And Best Hotel Deals
South America
Park Central, New York:Review
0255 days
by L.K.
in South America
The Park Central Hotel is located directly across from Carnegie Hall in the midtown Manhattan area of New York City. Times Square, the Theatre District, and the Rockefeller Centre are just a few blocks away and it is also convenient for the top quality shopping available on 57th Street and Fifth Avenue with Central Park and most major midtown attractions within easy walking distance.
This Beaux Arts hotel was built in 1927. A 24-hour self-service business center contains 4 computers with wireless Internet access, a printer/copier, and a fax machine (surcharges). Wireless Internet access (surcharge) is available throughout the Park Central New York Hotel.
•Technology helpdesk
•Concierge desk
•Complimentary newspapers in lobby
•Fitness facilities
•Room service (limited hours)
•Bar/lounge
•Restaurant(s) in hotel
•Parking garage
•Multiple small meeting rooms
•Ballroom(s)
•Banquet facilities
•Business center
•Multiple conference/meeting rooms
•Event catering
•Exhibit space
•Business services
•Audio-visual equipment
•Multilingual staff
•Safe-deposit box – front desk
•Porter/bellhop
•Express check-out
•Doorman/doorwoman
•Security guard
•Express check- in
•24-hour front desk
•Medical assistance available
•Currency exchange
•ATM/banking
•Gift shops or newsstand
•Dry cleaning/laundry service
•Valet parking (surcharge)
•Elevator/lift
•Number of floors: 25
•Air-conditioned public areas
•Coffee shop or café
•Health club
•Tours/ticket assistance
•Wireless (high-speed) Internet access – surcharge
•Wired (high-speed) Internet access – surcharge
•Number of rooms: 934
•Limo or Town Car service available
•Suitable for children
This 25-story New York City hotel offers 934 guestrooms. Beds feature pillowtop mattresses, white down comforters (bedspreads), multiple down pillows, and earth-toned brocade throws. Large desks come with leatherette ergonomic chairs and multi-line speakerphones. Wireless Internet access is available (surcharge).
Rooms also include 32-inch flat-screen HDTVs with pay movies and video games (surcharge). Bathrooms offer granite vanities, telephones, and shower/tub combinations. All guestrooms are nonsmoking.
•Premium television channel(s)
•Pay movies
•Video-game console
•Premium bedding
•Hypo-allergenic bedding available
•Air conditioning
•Climate control
•Multi-line phone
•Voice mail
•Wake-up calls
•Designer toiletries
•Hair dryer
•Bathroom phone
•Makeup/shaving mirror
•Shower/tub combination
•In-room childcare (surcharge)
•Electronic check-out
•Electronic/magnetic keys
•Pillowtop mattress
•Cable television service
•Window opens
•Desk
•Iron/ironing board
•In-room safe
•Clock radio
•Non-smoking only
•Rollaway beds
•Cribs (infant beds) available
•Flat-panel television
•High-definition television
•Wireless high-speed Internet access (surcharge)
•Wired high-speed Internet access (surcharge)
•Housekeeping
•Complimentary toiletries
•Blackout drapes/curtains
Dining
Cafe New York – Bistro-style restaurant open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Bar Belle – Lobby bar featuring cocktails and light fare. Open from noon until late night.
Room service is available from early morning until late night.
This spacious hotel will appeal to friends, families and couples looking for good value accommodation in a premier location which is ideal for shopping, dining, sightseeing or whatever takes your fancy. The hotel does not have a swimming pool.
All have bathroom/shower WC 32 inch flat screen TV telephone with voicemail cable channels on demand movies and Nintendo internet access ironing facilities hairdryer in room safe * (certain amenities may be payable locally)
The hotel’s bistro style, Cafe New York, has floor to ceiling windows and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. There is also a lobby lounge serving a wide variety of cocktails, beer and wine, plus a choice of appetizers and other light fare. The hotel is suitable for Friends, Families and Couples.
South Gap Hotel, Barbados: Review
0283 days
by L.K.
in South America
The boutique style South Gap Hotel is centrally located in St Lawrence Gap in Barbados, within walking distance of the beautiful Dover Beach. This unique hotel has a range facilities and services available to help make your beach holiday run with ease and enjoyment.
The Right Choice?
This hotel will appeal to couples and families looking for relaxed, informal accommodation in the lively and entertaining resort of St Lawrence Gap.
Swimming Pools
The hotel has an ocean facing pool deck right on the waters edge. Surrounding the pool area is a spacious terrace with loungers and parasols.
Accommodation
All 34 rooms of the 4 floors open out onto an ocean front balcony or Patio and contain an en suite with hairdryer, phone, satellite TV, air conditioning, fully equipped kitchinette with fridge and either a queen sized bed or two twin beds.
The complex consist of one bedroom suites which sleep up to 2 adults and 2 children or 3 adults. A Superior Junior Suite for up to 3 adults and finally a Superior Suite which sleeps up to 2 adults.
Eating And Drinking
The hotel’s Simply Gigi Restaurant offers poolside and ocean front dining and is open for continental breakfast, lunch and dinner. The varied menu includes pizza, sandwiches, salads, chicken, steak, and seafood. There is also a bar.
Suitable For
Couples and Families
Four Seasons Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo Review
0611 days
by L.K.
in South America
The jewel in the crown of the controversial and still–in–the–works Peninsula Papagayo development, the Four Seasons set an entirely new standard for resort hotels in Costa Rica when it opened in 2004. It’s location is unparalleled. Commanding a undulating and woodsy peninsula that enfolds the huge flask–shaped Bahía Culebra, the resort stretches over seven kilometers, with the bay on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. The entrance gate is cleverly positioned where the bay first comes into view, laid out like a Hollywood stage set, with a dramatic copse of royal palms and a water channel featuring a beautiful triptych sculpture by renowned Costa Rican sculptor Jorge Jiménez Deredia.
The seven–kilometer driveway snakes along the undulating peninsula, slithering past forest–framed fairways with to–die–for views. Dropping down through screens of bamboo, guests arrive at the hotel’s curvilinear entrance, where with some imagination you can detect in the plate–form roofline the architect’s apparent inspiration: armadillos and butterflies. Riverstone pillars, a bamboo ceiling, and earth tone decor mark the airy lobby––open to fore and rear––centered on a simple fountain.
To the rear, the atrium lobby opens below to the lobby bar, accessed by a travertine staircase. Soaring fold–back doors open onto two of the hotel’s three angular pools, including a main pool and sundeck with a bookcase––a nice touch––and a separate family pool for the kiddies. The hotel proper occupies an isthmus barely 80 meters wide: to one side a gray–sand beach runs along the bayshore; on the other, a glorious crescent of palm–shaded white sand shelves into the teal–blue Pacific.
Sushi is served nightly in the casual Papagayo Restaurant, lit at night by exotic roof lamps resembling octopuses and starfish. The elegant DiMari Italian restaurant and a separate steakhouse offer fancier options.
The full–service spa is a gracious contemporary enclave of peace and renewal featuring gorgeous use of frosted glass and a tiger–striped tropical hardwood, with open–air whirlpools overlooking the beach. The fitness center is one of the best in the country. Children are catered to with a fully–equipped kid’s camp with a jungle playground.The golf course here has no rival in the region and is a big draw for its dramatic scenery and challenging terrain.
Accommodations don a quasi–Asian motif, owing more to China than Latin America, with clean lines and plenty of red. Rattan sofas with red cushioned seats join wooden headboards, bamboo–framed floral prints, striped area rugs on glossy hardwood floors, and huge travertine patios with metal rails. Sumptuous silk spreads and fabrics in golds and blood–reds add to the luxurious feel. Humongous marble bathrooms contain high–end toiletries, thick terry–cloth robes, and pull–back screens for ocean vistas. All add up to some of the most delightfully deluxe digs in Central America. All come with CD and DVD players, divinely comfortable mattresses, and down–filled duvets and pillows.
Suites here go from large to “house–sized,” the biggest having several separate bedrooms and their own plunge pool. These also look more like a typical Four Seasons, with more cream colors and fewer fiery accents.
Standard room rates here start at where most other hotels in Costa Rica top off for a suite, but for those who like to combine golf and stunning vistas with world–class amenities and pampering, it’s hard to go wrong at Four Seasons Costa Rica.