Fresh Flowers — The Ultimate Hotel Freebie For All — At The Plaza

I love hotel freebies, the kind you get when you walk through the door. A great looking lobby generously appointed with sofas and chairs? Check. Read more

On the Road: Sipping a Highlands Margarita at the Highlands Inn in Carmel, California

It sounds like a mixed metaphor, but no, we’re talking mixed drinks – one of the coolest drinks I’ve had this summer. Read more

A First Look At The Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers’ Renovated Rooms

Some renovations are the hospitality equivalent of an out-patient procedure – new bed dressings, curtains, carpeting and TVs. Others are tantamount to a quadruple bypass — deep-dish metamorphoses that entail messy stuff, like ripping out showers, furnishings and climate systems. Read more

Millesime — A Restaurant That Captures the Mood of Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris”

An evocative movie, play, even art exhibition can make you hungry. Read more

A Big Win for Rory McIlroy, Jumeirah Hotels — and New York’s Essex House — at the 2011 US Open

For anyone who follows golf, June 19, 2011 will be remembered as Rory McIlroy Day, thanks to the charming, unaffected 22-year-old golfer from Northern Ireland who won the US Open with a spectacular 16-under-par 268. Read more

Sipping a Vieux Carre at the Royalton’s Forty-Four Bar

We’re in the early stages of summer roof bar season, but no one would call most of New York’s recent nights balmy or sweet. So this week we offer a weather haven, a hotel bar where you can order a drink with a dash of glam and forget the gloom swirling around outdoors. Read more

A Big Dog and a Big Boy: The New York Palace and The Standard Roll Out Sculpture Under the Sky

You know summer’s here when hotels start rolling out outsize outdoor sculptures, the warm-weather equivalent of the holiday tree.  A big dog and a big boy on view all summer offer a taste of art and amusement, not to mention countless photo ops, in midtown and downtown. Read more

Are iPads The Next New “It” Item at Hotels? The Morgans Group Thinks So

What’s the next hotel room amenity destined for the slag heap littered with CD players and tube TVs? My guess: the in-room phone with its push-button call list for the concierge, room service and housekeeping. Read more

Marilyn Monroe at the Washington Square Hotel — in a Show of Rare Black and White Photographs

June 3rd would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 85th birthday. Since film legends never really die, Hollywood photographer Murray Garrett celebrated with a show of seldom seen – and in several cases never before seen – black-and-white images of the 1950’s most celebrated blonde at the Washington Square Hotel. Read more

Who Needs a Bartender (or a Chef)? These Three NYC Hotels Put You to Work (In a Good Way)

Don’t tip the Yotel robot

That much-discussed Yobot robotic arm that grabs and stores your luggage at the soon-to-open Yotel Times Square got us thinking about other nifty labor saving devices – as in the saving of the hotel staff’s labor – around town.

We visited three hotels with clever do-it-yourself amenities, read the instructions and pushed the appropriate buttons. How did we fare?

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