Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Miami hotel savings! Reserve Now and SAVE!

If you're planning Miami vacations and you want information on the area's sights, entertainment and hotel and resort savings, you've come to the right place!

Hotels MiamiMiami is a spectrum of dazzle and activity, where all the jazzy colors of ritzy living meet the cool pastels of one of Florida's original vacation hot spots. Beginning as a small second-rate tourist town at the turn of the century, Miami boomed in the 1920s and has grown and added to its diversity ever since. Miami had its own "Little Broadway" in the 1920s, was a center for the Art Deco movement in the 30s and 40s, thrived as a military base in World War II, and has since grown to be both a Latin American center and a sleek metropolitan community.

There are literally millions of ways to spend your time in Miami. Nearby areas such as Coconut Grove, Miami Lakes, or Sunny Isles Beach. If you are inclined to sightsee, the Art Deco District contains over 800 buildings in this distinct architectural style, and Ocean Drive is known for its bustling activity and sidewalk cafes. Miami also has several unique attractions, such as the Miami Metrozoo, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami Seaquarium and the Parrot Jungle and Gardens. When the sun goes down, Miami is a place to "see and be seen." Hundreds of nightclubs and restaurants guarantee that you'll find a place to suit your taste and style. Cuban and other Latin American cultures have had a broad impact on the style of Miami. Ethnic food, artwork and crafts abound in the area, as well as many colorful festivals and events. From the chic and cultured to the diverse and outrageous, the colors of this city are so varied and bright there is sure to be something in Miami for everyone.

Source : http://www.2000floridatravel.com/miami/

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Top 5 Miami Beach Hotels

1.Delano Hotel
The Delano Hotel is widely regarded as the finest property on Miami Beach. This full-featured resort hotel is located right on the beach in the heart of the Art Deco district. It's only steps away from the Lincoln Road outdoor mall. If you're looking for a truly luxurious Miami Beach experience, the Delano is the place to stay.

2. Fontainebleau Suites
The Fontainebleau Suites tower is the first part of the famous resort to open following an extensive remodeling and construction program. The main resort is still undergoing renovations, so you can pick up a good beachfront deal staying in the towers, provided you're willing to put up with some daytime construction noise.

3. Loews Miami Beach Hotel
The Loews Miami Beach Hotel (shown in the photo on this page) is another Miami Beach landmark hotel. It's located in the Art Deco district on Collins Avenue. In addition to a fabulous pool and beachfront location, the hotel offers fine dining, including a signature restaurant owned by Food TV's chef Emeril Lagasse.

4. Ritz-Carlton South Beach
Also located in the heart of the Art Deco district, the Ritz-Carlton South Beach provides the classic service you've come to expect from the Ritz with a distinctively Miami flair. The Ritz features a full-service spa that's one of the finest in Miami.

5. Sagamore Hotel
The Sagamore Hotel stands out from other hotels on the beach by offering an all-suites environment. It also features Social Miami at Sagamore, a "culinary lounge experience" that provides an intriguing combination of food, drink and social interaction in a luxurious environment.

Source : http://miami.about.com/

The Different Types of Miami Hotels

If you ever find yourself in my Miami, and in need of accommodations, you should have no trouble finding a good hotel for you and your family to stay at. In fact, there are so many Miami hotels that you could probably stay at a different one each night and you still wouldn't come close to staying in all of them, even after one year.

The reason may be because Miami is a very tourist-oriented town and it has many visitors each year, which boost its economy. There must be a place for these people to stay once they get there and Miami has provided them with that shelter with the many Miami hotels available.

Choose Carefully

When choosing a hotel, you should first visit the establishment before you book a room there. Of course, if you are traveling into Miami, or through it, and just need a place to stay for a night, then any one will do, as most Miami hotels are very nice and very inexpensive also.

However, if classy is what you're looking for, you may have better luck, if you have the time, to call information or to use the internet. If you can somehow get the phone number to one of the hotels that catches your eye, you should be able to tell right away what type of place that truly is. You can tell the class of a Miami hotel by the way you are treated by the staff as a customer. If customer service seems to be a top priority, that is definitely a hotel you should consider.

You should also consider the area when deciding on a Miami hotel, as you don't want to stay in a dangerous area, and there are some in Miami, but you should be able to tell the danger level of the area you're in by the look of the surroundings. Bottom line, if you don't feel safe getting out of your car, you may want to keep driving until you find another Miami hotel.

You're In Miami!

When you find the right one, however, you'll know it and you'll love the stay, no matter where you're at. After all, you're in Miami, it's not about the hotel, it's about the time you spend in one of the best cities in the United States.

Source : http://www.traveldir.org/

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Miami Florida Hotels

Considered to be the most exciting city in Florida, its picturesque beauty can leave anybody intoxicated. An attempt to breathe in the beauty of the city in its entirety will leave you gasping with excess. What makes the city what it is, cannot be anything other than its people. The culture here is predominantly Hispanic and in some places the only language spoken and understood is Spanish.

Bookings to most Miami Florida hotels can be done online. On your vacation or business trip to Miami, you can experience the rare combination of the resort experience with the cosmopolitan city life. You can get your reservation done in an apartment suite of a seven star hotel or choose to live in a Jacuzzi suite by the beach in a smaller hotel.

A number of tourists and visitors to Miami, while sharing their personal experiences of the trip say that the hospitality services offered by most Miami hotels are far from satisfactory. The judgment as to whether one should still visit Miami though is unanimous. The beautiful landscapes and the beaches that seem to beckon you to their warm relaxing waters and golden sands are more than a reason enough to forget about a few unfortunate incidents that a couple of people might have encountered in the city.

It is, however, extremely prudent to conduct a survey of the facilities of the hotel you are planning to stay in, before making your reservations. A number of times you may end up getting none of the amenities that the pretty pictures in the hotel's online brochure promised to you.

The golden rues that one must follow before going to any holiday destination are true for Miami too. A carefully done reservation keeping all your requirements in mind will set you up for a grand and picturesque holiday.

Source : http://ezinearticles.com/

Miami Area

Miami is one of the nation’s most wellrounded metropolitan destinations due to its arts scene, shopping, family attractions, and hotspot Miami Beach.

Vibrant and charged with the energy of Caribbean rhythms, Miami means big-city sophistication and seductive beaches to those who plug into its unique brand of electric charge. A railroad into the old Indian trading post started Miami down its path as Florida’s most dynamic city and a few works of modern engineering made Miami Beach a sudden hotspot of the 1920s. With a colorful arts scene, world-class shopping, watersports splendor, professional sports and a load of family attractions, Miami makes one of the nation’s most well-rounded metropolitan destinations.

The greatest influence upon the city’s modern-day personality came with the influx of Cuban refugees that began in the 1960s. They settled in an area dubbed Little Havana, where salsa music blares, men play dominoes in the park and breezes carry strong whiffs of café con leche. Miami’s overall cuisine and arts scene sway Cuban, blended with other local Caribbean influence. Floribbean cooking, a Miami invention, fuses Florida and island technique and products into one of the most popular styles to have hit in many decades.

Coral Gables, one of the nation’s first planned developments, was built almost entirely out of the coral limestone quarried there. The quarry itself was turned into Venetian Pool, an exotic swimming hole with romantic stone bridges and waterfalls. Gracious Spanish colonial-style homes line twisty streets vegetated lushly and sequestered aesthetically from the big-city world.

Key Biscayne holds popular tourist attractions, busy recreational marinas and fantastic beaches. Windsurfing and sailing are foremost along its windy causeway, known as Hobie Beach. Miami Seaquarium ranks as one of Florida’s first marine attractions, but keeps up-to-date with dolphin interaction programs and environmentally inclined exhibits. Nearby marinas offer everything from boat rentals to diving excursions. There are more ways to play at Crandon Park, a huge beach park with amusement rides, tennis and bike paths. At the island’s southern tip, a state park protects a historic lighthouse and the beach that fronts it.

Another of Miami’s old neighborhoods, Coconut Grove keeps up with the times as a lively shopping and nightlife scene. Visit a Gilded Age Italian-style palace at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens and one of the state’s oldest science museums, which is next door but slated to move downtown in coming years.

The majority of celebrities live on islands along MacArthur Causeway, which leads to South Beach, a.k.a. SoBe, Miami’s acclaimed district for naughty and nice. Two family attractions – Jungle Island and Miami Children’s Museum – have also moved along the bridge’s causeway in the vicinity of Miami’s busy cruise ship port. Ocean Drive, SoBe’s much-photographed street, faces a wide, bustling beach and is lined with its historic Art Deco gems. Intimate, chic hotels have taken up in the jauntily painted masterpieces, their lively cafés spilling onto the sidewalk with hip clientele, wannabe fashion model servers, and Latin tunes. A block off Ocean, all-night clubs and drag bars pick up the tempo. Edgy art galleries and museums, chi-chi restaurants, and the most design-forward of restored hotels contribute to SoBe’s reputation as it follows Collins Avenue along Miami Beach’s Golden Mile and to the newly fashionable neighborhoods of North Miami Beach, Sunny Isles and, on the mainland, Aventura. Haulover Park offers scores of recreation and chic hotels, spas and golf resorts accommodate in style.

Trend-setting Bal Harbour Village, a barrier island at the northern tip of Miami Beach, is home to two oceanfront resorts, the Bal Harbour Shops (with 100 flagship stores such as Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Gucci) and a number of see-and-be-seen eateries.

At its southern extremes, the Miami area turns agricultural and natural in Homestead, tropical fruit capital and home to a grand new auto-racing speedway. Homestead is also gateway to two extraordinary national parks. Biscayne National Park introduces a world accessible by boat, a world best seen through a snorkel mask. A 40-mile road takes you through Everglades National Park and its subtle beauty, to Flamingo, where a modest lodge and scores of water and land adventure await. East of town, along Tamiami Trail, lies another Everglades access. Nearby, the Miccosukee Indian tribe attracts visitors with a modern casino and a cultural attraction that includes airboat rides to old-style clan camps.

Source : http://www.visitflorida.com/

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Fantasy Island’s super-rich face upstairs, downstairs rebellion


It is America’s wealthiest postcode – 216 acres of tropical gorgeousness and palatial living reachable only by private ferry, yacht or helicopter.

Surrounded by sand imported from the Bahamas, planted with orchids and palms brought from the Indian Ocean and South Pacific, and a-twitter with the sound of caged toucans and macaws that enjoy daily outings with a bird walker, Fisher Island is known as Fantasy Island. So monied are residents of the enclave, three miles off Miami, it is said that if you waved at everyone you saw in a ten-minute drive there, you would have waved at more than $1 billion (£500 million

Rather, the employee passengers are forced to stand under an outside awning that fails to protect them from heavy rain, debilitating heat, severe wind and ship fumes in miami,” the complaint alleges. Seshma Sheth, of the Miami Workers Centre, said: “We are seeing two Americas, we are seeing two different worlds and Fisher Island typifies that. To get on that ferry, it’s basically taking a trip back in time. You are going back to a racist and backward time . . . We market Miami as a city of the future and then we have this island that’s just a throwback to our past.”

The island’s management says that it works hard to address workers’ issues. But in a protest staged at the weekend, 100 SEIU activists “invaded” Fisher Island’s exclusive beaches to protest against the community’s perceived social failings. “Because they are so isolated, Fisher Island residents think they can wall themselves off from the poverty they create,” Hiram Ruiz, an SEIU representative, said. “We set out to make a point: there should be only one Miami, not one Miami for the wealthy and another for the rest of us.”

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Miami: Stopover City

Once little more than a trading station, this Florida port is now the major staging post for the Americas. Whether you want to laze or live it up, Paul Wade shows you how to make the most of the city.

Although thousands of British visitors fly in to Miami to holiday in southern Florida, the international airport is also a major staging post for holidaymakers flying on to the Caribbean and South America, as well as thousands more boarding cruise liners in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. About a 10-hour flight from Britain, Greater Miami is a fast-growing mixture of business-like skyscrapers and funky hotels, laid-back tropical days and non-stop night life. There is nowhere else like it in North America

Barely 100 years old, Miami was little more than a trading post until the east-coast railroad arrived in 1896. At first, affluent snowbirds from the northern states came for the winter sunshine, buying Mediterranean-style homes from developers in Coral Gables and Coconut Grove. In the 1930s and 1940s, the action moved to the long sandy barrier island of Miami Beach. Today's pastel-coloured art deco buildings are the legacy of that boom

Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Rediscover Renaissance hotels

Renaissance is reinventing itself with a $2 billion global makeover (2006 to 2008) that is infusing the brand with imaginative lobby, and room designs plus new savvy signature services.

The brand’s new direction was revealed today at the Renaissance Times Square, New York’s best view of the pulsing international landmark and newest showcase for provocative designer Jordan Mozer.

“We are establishing Renaissance as a worldwide category leader as our owners and franchisees enhance the brand through major renovations, property conversions and new construction,” said Rita Cuddihy, senior vice president, Renaissance Hotels and Resorts. “This eclectic brand of 140 properties offers travelers the body of a full-service hotel with the soul of a boutique."

As Renaissance continues to grow, guests are encouraged to experience the brand’s many unique destinations and discover the culture, art and style of each hotel and its surroundings. The brand is committed to enhancing the experience of travel through individualistic properties that embrace stylish design, attentive service, creative culinary, reassuring quality and sophisticated technology.

Renaissance’s position as an innovation leader takes a another step forward this fall with the global launch of “Cocktail Culture™,” a new twist on drink mixology that brings the guest into the creative process. Kicking off at top Renaissance bars in New York, London, Paris, Dublin, Shanghai, Toronto, Hollywood, Chicago and Washington, D.C., “Cocktail Culture™” delivers a total experience of fresh ingredients, signature cocktails, bartending techniques, music and lighting. “Cocktail Culture™” will be available at all Renaissance properties beginning in early 2008.
Source:http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_nshw.php?mwi=3715