I mentioned in a post a few days ago that I have signed on as a contributing editor at www.AirlinesAndDestinations.com, a New York-based site that operates in what we journos rather wonkishly call the travel "space.''
Over the past 10 days or so I've crafted hotel reviews and one airline review (the latter is about Cathay Pacific Airways's trans-Pacific business-class service) for the site. The hotels in question are Inn on the Alameda, in Santa Fe, New Mexico USA; Shangri-la Hotel, The Marina, in Cairns, Queensland, Australia; The Opposite House, in Beijing, China; and the Conrad, a Hilton hotel in Tokyo, Japan - that one hasn't been posted yet but I'm told it will be by this weekend.
If things go according to plan, there'll be more.
These are professional reviews, not the rants and wet kisses of social media. The pieces are intended to be thorough, reporting-driven and helpful to travelers. If you want to check them out, go to the site's home page, where you'll see the name of the hotel (or airline) and the words By Contributing Editor. Click on the headline to read the full story, which appears under my byline. If a review has rotated off of the A&D home page, you can look it up under the hotels or airlines category.
I'm going to be writing more reviews - as well as the usual mix of travel features, news and commentary - right here, too.
As things roll along at A&D, I'll give the occasional heads-up here, as well as on Twitter, where I tweet as Armstrongtravel.
Showing posts with label Cairns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cairns. Show all posts
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Shangri-la Hotel, The Marina, Cairns
You know what they say about what you need to make it in retail: location, location, location. The same holds true for hotels. Of course, top customer service, impressive physical facilities and a wide range of options like restaurants and a professional business center don't hurt.
The Shangri-la Hotel, located at the water's edge by the Marlin Marina, in Cairns, Australia, has all those things going. Only a few minutes walk from the passenger terminal for boats to the Great Barrier Reef, and with views of Trinity Bay and the mountains beyond, this resort-like city hotel has what is probably the best hotel location in Cairns - the biggest city in the tropical north of Queensland (pop. 150,000). Unlike most resorts, the Shangri-la (http://www.shangri-la.com/) also has a sizable cluster of PCs for guest use on the ground floor, plus a serviced business center - er, centre - on the Horizon Club executive floor - up one from the ground floor on level one. Just across the hallway is the Horizon Club Lounge, where drinks and light meals are served at no extra charge.
Another handy aspect of the hotel's location is the shopping complex of which it is a part. You can enter the mall right off the lobby. Although I did notice how early the shops - not the pubs and restaurants - in the mall closed on a recent Friday evening when I was there. The locals were already out of the office, bypassing the shops, to start their weekend drinking, I was told. Australia, you know? Of course, many visitors were doing the same thing, so there you go.
The Shangri-la, Cairns and Queensland generally are anxious to get out the word that they are open for business. The January cyclone that was seen on TV around the world slammed the southern parts of the state hard, including Brisbane, the state capital. In the northwest coastal regions, where Cairns is, practically everything is operating normally. They'd love to see you.
A few more words about the hotel, a 5-star, luxury property with 255 guest rooms and suites: The staff is what I call anticipatory - that is, they don't wait to be asked for something; they see you and move pro-actively. Rooms are spacious and most have views of the water. My room facing the marina had a sizable roofed terrace, making the room seem bigger than it was; ditto, the window at the head of the bed that allowed light to seep into the expansive bathroom. The shower - strong, with plenty of hot water - came in handy after a long, hot day of touring.
The conceirge and other staff are helpful, with tips about what to do and where to go - though I should say that I had an extra benefit, being part of a small group that was shown around by the hotel's affable and knowledgable director of sales and marketing, Gavin Weightman. With Gavin guiding, I got to see a wide range of cool places on my short (three days) jam-packed visit.
Among them: the Tarzali Lakes Smokehouse, with Aussie specialities that include tasty crocodile sausage (http://www.tarzalilakes.com/), and Paranella Park, a long-abandoned upscale retreat built in 1930 and only recently dug out of the rainforest. Paranella Park is not luxurious anymore - there is a caravan camp, not guest rooms, on site, although it has a good, casual eatery. However, it has an abundance of nooks and crannies to explore on the hilly grounds, comes complete with a waterfall, and comes enveloped in a strangely romantic bare-ruined-choir meets-the-mosquito-coast ambiance. These days, it's mostly a museum.
The Shangri-la Hotel, located at the water's edge by the Marlin Marina, in Cairns, Australia, has all those things going. Only a few minutes walk from the passenger terminal for boats to the Great Barrier Reef, and with views of Trinity Bay and the mountains beyond, this resort-like city hotel has what is probably the best hotel location in Cairns - the biggest city in the tropical north of Queensland (pop. 150,000). Unlike most resorts, the Shangri-la (http://www.shangri-la.com/) also has a sizable cluster of PCs for guest use on the ground floor, plus a serviced business center - er, centre - on the Horizon Club executive floor - up one from the ground floor on level one. Just across the hallway is the Horizon Club Lounge, where drinks and light meals are served at no extra charge.
Another handy aspect of the hotel's location is the shopping complex of which it is a part. You can enter the mall right off the lobby. Although I did notice how early the shops - not the pubs and restaurants - in the mall closed on a recent Friday evening when I was there. The locals were already out of the office, bypassing the shops, to start their weekend drinking, I was told. Australia, you know? Of course, many visitors were doing the same thing, so there you go.
The Shangri-la, Cairns and Queensland generally are anxious to get out the word that they are open for business. The January cyclone that was seen on TV around the world slammed the southern parts of the state hard, including Brisbane, the state capital. In the northwest coastal regions, where Cairns is, practically everything is operating normally. They'd love to see you.
A few more words about the hotel, a 5-star, luxury property with 255 guest rooms and suites: The staff is what I call anticipatory - that is, they don't wait to be asked for something; they see you and move pro-actively. Rooms are spacious and most have views of the water. My room facing the marina had a sizable roofed terrace, making the room seem bigger than it was; ditto, the window at the head of the bed that allowed light to seep into the expansive bathroom. The shower - strong, with plenty of hot water - came in handy after a long, hot day of touring.
The conceirge and other staff are helpful, with tips about what to do and where to go - though I should say that I had an extra benefit, being part of a small group that was shown around by the hotel's affable and knowledgable director of sales and marketing, Gavin Weightman. With Gavin guiding, I got to see a wide range of cool places on my short (three days) jam-packed visit.
Among them: the Tarzali Lakes Smokehouse, with Aussie specialities that include tasty crocodile sausage (http://www.tarzalilakes.com/), and Paranella Park, a long-abandoned upscale retreat built in 1930 and only recently dug out of the rainforest. Paranella Park is not luxurious anymore - there is a caravan camp, not guest rooms, on site, although it has a good, casual eatery. However, it has an abundance of nooks and crannies to explore on the hilly grounds, comes complete with a waterfall, and comes enveloped in a strangely romantic bare-ruined-choir meets-the-mosquito-coast ambiance. These days, it's mostly a museum.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Five Cool Things About Cairns and Queensland
I'm in the city of Cairns, state of Queensland, my first time in this part of Australia. Here are five cool things about the region I've discovered over the past few days:
1. Crocodile sausage. This can be seriously good. I had some for lunch the other day, just after reading about a giant croc that bit off a fisherman's finger and grabbed his legs to try to pull him underwater. Happily, one of the angler's friends rescued him in the nick of time. So, I don't feel that bad about crocs transformed as finger food. Serves 'em right.
2. The Esplanade, a verdant walkway through parkland along the water's edge in downtown Cairns, a prime seaside jumping-off place for the Great Barrier Reef. It reminds me of the seaside parks in Hawaii, but tidier - a great place for a run, a stroll or a picnic.
3. The Shangri-la Hotel, the Marina, Cairns (www.shangri-la.com). Nearly 300 rooms, a good restaurant and bar, spacious guest rooms with individual terraces, a very good Horizon Club executive floor and a great location at the edge of the city marina.
4. The Great Barrier Reef. I was there today, my first visit. Sadly, chunks were broken off here and there during the January cyclone that devastated central Queenland (although things are undamaged from Cairns north). But it is still important, still beautiful, still a popular destination for cruises and touring ships like the one I took with Ocean Spirit. Lovely sand cays, brilliant tropical fish, water that ranges from green to aquamarine to deep blue.
5. Platypuses. They're hard to spot, but these incredibly strange, duck-billed, egg-laying mammals are a delight. I saw one yesterday, at a distance. It was zipping along the surface of a pond, a rare treat available in very few other places on Earth.
1. Crocodile sausage. This can be seriously good. I had some for lunch the other day, just after reading about a giant croc that bit off a fisherman's finger and grabbed his legs to try to pull him underwater. Happily, one of the angler's friends rescued him in the nick of time. So, I don't feel that bad about crocs transformed as finger food. Serves 'em right.
2. The Esplanade, a verdant walkway through parkland along the water's edge in downtown Cairns, a prime seaside jumping-off place for the Great Barrier Reef. It reminds me of the seaside parks in Hawaii, but tidier - a great place for a run, a stroll or a picnic.
3. The Shangri-la Hotel, the Marina, Cairns (www.shangri-la.com). Nearly 300 rooms, a good restaurant and bar, spacious guest rooms with individual terraces, a very good Horizon Club executive floor and a great location at the edge of the city marina.
4. The Great Barrier Reef. I was there today, my first visit. Sadly, chunks were broken off here and there during the January cyclone that devastated central Queenland (although things are undamaged from Cairns north). But it is still important, still beautiful, still a popular destination for cruises and touring ships like the one I took with Ocean Spirit. Lovely sand cays, brilliant tropical fish, water that ranges from green to aquamarine to deep blue.
5. Platypuses. They're hard to spot, but these incredibly strange, duck-billed, egg-laying mammals are a delight. I saw one yesterday, at a distance. It was zipping along the surface of a pond, a rare treat available in very few other places on Earth.
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