37pm
The ultra-luxe Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas will open Dec. 4 in the giant CityCenter project on the Strip, with room rates starting at $545 per night. You’re probably thinking: Are they kidding, in this economy? Me too.
Then I checked out the “We Fan Vegas” deal, which gives you a free night after as little as one night’s stay. Voila! Now it’s $272.50, not $545 per night, or $305 including taxes. Still not cheap (for that, see my colleague Jen Leo’s post today on $35 rates at the Luxor Las Vegas), but not a bad deal for an international chain that draws raves from well-heeled guests on user sites such as TripAdvisor.
The 392-room Las Vegas hotel will sport two outdoor lap pools, two Jacuzzis, 20 private cabanas, a 27,000-square-foot spa, several dining and drinking venues (including the first U.S. restaurant from three-star Michelin chief Pierre Gagnaire) and killer Strip views.
Kauai’s St. Regis Princeville hotel to reopen after $100-million makeover
September 27, 2009 6:01am
The St. Regis Princeville is set to reopen Thursday, Oct. 1, after a $100-million redo designed to give it more Hawaiian flavor.
The 201-room, 51-suite Kauai hotel has added a spa that features taro-suffused treatments and added such touches as koa wood trim, raffia and coconut palm hardwood floors. And the pool area (pictured above) also has been redone.
Then there’s the view, which wasn’t redone but is priceless. The hotel looks out on Mt. Makana, which starred as Bali Hai in the 1958 film version of “South Pacific.” The human star of the movie, Mitzi Gaynor, will return to help celebrate the grand reopening of the hotel, which has been closed for more than a year.
Hotel-review site Oyster.com launches Oahu pages; more Hawaii coming soon
September 23, 2009 1:28pm
Dreaming up a trip to Oahu, I come across special rates of $189 per night at Hilton Hawaiian Village. My conditioned first stop is TripAdvisor, where traveler-written reviews of this hotel include lots of raves and some cautions. Of course, with user-generated reviews, you do some wading and sifting, not always sure whose advice to take and whose to toss. Some of the tips seem relevant to my potential stay, and others don’t. But all in all, I get an interesting lay of the land here, from a range of perspectives.
Then I go to Oyster.com, a relatively new hotel-review website, which Travel blogger Jen Leo covered just after the website’s launch in June. The site, packed with reviews by undercover journalists and about a gazillion photos, launched its reviews on Oahu late Tuesday. In the footsteps of its predecessor destination pages (Aruba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Miami, New York, Las Vegas), the lengthy, thoroughly detailed pages — with a well-organized layout for easy perusal — lure me in immediately.
Hilton Hawaiian Village, Hawaii’s largest hotel resort, ranks as one of Oyster’s list of best kid-friendly hotels on Oahu. And at the top of this hotel’s review page, I get a concise pros and cons list. As the mother of a toddler, I immediately focus on the calm beach and lagoon, as well as the noted animals (parrots … and penguins?). Among the cons, the fact that the hotel is a ways to Waikiki restaurants, and the supposed crowds at the resort, give me pause and get me to keep reading. Read the rest of this entry »
