(from the Frequent Flier Crier)
and to avoid to be deleted: yes on some of the listed properties you get miles!

Gourmet Hotel Picks
>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>
Halekulani in Honolulu, Hawaii ( we will probably have an event there on our ff-party of paradise, nov-4 to 7-99) has been chosen as the number one hotel in the world according to Gourmet's "Rooms at The Top," a comprehensive survey of readers. The results of this survey are published in the May 1999 issue. The Halekulani also won in the category of best guest rooms.

The survey determined preferred hotels for special-interest travel as well: Readers chose Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa as their favorite family resort, while naming The Regent Hong Kongas the best for business. For romance, The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, California was tops. For the best pool in the world, the Hotel Ritz in Paris was tops. The Ashford Castle, Cong, County Mayo in Ireland ranked the highest in design/architecture, outpacing properties in the United States and Italy. And the Chateau Lake Louisewas voted number one for view and grounds.

Readers chose The Greenbrierin White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, as their top choice for golf and tennis. They also named the workout center as the best in the world. The Hyatt Regency Beaver Creekin Aspen, (Rudi: this information is wrong, this Hyatt is in Beaver Creek near Vail) Colorado was chosen as the top hotel for skiing and the Mauna Kea BeachHotel in Hawaii for the best beach. The readers' favorite spa is the Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa in Sonoma, California, and their choice for a hideaway is the Inn at Little Washingtonin Washington, Virginia.

In the area of food, readers named The Oriental, Bangkokas tops for room service and bar. The top award for restaurant dining was given to The Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, Texas.

Following are the Top 10 in the World, in order of ranking:

1. Halekulani, Honolulu, Hawaii
2. The Oriental, Bangkok, Thailand
3. Villa D'Este, Cernobbio, Italy
4. The Regent, Hong Kong, China
5. Hotel Ritz, Paris, France
6. The Ritz-Carlton, Naples, Florida
7. The Boulders, Carefree, Arizona
8. The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
9. The Phoenician, Scottsdale, Arizona
10. Four Seasons Resort Nevis, Charlestown, Nevis, West Indies

No more Frequent Flier Crier for me!

How dare they leave off the snaketeria at the Holiday Inn, Newark!

The Inn at Little Washington... great choice.

Have dined at "The Mansion on Turtle Creek" in Dallas many times. Great food, great atmosphere, great service, great chef, and a GREAT Bar for after dinner cordials and CIGARS!!!!! Ask for "Wayne", Maitre de, and in the bar, "Gina", is the official Hostess.

It's interesting to note the GREAT hotel dining rooms that didn't make the list:

L'Espinasse at the St. Regis in NYC
The Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco
Aujord'hui in the Four Seasons in Boston
House dining room at Gravetye Manor in West Sussex (near East Grinstead)

I can't believe I've never been to the snaketeria at the Holiday Inn, Newark! Maybe someone will take me there sometime.

There is very good Portuguese and Spanish food on Fleet Street in Newark. I've overheard business travelers saying they were headed there to stuff themselves then sleep at the Marriott at the Airport. (I've been to several there... great food.)

The Mansion at Turtle Creek can't be as great as Simply Pasta in NYC. Of course I have nto been to the Mansion at Turtle Creek.

For Holly: Delmonicos in NAWLINS (New Orleans for those who don't speak southern) is tops. I like it, like Many of the NYC restaurants more.

Among best hotels I've stayed: Hilton Short HIlls for best overnight/quickie getaway resort and Westin Maui for best "I need to stop the world and get off for vacation" resort.

I guess it's all a matter of taste.



[This message has been edited by Catman (edited 05-02-99).]

Glad to hear that Halekulani was voted number 1. It's a place I love to go to and my favorite place to take out-of-town friends to. I like the fact that they serve Maui potato chips instead of mixed nuts when you go for drinks.

Two Starwood hotels (The Phoenician and St Regis) were among the ten selected for review in this article.
_______
4/30/99
The $500-a-Night Hotel Room:
Not a Quick Ticket to Luxury
By NANCY KEATES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Brian Bofto has stayed in plenty of nice, high-priced hotel rooms. But none have matched the $551-a-night "parlor suite" he was upgraded to at the Opryland Hotel here recently. It turned out to be an L-shaped room with a brownish sofa, no minibar and no bathrobes. And that was the best part.

"It was brutal," says Mr. Bofto, who had to search to find the bed, which was a pull-down, hidden behind a cabinet. The pillows were stuck in a drawer. "I couldn't believe they called it a suite."

Remember when $500 a night got you the best room in the house? Weekend Journal recently went on a cross-country tour of upscale lodging just to find out what a half a grand gets you these days. It wasn't exactly the toughest of assignments: We got free wine and cheese in our room at the Four Seasons in Chicago (though we declined their offer to unpack our suitcases); we sheepishly rang for a white-gloved butler in a plush room at the St. Regis in New York; and we tested out not one but three marbled bathrooms at the new Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.

But we also shivered in the tired "Presidential suite" at the Westin Aquila in Omaha, Neb., where stains on the carpet and a creaky courtyard door had us asking for a smaller room. We sweated inside the "junior suite" (read: one room) at the fashionable Tides Hotel in Miami, because the fan didn't work. And we tried not to listen to our neighbors fighting through the thin walls of the austere Hay Adams in Washington. Finally, after 10 nights at 10 hotels, we came to a conclusion many experts do now: For thousands of travelers, luxury lodging has become something of gamble.

It used to be that the $500-a-night hotel room was the industry's standard for luxury. Any guest spending that amount would be virtually guaranteed a spotless, luxurious room with amenities ranging from champagne chilling at bedside to gloved bellhops at their beck and call. No longer. The reason: rampant inflation in "luxury" room rates. Upscale-hotel rates have soared by 31% in the U.S. and Canada in the past three years, more than any other lodging sector. There are now three times as many American hotel rooms charging $500-a-night or more than there were just five years ago, estimates Bjorn Hanson of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

And with more hotel rooms moving into that top-dollar tier, the quality has become spotty. "The high-end business in hotels has just become so inconsistent," says Jim Eyster, a professor at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. "People don't know what to expect anymore, and for that price they should."

For now, luxury-room-rate inflation doesn't show any signs of slowing. Partly, that's because there still aren't enough high-priced rooms to keep up with the country's rising demand of wealthy travelers. Last year, only 5% of all 1,520 newly opened hotels were considered upscale; hotel companies are still cautious after many got burned building too many elite hotels in the early '90s. "There's a real need for upscale hotels and people are too nervous to step in," says Jason Ader, analyst at Bear Stearns.

All of which leaves the $500-a-night guest in an unusual buyer-beware mode, with few apologies coming from the hotels themselves. "It's the whole package you're buying, not just the size of the room," says Tony McHales, general manager of the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, where some $500-a-night rooms are no bigger than 400 square feet and may overlook a driveway. "You're paying for the attention," adds Richard Cotter, managing director of New York's St. Regis Hotel, perhaps the king of the $500-a-night room.

As for pull-down beds? "If Ma and Pa want to splurge for a room, they might be disappointed," says Ray Waters, a vice president at the Opryland Hotel. But many guests are business travelers, he explains, and they "want the extra space to work or hold meetings."

Indeed, not everyone staying in a $500-a-night room is paying for it themselves. Many are expense-account travelers, while others are frequent-stay guests who have been upgraded (including Mr. Bofto at the Opryland). And no matter how expensive hotels are getting, we still found some states that didn't have $500-a-night rooms -- the most expensive room we located in Kansas was the $235 honeymoon suite at the Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence; in North Dakota, the priciest was $319 for a four-room suite at the Fargo Ramada.

In most of the country, however, it was unnervingly easy to spend almost twice that. Below, our report card on 10 $500-a-night rooms:

Rating system
**** worth twice the money
*** didn't want to leave
** in line with expectations
* worth far less money
(-) couldn't wait to leave

Hotel Bel-Air,
Los Angeles

Price with tax: $524.40
Room type: 'Deluxe'
Square feet: 400
Overall rating: ***
This glamorous hotel is our first stop on the tour of luxury, but when guests tell us they stay here because it "feels just like home," we are a little suspicious: We have just come from home and we didn't see John Travolta in our dining room or Lauren Bacall swimming in an oval pool.

That said, the privacy and comfort (there are only 92 rooms and the cheapest goes for around $325) does lend a hominess. At check-in we are asked what newspapers we like in the morning (The Wall Street Journal, please) and assigned a fatherly bellman, who guides us down a long stone path through silent courtyards with stone sculptures. The decor of the room is very Nancy Reaganish: There are gilded mirrors, a sweeping floral canopy over the bed and a needlepoint rug. Polished terra-cotta floor tiles and antique wood furniture complete the effect. The best thing about this room is the fireplace: It's half gas, half wood-burning, so it smells like a real fire but demands no stoking. The worst: the bathroom, which doesn't even have a separate shower.

The phone rings and it's room service asking if we are ready for our "welcome tea." Bring it on, we say, and a few minutes later a pot of passion-fruit tea and two warm muffins arrive in a basket. What we really want is our luggage, which after 45 minutes still hasn't arrived. For almost the same price, we could have stayed in a condo-like garden suite at the equally celebrity-filled Beverly Hills Hotel ("Big as life and twice as ugly," as the assistant manager at the Bel-Air says). But Greg Brown, a Hotel Bel-Air guest, tells us there's no comparison. "This is more intimate," says the plastic surgeon from Louisville, Ky., who spotted John Travolta and Danny Devito in the restaurant. "You don't feel like a paparazzi, but you still see a celebrity every time you turn around."

The Phoenician,
Scottsdale, Ariz.

Room with tax: $580.49
Square feet: 600
Room type: 'Deluxe'
Overall rating: **
You're paying for the grounds here: A $500 room is plain, beige and average, but it buys access to clipped emerald golf courses and a swimming pool inlaid with mother of pearl.

Upon arrival we are offered an upgrade to a one-bedroom suite. When we decline, the front-desk clerk increases the offer to a two-bedroom villa with our own golf cart in the garage. Suspicious the hotel knows who we are, we later ask other guests if they were offered upgrades. Everyone says no, including Cassy Sniderman, a designer in Youngstown, Ohio, who is at the hotel to relax. Her room is beige, filled with Ikea-like furniture, wicker bedposts and little artwork. She likes the bathroom, which has a separate tub and shower and extra amenities like bath salts, but her blood pressure rises when she finds out she's been charged $45 for three days of valet parking for a nonexistent car, and $48 for three days at a health club she never entered.

Having just stayed at the Hotel Bel-Air, we are jaded. But our room does have a wonderful view: French doors open to a patio that leads to a grassy knoll with a picnic table next to a creek with a waterfall. There are ducks swimming in the creek and weeping willows overlooking the whole scene. The next day we call to ask for a late checkout; they say no. (A hotel spokeswoman says the hotel tries to accommodate requests, but can't if the hotel is full. And, she adds, the Phoenician didn't know who we were.)

Bellagio,
Las Vegas

Price with tax: $463.25
Square feet: 1,536
Room type: 'One-bedroom suite'
Overall rating: ***
This hotel is the epitome of Las Vegas, and we are stunned. Our one-bedroom suite has three bathrooms -- one for "him" (with a steam shower), one for "her" (with an enormous marbled Jacuzzi) and another for guests. Do women like to take baths more than men? Both large bathrooms have telephones and TVs, so that's fair enough.

This room was made for entertaining, as if it was created for a group of suburban guys watching a football game. There's a huge bar, with a refrigerator, and an enormous TV in the living room. "I just wish we knew someone so we could have a big party," says Bea Epsten, a homemaker from La Jolla, Calif., who is staying in a one-bedroom suite with her husband. "I don't know what to do with all this room."

But make no mistake: We're still in Vegas and the room is tacky. There's loud wallpaper and lots of purple and green. And along with the glitz, Vegas forces a certain anonymity. Don't expect personalized attention in this 3,005-room hotel. (The only choice of a newspaper is USA Today, plunked in front of the door.) Our room is so high up we can hear the wind humming at the door, and the toilets flush like those on an airplane -- it's easy to imagine a death going unnoticed here for several days.

"If you believe it's tacky, there's nothing I can do," says Alan Feldman, a spokesman for the hotel, adding that the hotel is working on fine-tuning its service. "All of us can look through a magazine like Architectural Digest and disagree on some things."

Four Seasons Hotel,
Chicago

Room with tax: $551.52
Square feet: 724
Room type: 'One-bedroom suite'
Overall rating: ****
Personalized service is the trump here: The anticipation of needs puts this hotel at the top of our list. Five minutes after we get to our room, the front desk calls offering to move us because the air conditioning isn't working (we hadn't noticed it was broken). When we arrive in the new room, our suitcases are already there, waiting in all the appropriate places (the computer bag is next to the desk, the suitcase on a bench near the bed). Within minutes a silver tray with Merlot, four kinds of gourmet cheeses, grapes, walnuts and Carr's crackers arrives, the waiter so unobtrusive it doesn't feel like anyone has been in the room.

At turndown time the Bose clock radio is tuned to opera, there's a cloth placed at the foot of the bed with slippers, a pitcher of cold water with a glass, ear plugs and a bag for laundry. A card asks what newspaper should be dropped by in the morning (USA Today, The Wall Street Journal or the Chicago Tribune -- it's an easy choice). The ice bucket is filled and set up near the minibar, the humidifier is turned on and there's a bag for a complimentary shoe shine.

We found only one thing disturbing: Many items on the room-service menu for pets are more expensive than the items on the menu for children. For example, scrambled eggs and poached salmon for cats cost $8, while a three-course children's meal with salad, entree and cookie for dessert is $6.

The Westin Aquila,
Omaha, Neb.

Room with tax: $501.50
Square feet: 800
Room type: 'Presidential suite'
Overall rating: (-)
After the pampering of the bustling Four Seasons in Chicago, it's a letdown to arrive at this hotel, which feels almost empty. Certainly, $500 buys status here: We know we're top dog when we check into our "Presidential suite" and the desk clerk asks what "color" wine we prefer. At first sight, the room is awesome: There's a six-seat wood dining table, a kitchen larger than those found in most New York apartments, and the staircase to the bedroom and bathroom upstairs looks over a cavernous living room. There's even a grand piano.

At second sight, the carpet is splotched with what looks like grease (the room is used for cocktail parties and receptions, explains a spokesman) and the wallpaper is crinkling off the walls. The cabinets in the wood-paneled kitchen are empty except for several plastic cups: One is full of plastic olive spears, another holds coffee stirrers. There are no utensils or plates (guests run off with plates, silverware and cups so the hotel has to replace them about once every three months, the spokesman says).

For our reading pleasure, there are bound cases from the Supreme Court of Nebraska, and for our entertainment there's a television placed so low in a cabinet you have to sit on the floor to watch. One piece of artwork even has the price tag on the bottom. Upstairs, the huge tub has some sort of tusk implanted in brass on one end. Indeed, the rooms feels like a monument to masculinity, a place where a corporate bigwig would impress the ladies.

The door out to the stone patio is loose, and it rattles in the wind, sending cold air down our spine and creating concern about safety (that door is often propped open for parties and weddings because it leads down to the courtyard, a spokesman says). Shivering, we ask to move to a smaller room. The spokesman says these concerns about the room are now being addressed.

The next morning, our wake-up call never comes, so we race to the airport shuttle bus without a shower. A group of grumpy flight attendants -- fellow guests who also received no wake-up calls -- grumble that room service tasted like frozen food (there's one frozen-food entree on the menu, says the spokesman: Stouffer's lasagna).

The Hay-Adams Hotel,
Washington

Room with tax: $566.78
Square feet: 530
Room type: 'One-bedroom suite'
Overall rating: *
Rattling pipes kept Gary Zemil, a sales executive from Baltimore, up all night in his one-bedroom suite here. "I would rather stay at a Comfort Inn," he says. "At least the coffee is free there." Other guests said they heard people through the thin walls -- and sirens and buses outside through thin window panes; in the morning they were awoken by the "beep, beep, beep" of a construction truck.

Indeed, this hotel is old -- it's been operating since 1927 (a spokeswoman says the hotel is being renovated and would like to install double-pane windows for the noise). It advertises its proximity to Washington power ("Nothing is overlooked but the White House," we are told by a recording while holding for reservations) but the window in our bathroom looks directly into an office building -- it's so close it's possible to read the label of a bottle of water on a desk. (Rooms with a White House view are booked, we're told.)

It could have been worse, says Bill Moyer, a director at Donohoe Cos., a Washington hotel-construction, development and management company. "You wouldn't have believed how worn it was before they refurbished it in 1985," he says. "It had gotten really seedy."

The pedigree can be charming: We like the moldings, the Italian carvings on the ceilings and the rose they put on our bed at turndown.

Opryland Hotel,
Nashville, Tenn.

Room with tax: $618.50
Square feet: 470
Room type: 'Parlor suite'
Overall rating: (-)
There is nothing charming about this hotel, which is a cross between Disney World and the "Truman Show," thanks to a giant glass bubble that encloses the entire complex. As soon as we see our "parlor suite," we want to leave. It's decorated much as a funeral home would be, with a dark green carpet, worn maroon curtains and shiny dark-wood furniture. The word "suite" is entirely inappropriate, since it's only one room, with barely enough space to walk around the queen-size bed, the pull-down in the cabinet. No one comes by for turndown service, or, in this case, pull-down service: There's no mint on the pillow here and no newspaper in the morning. And no minibar to soak our sorrows.

"We don't offer that service in any of our rooms," says spokesman Paul Lindsley. "That's just standard operating procedure." He also says the Opryland has an average 80% occupancy rate and few complaints.

There are only two reasons to stay in a $500 room in this hotel: You get a free upgrade, or you can't weasel out of attending a conference here and your company is footing the bill. "A hotel like this has created its own demand," says Mr. Eyster, the professor at Cornell. "There was nothing there before they came."

The Ritz-Carlton,
San Francisco

Room with tax: $570
Square feet: 1,100
Room type: 'Club executive suite'
Overall rating: ***
In San Francisco, where Bay views are cheap, our room here looks out onto other buildings (the hotel will make every effort to get a room with a view for guests who ask, a spokeswoman says). Still, it's a beautiful room, with old molding, Italian marble and tasteful blue and gold furniture. There is a large bedroom with an easy chair, an even bigger sitting room and two bathrooms (stand-alone shower and big marble tub). It has what one guest calls a "gracious old-world feeling."

What makes this hotel different is its exceptional club level, which means a dedicated concierge staff brings faxes and forwards phone calls for guests partaking in the free booze and "food presentations" all day in the lounge. The buffet changes every few hours, reeling from smoked salmon and bagels to pasta salad to afternoon tea with cucumber and egg sandwiches and scones. There's wine all day and liquors at night. The chocolate-chip cookies aren't quite as big as the ones at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Fla., says Susannah Cohen, who is staying at the hotel with her husband for a company meeting. "But the lounge makes you feel special," she says.

For about $85 less a day, you can get a room of the same size without the club lounge. Is access to the club lounge worth the extra money? Only if you invite friends up to share the party.

The St. Regis,
New York

Room with tax: $590.90
Square feet: 430
Room type: 'Superior'
Overall rating: ** 1/2
No point in inviting guests up to this luxurious room: They'd barely fit in the 430 square feet. We can find no reason to call it a "superior" room, especially when there's no "inferior" room: It's the cheapest in the house.

We are escorted to the cream and ivory room with our bags, through a wide, plush hallway. Five minutes later, the doorbell rings: It's the butler -- a woman dressed in black tails and white gloves. She shows us how to control everything in the room using the screen over the telephone, tells us that the Pellegrino in the minibar is free, informs us there's free coffee or tea with the wake-up call and asks if we have any two items for free pressing. We ask if we can have two items laundered for free instead; the answer is no. She offers to unpack our bags. We decline, but we attack a big bowl of fruit and dish of chocolate mints on a side table.

We are treated nicely, but some other guests say the warmth of the room is overshadowed by the chill of the staff. "They don't even make eye contact," says Anita Morris, a corporate art consultant from Wynnewood, Pa., here for a romantic weekend with her husband. Mrs. Morris was irritated there was no bath oil and appalled at the $38 continental breakfast on the room-service menu. "It's insulting to think we would pay that," she says. However, the concierge made an extra effort, she says. (The hotel responds: It trains staff to be friendly without appearing overly friendly; it will offer bath salts later this year, but bath oil isn't hygienic; its meals are priced competitively for New York and factor in labor costs.)

The Tides,
Miami

Room with tax: $506.25
Square feet: 580
Room type: 'Junior suite'
Overall rating: * 1/2
This hotel may not be in the middle of Manhattan, but location is still key here: You are paying to be on trendy Ocean Drive in South Beach.

Our one-room "junior suite" reflects the sacrifice to coolness, with its all-white decor, white television set hanging from the ceiling, and a desk with a pointy pewter cup full of pencils (who uses pencils?). We are puzzled by a blackboard with chalk and eraser by the door (is this to write messages to each other or to the maid?) and the telescope by the window.

There's no fruit in the room, no free bottles of water, no balcony, no fireplace, no ice maker and no patio. Unfortunately, the fan is broken in our bathroom so we ask for some help. After 45 minutes, the front desk transfers us to a smaller room, even though the larger suites are available. A spokeswoman explains the hotel is revamping its guest policies, including setting up a loyal-guest program. "Guests should be upgraded, not downgraded, when there's a problem," she says.

Perhaps for a less cranky guest the full ocean view (no craning your neck to catch a glimpse of blue here) and the cool amenities (CDs, trendy body wash) would make up for the downgrade. But we are at the end of a 10-hotel Odyssey, and we want to go home -- not to the Bel-Air, but our real home.