Enviromental Tablets – Apple Makes Being Green a Top Priority With Eco-Friendly iPads

The eco-friendly iPad has many assets that make it a great tablet for the environment. First of all, it will undoubtedly save quite a few trees from being chopped down because of its e-reader feature.

Another green attribute of the iPad is that it is highly recyclable according to Steve Jobs. He states that the iPad is arsenic-free, BFR-free, mercury-free and PVC-free, so it can follow Greenpeace’s Guide to Recycling Electronics. One more awesome aspect is that the battery life is 10 hours so the device doesn’t need to be hooked up to an outlet for a good period of time. The iPad’s 30-day standby battery life means that it hardly needs to be charged at night! My phone cannot even claim that and it does a whole lot less than the iPad.  Via: Luisa Amanda Gomes

References: apple, inhabitat

SocialiteTravel.com – The World’s Largest Community for Flashpackers and Jet Set Gurus!

Upcycled War Planes – The Luxury Plane Hotel Suite is Someplace I Want to Stay In

Located at Teuge airport, this luxe lodge transforms a former 120 seat, Cold War era plane into an amazingly beautiful and luxurious pad. The luxury plane hotel suite includes an infrared sauna, a jacuzzi, and three flat screens.

I was in the Netherlands once, and I got so FUBAR, I can’t even explain. But let’s say I am a classy individual who wanted to explore the finer things of that country that did not include the word ‘chronic,’ I would stay in this luxury plane hotel suite.  Via: Robyn Currie – HotHotelReviews

Photo Gallery

References: treehugger

SocialiteTravel.com – World’s Largest Community for Flashpackers and Jet Set Gurus!

The W Hollywood Will Provide ‘Sanctuary’ For Your All Your Gadgets

After touring the W Hollywood yesterday (sorry, no photos allowed just yet) we learned that the hotel will be using Sanctuary Chargers in-room. Awesome! But wait, what are Sanctuary chargers you ask?

Sanctuary is a product from Bluelounge that enables you to charge all of your gadgets in one box, by offering a multitude of charging cords from cellphones to iPods, iPhones, PDAs and other gadgets that use a USB or mini-USB port to charge up. In fact, The Sanctuary is capable of charging over 1,500 different types of gadgets. Here’s how MacWorld describes using the product:

Using The Sanctuary couldn’t get much simpler: remove the tray, plug in its AC adapter, find the correct cord for your device, thread it through one of the notches, replace the tray, and voilà. A green LED light on the power brick will tell you that your devices are receiving power—if it starts to blink or dim, it’s a sign that you may have too many things connected, and that The Sanctuary has had to reduce its power intake.

This is a HUGE relief to see in hotel rooms as it means you won’t have to bug the front desk and then pray that they have your type of charger and you won’t have to run out to the nearest drugstore or electronics shop to buy a new one.

We’ve already used these excellent chargers at W Boston but you can also find them at W Hoboken and W Washington DC.

And in case you were wondering, the desks at the W Hollywood (which is still on track to open January 28th) will also have 2009’s Must-Have Amenity, Plug Panels. Now, if only we could get free WiFi here too….

Seen a Sanctuary Charger in your hotel room? Tell us where in comments below.

Via: Julianna – HotelChatter

SocialiteTravel.com – The World’s Largest Community for Flashpackers and Jet Set Gurus!

You Can Still Find Hotel Rooms for the Super Bowl For Under $300

The Whitelaw Hotel, Miami Beach

As you can imagine, most hotels in Miami and Fort Lauderdale are sold out for Super Bowl weekend—or have ridonkulous rates around $1,000 a night. But there are still rooms available for less. Hard to believe, we know, but look what happened yesterday: the Jets beat the Chargers! Anything can happen!

There are a few catches, of course, the first being that you’ll have to stay at least four nights to secure a room in most places. Generally, this means from Thursday, February 4 to Monday, February 8.

Here are two rates in Miami and one in Fort Lauderdale that were still available for those dates when we checked via Quikbook earlier today:

· Acqua Hotel: This boutique hotel in South Beach had rooms for $203 a night.
· Whitelaw Hotel Rooms are still available for $281 a night at this member of the South Beach Hotel Group.
· Hampton Inn & Suites, Fort Lauderdale Airport: Standard rooms and king suites are both $199 a night.

In other Super Bowl hotel news, we learned via the New York Times that the NFL booked Fort Lauderdale’s Harbor Beach Marriott Resort and Spa for the A.F.C. champion team, while the N.F.C. team will get to live it up at the Intercontinental in downtown Miami. That doesn’t seem fair now, does it?

Jets and Colts fans, however, take note: You can still book a room at the Harbor Beach Marriott, from $729 a night. Which is a small price to pay to sleep with greatness, no?  Via: MsRebecca – HotelChatter

[Photo: Nutch Bicer/CC BY-ND 2.0]

SocialiteTravel.com – World’s Largest Community for Flashpackers and Jet Set Gurus!

Loft Style Lobbies – The Andels Hotel Lobby Delivers Everything Except Room Service

There’s the old expression you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, a statement that rings true in most scenarios save for a few, one of them being hotel lobbies. In most cases if the lobby is nice, it’s a safe bet to say your room will measure up the same and vice versa. If the Andels Hotel lobby is any example of that then you can only imagine what the rooms would look like here: sleek modernity meshed with turn of the century brick work.

Designed by Polish architecture firm Jestico and Wiles, the Andels Hotel lobby balances the grandiose with the inviting to create a truly unique environment.  Via: Alex Scott – HotHotelReviews

Photo Gallery

References: andelslodz, thecoolhunter.net

SocialiteTravel.com – The World’s Largest Community for Flashpackers and Jet Set Gurus!

NYC’s Underground ‘Please Don’t Tell’ Bar Tells All

New York City’s fave “neospeakeasy” has become mainstream to the chagrin of some of its regulars. Besides the amazing drink menu created by Jim Meehan, Please Don’t Tell’s greatest asset is its “secret” entrance inside the hot dog joint Crif Dogs on St. Mark’s Pl. The phone booth entry not only makes patrons feel like they are experiencing something special, it has also filtered out those who weren’t in the know.

Mixologist Jim Meehan has been well known to drink connoisseurs for some time but now he’s bringing his talent, and his secret bar, to the forefront. Jim was recently featured on the Travel Channel and last week he made a high profile appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. On the show, Jim spilled all of his secrets, like how to make one of his signature drinks, a Tequila Highball, and where to find his hidden bar.

But all of this publicity has some wishing PDT would stay a secret. One Twitterer recently exclaimed, “Now that @PDTNYC & Jim Meehan have been on Travel Channel and Jimmy Fallon, it should be really awesome to sit next to tourists at the bar!” While another patron pointed out the fact that speakeasies are suppose to be kept on the DL. “What point is it having a “secret” bar that everyone knows about??? They shouldn’t be listed in places like City Search, and they shouldn’t have a website or any other kind of advertising either. It should be simply word of mouth. They didn’t have the internet back in the prohibition years you know!”

If you’re one of those annoying tourists who wants to check out a real, big city speakeasy, make sure you make reservations and call early (212-614-0386), PDT’s 45 seats are usually booked by 4 pm. The only thing that irritates locals more than tourists, are tourists without reservations.  Via: cmb – Jaunted

SocialiteTravel.com – The World’s Largest Community for Flashpackers and Jet Set Gurus!

The W Hollywood Gets Ready for Its Close-Up

The W Hollywood is still on track to open in just a few short weeks and while we have plenty of shots of the hotel’s exterior, we finally got our hands on some renderings for the hotel’s interior, including a guestroom shot.

We’re getting more and more excited for this hotel to open. Los Angeles has been in need of a proper W Hotel–in the middle of the action, not tucked away in Westwood–for a looong time.

Sooo…what do you think? We are happy to see that the guestrooms here have gone the way of W South Beach, which has some of our favorite new hotel rooms on the planet, as opposed to W Boston, which was a disappointment. But of course, we have to reserve our final judgment for when we see the place in person.

Still, we think things are looking very good here.

While the hotel is to open on January 28th, we couldn’t find any rooms available. However, the following weekend of February 5th, room rates were holding steady at $319 for a Fabulous room with a king bed. (Advance purchase required.)

If you’re going to be in the Hollywood area this Thursday, you should know that the W Hollywood is holding its Grand Kick Off event for its 400 new employees. The welcoming celebration will shut down Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Pantages Theater and the House of Blues’ world-famous gospel choir, celebrity impersonators and even some “paparazzi” will give the employees the Hollywood star treatment. That should put them in a good mood to receive guests!  Via: Julianna – HotelChatter

What do you think of W Hollywood’s guestrooms? Do they have what it takes or should they just hope for a reality TV show? Let us know in comments below.

SocialiteTravel.com – The World’s Largest Community for Flashpackers and Jet Setters!

More Places to Log On Without Paying Up – CES, Vegas 2010

We hope you brought your wireless card with you.

If you’re headed to Vegas this weekend for CES or the Adult Entertainment Expo, chances are you’re gonna need a WiFi connection for all your uploading, downloading, Twittering, Facebooking, blogging, and other, ahem, recreational activities.

The bad news is that in the privacy of your hotel room, expect to pay at least $10 a day to sign on. Sadly, there really no hotels where in-room WiFi is free. There are, however, plenty of public options. You just have to know where to look.

Our big sis HotelChatter has culled together a list of tried and true WiFi hotspots on the strip based on our own experiences as well as the knowledge of Vegas expert @24K aka Chris Rauschnot, who is constantly up and down the Strip reporting on the scene–all from his cellphone.

So the next time you find yourself in Vegas for a conference or just some good old debauchery, here’s where you can get connected.

Are you reading this from a free WiFi spot in Vegas right now? Tell us where you’re at.

Where to Find Free Hotel WiFi in Las Vegas

Wynn and Encore
· Pizza Place at Wynn (formerly Sugar and Ice)
· Terrace Point Cafe

Palazzo and Venetian
· Coffee Bean in the Venetian’s food court (signal may be weak the further out you are from Coffee Bean.)
· Cafe Presse in The Shoppes at Palazzo
· Dal Toro restaurant

Vdara
· In-rooms: WiFi is included in the $15 resort fee. It’s blazing fast and the $15 also gets you two water bottles in your room, a newspaper, access to the fitness center and valet parking.

Aria
· Possibly upstairs (We say “Possibly” because during a media day we were Twittering away from our laptops at the Sirio restaurant on the second floor. However, the rest of Aria was murder on our iPhone 3Gs.)

New York, New York
· ESPN Zone

Planet Hollywood
· Hawaiian Tropic Zone in the Miracle Mile Shops
· Coffee Bean in the Miracle Mile Shops

The Palms
· Near the High Limit area
· Coffee Bean in the food court (signal may be weak the further out you are from Coffee Bean.)

Marriott Residence Inn (Paradise Road)
· Everywhere in the hotel

M Resort (Off Strip)
· In the lobby

Element Las Vegas (Off Strip)
· Everywhere in the hotel.

Mirage
· In-room. WiFi is included in the $15 (plus tax) resort fee.

Elsewhere in Vegas
· Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shops: Not only a sweet Starbucks alternative but has free WiFi at all of their LV locations.
· Whole Foods at Town Square: A few miles out but still on Las Vegas Boulevard. We like the booths by the entrance and the quinoa sandwiches of course.
· McDonalds: Making your happy meal even happier.
· Apple Stores: The closest one is across the street from Wynn at Fashion Show Mall but it gets very crowded and there’s not much space.
· McCarran Airport: Totally free and fast.
· Drai’s Afterhours club: In the north seating area. Yes a nightclub. Just don’t pull out your laptop. That might not be so sexy.

More Resources:
· Las Vegas Advisor’s list of free WiFi spots all over Las Vegas. Interestingly, pools on the Strip have free WiFi.

Via:  Julianna – VegasChatter

SocialiteTravel.com – Join the Flashpacker Travel Trend!

Lost Phone Trackers – Use iHound Software to Find Your Misplaced or Stolen Phone

Losing a phone or having it stolen can be a nightmare to some (okay, to most). In order to find that lost or stolen lifeline, all you need is the iHound Software. It is an application that uses GPS and WIFI signals built in your phone to track its location.

How does the iHound Software work? Keep the iHound Software application running on your iPhone or iPod Touch, and if you misplace it just visit the iHound tracking website to find the approximate location of your phone. It also offers an alarm system that you can use to alert others that your phone has been lost or stolen.  Via: Katherine Vong – Trendhunter

References: ihoundsoftware, thesofthelp

SocialiteTravel.com – Join the Flashpacking Travel Trend!