Hotel room trading (my secret gambling addiction).

If you’re looking for a room for, say one night, and you don’t want to pay rack rate – you have 2 choices. The first, which I did during the ‘trauma’ was to turn up late in the evening (possible intoxicated) with a booking for the very cheapest room in the hotel (usually a laundry closet/loo/kennel) and then demand the best room in the hotel via the polite, firm yet true phrase ‘well it’s not like you’re going to sell the Princess Margaret Suite now is it?’. This CAN and DOES work – and you can throw in an extra few quid to show good willing. 

Like I said, this worked for me at the Gild Hall Hotel in the Finance District – and it was a quite wonderful stay (I had the Thompson Suite for less than a third of rack rate).  Whose rack is it anyway? Katie Price’s?

The other option is the play what I call the “Expedia index” this, again, is a brilliant way to while away an evening if your life is tip top exciting as mine clearly isn’t. 

All you need to do is watch the rate fall as they hotel realises they can’t sell the room. The room I’m in now (A Cliff Front Pool Villa at the Ritz Carlton Jimbaran Bay, Bali) has a rack rate (Whose rack? Linda Lusardi?) of over $1000 dollars a night. I’m paying less than half, because I watched the lowest value room sink in value all last night (from 700 to 350) and the turned up and told them I knew they had unsold villas and what was the best they could do. Bingo, Bango, Bongo — as it were.

Now, let’s talk about the Bali Ritz Carlton. It’s NOT on a ‘Bad Bali’ list – which means you can feel better staying here than some other places. It IS very big and it does have a large Japanese contingent, which makes the fashion spotting quite something.

However, the abs-fucking-lute show stopper is something I NEVER thought I’d get a kick out of (mere alcohol, doesn’t move me at all). A Thalasso pool. One of the world’s largest in fact. Here’s a picture:

It really does look like that. 

It’s $40 dollars for two hours. Reader, that’s 1/3rd of the cost of a massage. Without wanting to sound like some scroungey begger (bit like Bev Codd at school ‘if anyone sees any money lying around, would they give it to me’) but I was in for a real surprise and actually heard myself saying ‘this may be the best $40 you’ve ever spent in a hotel — apart from that ONE time.

Into my speedo (it’s medicinal) and into the pool. There are 12 stations, from geysers, to micro bubbles, to currents to walk against. And I had no idea that you are ‘coached’ around the pool. It’s like a work out but in the water, and warm, and relaxing. And wonderful. And you can pee whilst you’re doing it and no one will know. I made that last line up.

I spent an hour and a half in complete bliss, reminiscing about happy times, realising there were more happy times to come and wondering if I was going to pop out of the pool looking like a walnut, or the middle of Thora Hird’s decolletage. I looked damn hot actually. The one time I did laugh was when you had to walk against the current 2 times in a circle. It reminded me of those ‘and finally’ stories on the News at Ten when they tell you how some prize Grand National Stallion is limbering up in a pool made to exercise said equine interests and you watch this terrified horse trying to comprehend how to swim whilst wondering why George Stubbs got such a good name for his work when they all looked the same. 

Back to the villa for a splash about, some Wall Street mockery and 50 pages more of ‘The World is Curved’ and then lunch. Beef Randang. Delicious – hold the rice.

So calm I was that I just spent one hour in the gym, of which a good 15 minutes were running fast on an incline (I was on a running machine, the gym isn’t that big). And a variety of weights. And now I’m waiting for my supper. Which  I won’t be singing for, but the adorable local kids in traditional costume making a racket next to my villa (they are big on tennis here) are.

Here’s some pictures of my villa area – en generale.

It’s not write, but it’s OK.

Time heals all wounds. Slowly. Apart from a slash to the comedy jugular, which I’m sure this post will suffer from. There’s nothing nicer than celebrating your birthday in a way that only you know will work. And thanks to the support (and downright pressure) from close friends; I’m living my birthday dream. You might know that over the past couple of weeks I’ve been slightly nomadic, schlepping from place to place, country to country and more recently hotel to hotel.

I could now give out stars in this town, so many of their rich and verdant sleeping establishments I have visited. 

Let me run you though some highs – and lows.

Highs: 

There are no rooms like the Playhouses at Soho House New York. This time I’ve discovered that the shower has a ‘Mr. Steam’ function, and just shy of setting of the smoke alarms, I cranked it up and opened my pores.

The argument proving that to order Chicken Noodle Soup from the Millenium Hilton at 1.29am when the cut off is at 1.30 the ended in mutual multiple hang-ups.

The joy of the roof top bar at 60 Thompson, possibly the most beautiful rooftop bar in the world. 

The ecstasy of the breakfasts at the Gild Hall Hotel (brand spanking new downtown) and being informed that it had taken more time than it should because they couldn’t poach the eggs without breaking them.

 

The Lows:

No matter how high your floor, when you stay in a hotel that overlooks the World Trade Center site, you can’t help wondering if the foundations were damaged on that dreadful day. And by high I mean 54th floor.

The fucking bastard xylophone player (barely a musician) who would not stop until 2am on West Broadway meaning windows remained closed (a pet hate)

The paradox of wondering if you’re lonely and simultaneously enjoying the whole king sized, Frette linen’d bed to yourself.

 

So, in closing on this ‘lighthouse/corner turned’ post, I’ve hotel’d the fuck out of it. And I’m proud of me for doing so.  Happy sodding birthday.

Just in from the useless Gansevoort South

This email:

Thank you for staying with us at the Gansevoort South.   We sincerely hope you enjoyed your visit with us and that we were able to exceed your expectations.   We look forward to serving you again when your travel plans bring you back to the Miami Beach area. Sincerely, Hotel Staff 1-305-6041000 www.gansevoortsouth.com

 

‘Exceed my expectations? Are they kidding me? Does no one check this stuff? And how can you be sincere when you’re unnamed?

If I was any more excited I’d make a mess.

It’s true. 5 days in Miami beckon, in the brand spanking ‘not-quite-open’ Gansevoort South hotel on South Beach. For clarity, I would rather stick a red hot poker in my eye than stay in the Meat-packing variety, but for the 700 square foot room with a balcon, I’ll permit my standards to slip.

 

This hotel is SO new it’s got less than 10 reviews on TripAdvisor (the Oracle of travel). It’s so new that apparently Lance Bass had his 29th birthday party there (we’ll gloss over that bit). It’s so new, I’m hoping, that the Miami Shiterrati won’t have landed.

 

So much so that I pushed myself so hard in the gym today I had to have a cup of tea and a nice lay down.

 

As will Ben when he sees this car waiting for him to drive us at the airport:

 

So long Singapore.

Here I am, firmly ensconced in the brand spanking new Terminal 3 and Changi airport. It’s really something. More like a hotel lobby than a departure terminal (can you have a departure terminal? Isn’t that a contradiction?)

It is good apart from the carpet. I know, I’m not one to complain, but everytime you look down you feel like you’ve been sectioned and are taking a Rorschach test. So, as they all say, always look up. That’s what I’ve been doing.

The retail is tempting but I haven’t committed. That might have a lot to do with the two beers and a gin and tonic with Ms Davis this evening as we celebrated her impending first day in her new WPP owned job. So I’ve been feeling slightly tired and frankly my brain is to exhausted to compile some weak-willed rationale to spend 800 SGD on the white Asus eee PC – which is calling to me now as I write this.

Singapore is great. But this time the combination of some pretty hard work and some big flights meant the time here was mostly to recouperate. Time to chill and recharge before the madness of London. Apart from last night. Ann and I spent yesterday by the pool in that ‘no one actually has to speak’ silence of friendship, stopping only to cynically scoff at any other poolside prey that peaked our interest.

She’d asked me to go with her to the Hacienda, a small bar a few miles from Orchard Road, that she assured me was cool. So cool in turned out, that it took us half an hour to find the way in. Drinks were served and new friends were met, all beside a floor-standing fan that could probably power a British Airways 777.

Within one cocktail I was hit by jetlag – on a gargantuan scale. It was like being bitten by that spider you talked about at school – where you were slowly paralysed and couldn’t speak but were aware that you were being frozen with venom. Well that and the irritating bald ex-pat sitting opposite me (who I later discovered claimed to be an interior designer. Given that he couldn’t understand why I was wearing a tie begs the question; would you trust this man with your house?) I decided it was time to retire.

And retire I did up until this morning when sunshine flooded into my room. I’d forgetton to shut the drapes and once more I was awoken by the sound of freshly squeezed children shreaking into the pool – God bless resort hotels.

Cut to now, and I’m awaiting boarding for SQ322 which just happens to be the new airbus A380 – so that should be fun, as long as I can keep my eyes open that is. Toodle pip!