The Arch: A New Choice in London Luxury

On my most recent visit to England’s capital city, I was fortunate enough to spend a few nights at a new hotel that just opened its doors a few weeks ago called The Arch London.

As part of a press trip with VisitBritain, I was privy to check into this quaint 82 room collection of seven Georgian townhouses and two mew homes.

I arrived earlier than scheduled, so since my room was not ready, I was advised to take a load off and take full advantage of their study located in the lobby area. I was able to plug in and use their (quick) Wi-Fi, which was great since I need to get some work done.

When my room was available the bell boy was quick to grab my luggage and show me to my room. Upon entering where I would be resting my weary bones after a long night of flying, I was pleasantly surprised (…and for a good reason).

Extremely comfortable bed made for a great night's sleep.

Satellite radio and iPod/iPhone dock

The lovely Arch bathroom

Talk about luxury...a tv in the bathtub!

Fully stocked and complimentary soft drink bar

The standard room in which was booked into was immaculate (although it was also a month old, so I would hope so) and was very inviting. The room included such great features as:

• Complimentary wireless internet access, which was super fast and always kept me connected.

• Complimentary Nespresso machine and Jina tea, which I did not use, but it looked nice.

• Complimentary soft drink bar, which I did use quite often during my stay. It was stocked with a six pack of coca cola, orange juice, apple juice, milk, champagne and two beers. All included in your rate!

• Flat screen television with Sky HD package that includes foreign channels.

• Want to watch a movie? Then head downstairs and borrow a DVD to use in your room’s DVD player.

• Internet radio was next to my bed but did not work when I tried to use it. Also doubles as an iPod/iPhone dock.

• US and European adapters in the room, which came in handy since I had forgotten mine at home.

• Laptop sized safe.

• Super soft and comfortable beds with great comforters and pillows.

• Plus the best feature of all…a television in the bathtub!

If you can pry yourself from your room, then head downstairs to The Arch London’s beautifully decorated and extremely delicious restaurant called HUNter 486. One evening for dinner I ordered the steak tartare with a quail egg and french fries and was in culinary bliss.

So perfectly prepared and all that goodness was washed down with a local English stout that was recommended by one of the restaurant’s managers.

Enjoy some afternoon tea (or a few adult cocktails) in the super cozy Martini Library, located on the lobby floor.

Busy Oxford Street in London

The Arch London is centrally located to all that London has to offer. You are within walking distance to such attractions as Hyde Park (which is just down the block), numerous cafes, trendy Oxford Street and the Marble Arch Underground station.

Although it is still working out very minor kinks, which is natural for any new hotel, The Arch London is simply brilliant and definitely worth a stay the next time you are in London.

For all you gym rats out there, and I am surely not one of them, The Arch London also offers a gym on the property.

For more information on staying at The Arch London, check out their official website.

Tags: england, hotel, London, the arch, Travel

Escape the Big Apple at the Tarrytown House Estate

I am an avid traveler that also happens to live in the city that never sleeps. Sounds like the best of both worlds right? Well it is. But there are times when I can not take a trip too far from home base and need to get out of the craziness that is the Big Apple.

So it was a nice change of pace to be able to take a trip that only involved an hour long ride on the Metro-North railroad. I was recently invited to check out a great hotel option that is just 25 miles outside of Manhattan. Located in Tarrytown, New York, the Tarrytown House Estate & Conference Center is a real hidden gem that is tucked away in this great quiet and cozy part of Westchester County.

After being dropped off at the Irvington train station, which sits alongside the Hudson River, I grabbed a quick cab ride to the estate. As you enter the dramatic driveway entrance, you can not help but feel a little excited about what this place will have in store for you once you check-in.

The woman at the front desk was very helpful and gave us all the instructions that we need in order to find our room. As I walked to my room I noticed that there was a wedding reception in process. Although I was tempted to live out my lifelong dream of being an actual wedding crasher, I was unfortunately not storing an extra suit in my luggage.

I checked into my room, which came with two full-sized beds and a decent view from my window. There was plenty of room to relax and get work done. Accommodations include a work desk, flat-screen television, free wireless internet (which was extremely slow), a laptop safe, and in-room Wolfgang Puck coffee and Lipton tea.

The bathroom was broken up into two parts. You had the sink and mirror right outside of the room which had a small shower and toilet. The ceiling was pretty low too in the bathroom. I am over 6′2″ and my head was just about touching it. The soaps, shampoo, lotions and other body products were actually pretty nice and smelled great.

While I stayed at the Tarrytown House, I made sure to check out their restaurant Cellar 49. Just a short walk outside of the actual hotel and down a little path, you will find this dimly lit and intimate eatery. One thing that I did not understand was that in order to get into the restaurant I had to walk into the lobby of where a wedding was throwing their reception. It makes for an awkward entrance as you step into this room full of friends celebrating and you are looking for the entrance to a restaurant. A separate entrance for people just looking to grab a bite to eat would have been nice.

In  any event my meal was good, not great, and the waitress was absolutely outstanding. A very nice, funny and hard working woman made sure my glass was always full and checked up on my party in case we needed anything. The place was pretty quiet for a Friday night, however since this was the night after Thanksgiving, many people were probably still recovering from a food hangover with family and friends.

I would recommend the Tarrytown House Estate & Conference Center to couples looking for a quick getaway in the New York area or anyone that wants to visit the Big Apple, but would like to see more of New York and spend less for their room. It also looks like a fantastic location for a wedding.

The Tarrytown House is currently running a great promotion that will get you a deluxe room for two and a full American buffet breakfast starting at $169 per night. For more information, check out their official website.

Tags: hotel, new york, tarrytown, tarrytown house estate, westchester

Galavanting At The Gansevoort NYC

Located in the trendy Meatpacking District, the Hotel Gansevoort is definitely a great choice for travelers looking to stay at a chic, sexy, and centrally located property. The 187 rooms range from 250 square foot superior rooms to a regal 1,400 square foot duplex penthouse!

Lobby at the Hotel Gansevoort in New York City.

Upon entering the Gansevoort, you can not help but feel the cool vibe that they have obviously worked hard at perfecting. The lobby was full of “beautiful people” and most seemed to be from Europe. I believe that every person I interacted with, whether on staff or visiting, had some kind of accent. Checking in was fast and easy, with the woman explaining everything about the hotel’s features and what is nearby.

Grand Deluxe Room at the Hotel Gansevoort in New York City.

I was booked in a Grand Deluxe Room which offered such great features as 9-foot ceilings, king size bed, a seating area complete with couch, chair, and coffee table, a 30″ flat screen television, work desk, cd player, alarm clock with ipod docking station, in-room safe, and best of all super fast complimentary wireless internet. The bathroom had a deep sink, plenty of mirrors, a shower with decent water pressure, and was decorated nicely.

The room is equipped with overpriced temptations galore. Some of the more eye catching and head scratching products included the four $8 a piece bottled waters next to my alarm clock, the intoxicating collection of mini liquor bottles, and the intimacy kit filled with adult goodies.

What the hotel does offer for free besides internet is video games! Yes if you want to spend your days or nights in a stylish hotel playing Mario Bros. then the Gansevoort is the hotel for you. You can actually borrow a Playstation, Wii, or PSP from the front desk. There is also a 24-hour business center and fitness area.

Rooftop pool at the Hotel Gansevoort.

Head to the top floor and you will find the rooftop lounge area and pool. Although I did not have time to check out either of them, how can a pool and a lounge ever be a bad thing?

The location of the Gansevoort is perfect in my opinion. You are within walking distance from some of the very best bars, clubs, cafes, and restaurants that New York City has to offer. The water views from my room were also spectacular with Pier 54 and New Jersey in the distance.

One minor issue occurred while staying in room 1007 and that was the air. I attempted to lower it numerous times throughout my stay, but it stubbornly seemed to be stuck at some lukewarm temperature. I mentioned this to the front desk when I checked out and the man at the front desk said he would send someone up to check on it.

Photos courtesy of Oyster Hotel Reviews.

Hotel information:

• Name: Hotel Gansevoort
  

• Address: 18 Ninth Avenue New York, NY. 10014

• Telephone: 917.210.2583

• Website: hotelgansevoort.com

• Rates: Average price for a room right now is about $499/night.

Book through NewYorkHotels.com and reserve the Gansevoort, plus hundreds of other hotels in  New York City.

Tags: gansevoort hotel, hotel, new york city, Travel

Oyster.com Takes Hotel Reviews To A Whole New Level

Well it is about time. That was my first reaction when I visited the website Oyster Hotel Reviews (which launched earlier this year). For years now I have been telling people that hotel websites and companies like Travelocity, Priceline, and Expedia have been kind of deceitful and misleading to the basic travel customer.

These sites will showcase properties with those stock photos that include absolutely perfect lighting, scenic touch-ups (like a deserted beach instead of a crowded one), and at times fake or altered window views. This is obviously done to woo customers and generate sales. While there is nothing wrong with trying to garner new business, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of travel writers like yours truly. I prefer to honestly show people what they are spending their hard earned cash on when they take that next family getaway or business trip.

So that is why Oyster has become one of my new favorite online travel resources. Unlike hotel review websites like TripAdvisor which rely heavily on customers feedback, Oyster is actually paying professional writers to go and check out various properties (anonymously) and provide readers with detailed reviews, pictures and feedback. I love it!

As a self-professed hotel nerd, I found this website to be a great place to check out various places to stay in my own backyard of New York. In addition to the Big Apple, Oyster currently offers hotel reviews in Aruba, Dominican Republic, Hawaii, Jamaica, Las Vegas, and Miami. They plan to debut Los Angeles and San Francisco in November and even more cities in 2010.

So who writes for Oyster Hotel Reviews? Over the last 19 months, experienced journalists that have worked for such publications as the New York Times, The Village Voice, and Conde Nast Traveler have all gone undercover (fake mustache and all) to various hotels in order to properly evaluate each property in great detail.

One of the great features on the site is that readers can search through the hotels by category, price, special amenities, and various other features chosen by the Oyster reporters. Oyster includes “best-of” list as well for each location. Taking a look at the New York hotels section, I was able to browse through a wide range of options that included “Best Value Hotels”, “Best Happy Hour Hotels”, “Pet-Friendly Hotels”, “Quietest Hotels”, and my personal favorite “Thanksgiving Parade Views.”

While the website is still in the early stages and has many cities to add both domestically and internationally (Chicago, Seattle, San Diego, Montreal, London, and Dublin instantly come to mind), it is truly a breathe of fresh air in what has become quite a stagnant state of affairs when it pertains to online hotel review sites. I was kind of getting tired of reading about good hotels receiving 1-star reviews from disgruntled customers due to inane reasons like bad weather upon arrival or because the man at the front desk did not smile wide enough when handing over the key card.

In addition to the great hotel reviews on Oyster, the website provides detailed area guides and absolutely stunning photography of the properties and destinations. I spent a few hours one day just looking at their collection of amazing shots taken in Miami before even diving into the actual hotel reviews!

I highly recommend checking out Oyster Hotel Review. Oyster has become such a favorite of mine that I even plan on using some of their photography in upcoming hotel reviews that I showcase right here on my site.

Tags: aruba, dominican republic, hawaii, hotel, Las Vegas, miami, new york, oyser hotel reviews, Travel

Sinful Travelers Confess Their Deepest, Darkest, & Downright Bizarre Secrets

Step right up!

The other day I was conversing with a friend of mine who is just about as obsessed as I am with gallivanting throughout this planet. It seems that when one of us is on the road, the other is planning the next “big” adventure and vice versa. One day over a few adult beverages at a local pub we got onto a topic I like to call “travel confessions.” This is when you get some travel nerds together and try to shock them with stories of odd occurrences on the road, places that as a serious traveler you have never visited, and possible habits you picked up while bouncing from one locale to the next.

My friend, who swears to have been just about everywhere, told me that he has no intentions of ever visiting London, England. He says it just looks like a real “boring city and expensive place to visit.” I was taken aback, not only because London is such a popular travel destination, but that this guy had recently become obsessed with the Manchester United football team. I figured someone who loves to travel for sports and concerts would eventually wind up landing at Heathrow Airport and then check out London en route to Manchester for a game.

It was my turn to share a few secrets or to squash some assumptions that people just believe since you call yourself a travel junkie and a nomad. Well for starters, I have yet to visit two “must visit” countries – France and Germany. Yes it pained me to tell my pal and some others sitting with me that I have yet to walk by the Eiffel Tower in Paris or raise an over-sized beer in Munich. But I swore that both were on the top of my list of countries to check out within the next few years…I promise!

Another confession that will probably make many hotel owners out there frown is my love of hotel key cards! I have a shoe box full of those digital door openers from all over the world. They are like mini-souvenirs that remind me of the many great places I was lucky enough to visit.

But enough about me. I decided that the only way to get over being such a guilty global navigator, was to reach out and ask some other travel experts to join me in a group confessional. Below are some uncensored secrets, habits, and revelations that they felt compelled to get off their chest. God have mercy on their sight-seeing souls.

• First up in the confession booth is Gabe Saglie, Senior Editor and “Travel Guru” at Travelzoo.com, who revealed to me that, “When it comes to hotels, I always check-out with 2 things: amenities and stationary. Amenities are something hotels identify with, and even advertise, especially the upscale hotels. So this started years ago, when my traveling really began to pick up and I found myself forgetting where I’d stayed. Those little shampoo and shower gel bottles were miniature mementos of stays at great hotels. Somewhere along the way, I started passing them on to my mom, who lives in L.A. but travels little (by comparison), as souvenirs of cities I’d visited. Today, she has hundreds and hundreds of amenities from cool hotels all over the world. She gets them faster than she can use them and files them away in neatly organized cabinets.”

Saglie continued, “As for the stationary, I get a kick from mailing letters or bills inside hotel  envelopes. I think it adds a sense of intrigue for the person opening it on the other end. Plus, I haven’t had to buy envelopes in year.I also figure the hotels get some nice PR out of it, so it’s a win-win, no?”

• Lonely Planet’s Andy Murdock also feels the need to snatch hotel items when he travel. Murdock confessed, “I like to swipe hotel room pens – I’m always in need of a pen and often seem to lose or forget them, plus I like finding them in a drawer years later and remembering where the pen and I first met. I think you can tell a lot about a hotel by the pen they provide: some hotels put a lot of thought into it and pick out a pen that writes well, has an interesting design, and suits the hotel’s look and feel; others don’t give it a moment’s thought and just buy thousands of ultra cheapo ballpoints that aren’t worth taking with you. The pencil hotels are the most mysterious to me because they invariably fail to provide a pencil sharpener. Be wary of pencil hotels.”

• Sean O’Neill, Senior Editor for Budget Travel, felt compelled to express to me that while he may be a world traveler, there is just one kind of vacation he has avoided. “I’ve never taken an ocean cruise!” he exclaimed. “I feel silly about having left this off my travel to-do list. For millions, it’s an essential experience. But I’ve been turned off the idea ever since I read a Harper’s essay by David Foster Wallace, in which he ridiculed cruise-going. Sometimes I worry that I’m missing out. But I never worry enough to actually do anything about it.”

I must admit that I too have not gone cruising on vacation. Just not my thing. Next up is another troubled traveler that just needs to get something off her chest. I must warn you though that confession is a tad bit on the R-rated side.

• Adena Harford, who runs the blog at tripwolf.com, told me that, “I kind of got into not using toilet paper in India.” I asked her to please explain that exactly that meant. She continued, “Let’s see – well, first of all, we noticed only the tourists stop at little stand to buy toilet paper – and that there is a faucet and a bucket in every bathroom stall. I was secondly inspired by Jack Kerouac’s idea that most (western) people think they are so clean, but they are actually going around with dirty assholes because we only wipe them with paper. So well, I got into using the water and faucet, and truly felt like I was cleaner than usual – we all referred to it as ‘going local.’ Like, have you ‘gone local’ yet? Sorry if this story was a little TMI.”

Hmm…

• Moving right along we have flight attendant extraordinaire and travel blogger Heather Poole. Heather once told me on Twitter that she does in fact collect hotel “Do Not Disturb” signs, but her confession today was about someone else…or so she says. “I once knew a flight attendant who washed her panty hose in the hotel room coffee pot. NAST-AY!”

• Where Ive Been’s Katy, who is both the Community Manager and #traveltuesday initiator on Twitter, shockingly told me , “Alright, my travel confession is…I always remove my shoes on flights. Even when I have EXTRA smelly feet.  Hee hee hee!” She also confessed that as a young traveler she used to steal the blankets on long, transatlantic flights. But in Katy’s defense she expressed, ” Come on, I was 10 years old!”

• Monica Wong, who runs the travel blog  “A Pair of Panties & Boxers” confessed to me that, ” When I was studying abroad in Shanghai, I took a weekend trip to Hangzhou. I initially planned to stay for one night but I fell in love with the sunset at the West Lake. I wanted to see it again so my boyfriend and I stayed an extra night. The only problem was we only brought one change of clothes. Which meant, we only had one pair of underwear. We had to wear it twice. Inside out, of course. That incident gave birth to the name of my blog.”

Geez, these confessions are just getting dirtier and dirtier. For shame you travel experts…for shame indeed! I am going to clean up this confession booth and will be back with part 2/3 of  travel confessions tomorrow! In the meantime be good you sinners.

Tags: budget travel magazine, cruises, england, france, gabe saglie, germany, heathrow airport, hotel, London, lonely planet, Manchester, Munich, spain, travelzoo, tripwolf, twitter, where i've been, whereivebeen.com