Walk off of New York City’s Times Square and into the Room Mate Grace Hotel and here’s some of what you’ll see on the hotel’s ground floor: a stylish lobby, a sauna, a gym, a steam room and a pool with a swim-up bar. In the morning you’ll see guests enjoying the free continental breakfast. In the evening you’ll see a DJ spinning tunes in the hotel’s low-lit lounge.
You might think that the Room Mate Grace would be among New York’s top tier expensive hotels. You’d be wrong.
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Where serious whimsy meets serious luxury, the Hotel Monaco is a decadent, silly place ideal for fun-loving sorts who don’t mind smaller rooms and the lack of an all-out gym. All the rooms in the renovated 1910 Beaux Arts building have loads of character and include canopy beds draped in romantic fabrics and stripes. Trompe l’oeil murals, such as the cloudscape in the lobby, add a touch of magic to the hotel’s public spaces.
Most hotels would have stopped there, but the Hotel Monaco goes far beyond with dozens of tiny flourishes, such as yoga accessories, Frette robes, Aveda bath goodies, and even a goldfish of your very own for the duration of your stay. Pop down to the living room in the morning for free coffee, and in the afternoon for fresh cookies. Return later for wine, cheese, a tarot reading, and a neck rub. Take the hotel’s complimentary town car to one of the nearby shopping areas. Or free your inner rock star in the Grace Slick Suite, packed with original artwork and memorabilia from Jefferson Starship and Jefferson Airplane.
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Where else would the first permanent ice lounge in the United States be located but in the middle of a hot desert?
The new Minus 5 Ice Lounge, adjacent to the Mandalay Bay Resort on the Las Vegas Strip, is 2,000 square feet of frigid wonderland complete with an ice bar, ice sofas, an ice chandelier and an ice Elvis sculpture. Guests needn’t bring their own winter wear for the occasion—each is provided with parkas and boots to keep warm while they chill with their friends.
Admission is $30 though that includes a complimentary vodka cocktail. (No reason to order that drink on the rocks because, like nearly everything else at the Minus 5 Lounge, the glasses are made of ice). Accompanied minors are allowed inside too. Just make sure they don’t stick their tongues, well, anything.
Related Post: Ice Bars In Warm Places
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Wow. This two-chamber hotel 30 feet (10 meters) underwater off the coast of Key Largo, Florida truly feels like you are spending the night in a different world. Guests are surrounded by views of tropical fish and lagoon water. But the vibe of this place is what makes it truly memorable — the lighting and sounds here are different than they are living on land. And since no hotel staff stays overnights below you’ll be free to explore around this underwater space station in privacy. To make the dive down to the lodge guests are required to take a three hour course if they are not already scuba certified. “Mer-chefs” are available to cook dinner. One guess what sort of food is on the menu.
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Once an illegal massage parlor, hence the name, Happy Endings is now a friendly lounge with a hip singles scene that doesn’t guarantee this spot’s former promises of gratification. Getting in is as easy as showing-up and the downstairs lounge still offers private tiled rooms, which are now filled with banquettes and tables. The crowd is informal and hip and they both dance and mingle to DJs that bring the 70s funk on weekends, but aren’t afraid to mix it with a little 80s pop and modern rock. Take a cab here -– the lounge is hard to find and the neighborhood can be sketchy.
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Seriously, this place specializes in milk and cookies. It’s no $100 per entrée hot spot playing “the irony angle,” it’s a café that has found a niche in a city where it seemed that all of the niches had been taken ten times over. Of course, no one pulls off this kind of coupe with store-bought Oreos. This place makes their own type of Oreo with chewy Valrhona chocolate and a homemade cream filling. Coolest of all, this bakery also lets customers create their own cookies — you select from their myriad of ingredient possibilities and they’ll bake up your creation in 20 minutes ($19/dozen). No wonder this place is a favorite for the West Village’s young at heart . . . and their inner-children.
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There are other treehouse hotels in America but none are as dramatic as Cedar Creek. Here, 200-year old trees literally grow through the kitchen, bedroom and living spaces of the five-person bed & breakfast suite. Coolest of all is the observatory tower, which is more than 100 feet (30 meters) above the forest floor and reached via a suspended walkway and the “stairway to heaven” that spirals around a giant Douglas fir.
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Somehow we didn’t get to The World Erotic Art Museum when we took that junior high school field trip to Miami. Don’t you make the same mistake the next time you are in the south Florida.
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