Future winter vacations to the sunny south could be a tad cheaper for Canadians

Hard to say for sure, but it looks on the surface as if an arbitrator's Air Canada decision on Monday could be a good thing for consumers.

A federal arbitrator, to no one's surprise, chose Air Canada's final offer over the one put forward by its 3,000 pilots. It ended a long-simmering contract dispute and marks the end of a series of showdowns between Air Canada and its varied labour force.

The tension remains with many union members, but the Monday decision is huge in that it will allow Air Canada to reduced its heavy pension load and, in theory, enable it to set up the low-cost, international airline it's been panting heavily over for years.

"I accept that Air Canada needs to establish a low-cost carrier to ensure its competitive future," arbitrator Douglas Stanley said in his decision.

Brent Jang at the Globe and Mail says the discount airline, if and when it gets set up, will be based in Vancouver. Air Canada is said to be looking for another airline as a partner and perhaps a third company that's to be determined.

Any time there's talk of more competition in this country of ours, it's a good thing. And when the goal is a low-cost, international airline with frequent trips to warm locales during a Canadian winter, it's even bettter.

I understand their frustation, but it's not terribly good for Air Canada as a whole when one hears the head of the pilots' union talking about his frustration over the arbitrators' decision.

"This new contract will affect us all negatively and have a devastasting impact on many of us," union chair Jean-Marc Belanger wrote in an internal memo to pilots. "Frankly, I am concerned that this airline may never be able to recover te pilots' goodwill, let alone their best efforts."

Whoa. I understand losing goodwill. Of course. But not giving their best efforts?

I suspect Belanger is blowing off a little steam. Disappointed as they are, I can't imagine any pilot giving his or her job less than his entire effort. They might book off a day here or there, but I'd hate to think that any pilot would seriously not do his best work once he's clocked in for the day.

GOOD TIMES IN TORONTO

Nice to see the New York Times Travel section on Sunday provide a whack of space to Toronto. They had a correspondent file a lengthy piece on how to spend 48 hours in the city, mostly centred around Queen and Ossington. They mistakenly called the County General the Country General, but it was still a good piece and added to the general solid p.r. the city has been getting.

A recent Travel + Leisure piece by Jonathan Durbin also put the city in a pretty good light.

"Thanks to an infusion of fashion-forward shops and nightlife, inventive restaurants and top-tier design, Canada's largest city has gained a newfound swagger and an edgy style all its own," said the story's introduction.

Aw, shucks, we're blushing.

It was announced on Monday that Toronto next June will be host to the Travel Bloggers Exchange, billed as the world's largest meeting of travel bloggers.

(I've been to two of their meetings; in New York and Vancouver, and it's a solid organization that attracts a ton of attention).

"We are thrilled to be bringing our event to Toronto, Canada in June 2013,” said Rick Calvert, CEO of TBEX. “We’ll be bringing about a thousand travel bloggers and key industry professionals for two days of great educational programming for digital content creators.”

“Toronto is an inspiring place for a meeting at any time and particularly so when the participants are active storytellers who will discover and share some of the thousands of stories that make this one of North America’s most cosmopolitan cities,” said David Whitaker, President and CEO of Tourism Toronto. “We are privileged to host TBEX next year and to help make their meeting successful.”

Later on Tuesday, I spotted this Canadian Press report.

As an '80s heart-throb turned award-winning travel writer, Andrew McCarthy has scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, ventured down the Amazon on a riverboat and strapped into a sled to rocket down the Iditarod Trail in Alaska.

The former Brat Pack member has spent the past few weeks in Hamilton and Toronto to film a movie, not in his capacity as editor-at-large for National Geographic Traveler. But he's taken in the sights regardless as he's spent his evenings in Toronto, attending a Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre, viewing the Picasso Exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario and watching a François Truffaut film at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

So, what does the travel guru make of Canada's biggest city?

"Toronto's really grown up. It's really come into its own," said the 49-year-old star of "Weekend at Bernie's" and "St. Elmo's Fire," noting that his opinion has changed drastically since he first visited Toronto in 1982, when he was doing reshoots for a film.

"I've seen Toronto grow up with me. The rap on Toronto from us snobby Americans was that it was sort of very nice, but dull.

"And that's just certainly not the case (anymore). Toronto has a real vibrant sort of confidence now that it never had, for years. But in the last 10 years maybe, it's really its own thing. It's really nice. So I like coming here a lot."

Good news all around for T.O.

 

 

London looks pretty good on TV ... except for all those empty seats. Shame!

Back in the old days, cities awarded the Olympic Games would pretty much have to start from scratch. The smart ones would make a few calls and study things in other cities, but they had to do a lot on their own.

These days, however, the International Olympic Committee has a knowledge sharing service so cities taking on the massive job of staging a multi-billion dollar enterprise can rely on experts who've made all these decisions before and lived to tell the tales of too few bathrooms or too little practice space or what have you.

So why in the name of Queen Elizabeth II do we have so many empty seats at the Olympic arenas? I turned on some events on the weekend and it looked like the 500 level of the Rogers Centre during a Buffalo Bills exhibition game. Awful. We had this problem - big time - in Beijing. And they managed to fill the seats. So what's wrong in London?

Part of the problem is so many tickets are gobbled up by sponsors; about eight per cent.  Sponsors are pretty high falutin' people so they probably turn up their noses at rhythmic gymnastic preliminaries. But there are tons of Londoners who would PAY for those seats.

So why do sponsors get that many? And why aren't these brilliantly run companies who are able to invest millions and millions of dollars in sponsorships able to figure out how to get some bums in the seats? Are volunteers really that hard to find? It's the age of social media, people. Can't Company X put something out on Twitter or something? Or at least line up some folks in advance and say we MIGHT have 400 seats available, put your names on this list and give us your email/instant message address and we''ll get back to you? Is it that hard, people?

Some of these seats, alas, belong to the media. That's a tricky one. Not to be defensive, but I can see where that could be an issue. In all likelihood, the IOC is putting aside too many media seats for the less glamorous events. They know all of us media types are going to want to cover Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps (you remember, him, right?) and Usain Bolt and beach volleyball (and isn't it ridiculous that the women can't wear long sleeves unless the temperature drops to something like 16 degrees Celsius?). That's fine. But surely the IOC and the local organizers by now know that preliminary fencing isn't to bring in hordes of journos.

Too bad, because the city looks pretty good on TV. I think any network that invests as much money as CTV/TSN/etc... or NBC is going to want to make things look good for the folks back home. They could probably make Mimico look like Paris if they sent in their best video guys. Still, London looks fine and dandy and majestic and cool, even with the rain.

Let's hope they can get past the ticket issues and get back to business....

North American hotel satisfaction slipping, says study by J.D. Power

We're ramped up about the Ritz. But not so kind about Knights Inn.

In fact, North Americans aren't terribly happy at all these days when it comes to our hotels.

A new study by J.D. Power and Associates says guest satisfaction with hotels is at its lowest level since 2006. Their study of nearly 62,000 American and Canadian hotel guests between Aug. 2011 and May 2012 found that satisfaction was sitting at a mark of 757 on a 1,000 point index. That's down seven points from the 764 mark the prior year, the company said.

It's not a huge drop, but officials warned the industry needs to shape up.

"Charging guests more and providing less is not a winning combination from a guest satisfcation perspective, much less a winning business strategy," said Stuart Grief, a J.D. Power vice president. "In short, hoteliers are falling further behind and need to catch up."

One way hotels can improve is to reduce or eliminate Internet fees. The study said that back in 2006, only 20 per cent of hotel guests went online during their stay. Now it's up to 55 per cent (and I'm surprised it's that low, to be honest).

Among the 11 per cent of gtuests who pay a fee to connect (and I'm surprised that's all), their satisfaction rating for thier hotel stay is 76 points lower than ratings awarded by other guests. So obviously the Internet fee irks. Big-time.

When you can surf the Web for free at Starbucks or at a lot of city parks in cities such as New York, having to pay to use the Internet in your pj's seems like gouging to me. I often recommend folks join hotels' frequent stay programs, as by joining (and, yes, giving up some personal info) you can often get the Internet for free. That can save $45 or $50 or more for a three-day stay.

As for individual properties, you might find some surprises. Ritz Carlton came out on top overall and was number one in the luxury category, with a satisfaction rating of 864. That's more than 100 points higher than the 757 average for all hotels.

Next in the luxury category was Toronto-based Four Seasons at 856, then JW Marriot (834) and Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts (830). The average in the luxury category was 822. Which means that Toronto-based Fairmont was below par at 818, as were W Hotels (811), Loews (798), GrandHyatt/ParkHyatt (797) and Intercontinental Hotels and Resorts (784).

This year marks the third in a row that Ritz Carlton has come out on top in the JD Power rating.

In the "Upper Upscale" Segment, Omni Hotels and Resorts scored 811, followed by Embassy Suites (805), Marriott (796), Hilton (792), Renaissance (789), Westin (788), Hyatt (787), Doubletree by Hilton (781) and Sheraton (773).

In the Upscale Segment (not upper upscale, just upscale, so you know) the numbers were as follows: Hilton Garden Inn (always a good bet in my book) 811, SpringHill Suites (usually a lot of space) 811, Aloft (808), Hyatt Place (808), Courtyard (793), Hotel Indigo (793), Wyndham (782), CrownePlaza (766), Delta (763), Four Points by Sheraton (757) and Radisson (755).

In the mid-scale full service category, tops was Holiday Inn (766), then Best Western (749), Red Lion (745), Clarion (723), Quality (714), Ramada Inn/Plaza (709) and Howard Johnson (693).

In mid-scale limited service, the top was Drury (841; quite an amazing score and third best of any hotel group overall), Hampton Inn and Suites (811), Holiday Inn Express (796), Wingate by Wyndham (790), Fairfield Inn/Suites (789), Country Inns and Suites (783), Comfort Suites (782), La Quinta Inns and Suites (770), AmericInn (745), Sleep Inn (744), Baymont Inn and Suites (739), Comfort Inn (735) and Ramada Limited (686).

The top economy/budget hotel was Jameson In with a 751 mark. Next in the economy category was Microtel by Wyndham (736), then Red Roof Inn (709), Days Inn (695), Howard Johnson Express (691), Super 8 (683), Econo Lodge (667), Motel 6 (659), Travelodge (651), Americas Best Value Inn (639), Rodeway Inn (633) and Knights Inn (620). The 620 for Knights Inn, by the way, is the worst score for any hotel group in the survey.

The best-rated for extended stays was Homewood Suites, winning for the third straight year and notching an impressive 838 mark in the latest figures. Staybridge Suites was just a little behind at 823, followed by Residence Inn at 819. Also in the extended stay category were Hyatt House (815), TownePlace Suites (798), Candlewood Suites (796), Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham (791), Homestead Studio Suites (704) and Extended Stay America (702).

I find it interesting that the extended stay places, by and large, did so well. They had four groups with ratings over 800, which means a lot of folks (me included) really like the suite life and the extra space and the ability to (usually) save money by cooking in the room.

JD Power officials said service is a key issue.

"Advocacy and loyalty rates are much higher among guests with a high opinion of the hotel staff." said Jessica McGregor, senior manager of global travel and hospitality practice. "These guests are also more likely to use various hotel services, such as eating at a hotel restaurant.

"A friendly, service-oriented staff helps drive top and bottom-line financial performance, not just satisfaction, by also generating greater repeat business and positive word of mouth," she said.

 

 

 

Stunning hotels/resorts in Arizona: Palomar Phoenix, Tanque Verde and Tubac

Thanks to the Star's Richard Ouzounian for this comprehensive posting from Arizona

PHOENIX - You’ll find gold in the southwest this summer, my friends, you just have to know where to look.

I know lots of snowbirds come to Arizona once the weather chills up north, but now are when there are really awesome bargains to be had.  And don’t tell me how hot it can be down here in the summer.  You think Toronto’s has been exactly temperate?  And there’s no humidity here. None. That’s why it’s called the desert. 

But that doesn’t mean you won’t find a fountain of bargains.  My wife and I just got back from a wonderful week, where we stayed at 3 distinctly different places with marvelous deals attached.           

Start out in Phoenix, at the city’s newest hotel, the superchic Hotel Palomar Phoenix Cityscape. (2 E. Jefferson St.; 877-488-1908; www.hotelpalomar-phoenix.com).  It’s a Kimpton hotel, which means it comes full of perfect attention to detail (see photo) and a sophisticated sense of humour.  The inside of each room’s wardrobe is painted with a list of outdated, but still legal, Arizona statutes, like “Any crime committed by someone wearing a red mask is automatically a felony.”

The rooms have wonderful views of the new Cityscape development that’s revitalized Phoenix’s downtown and you’re going to want to spend time on the third floor pool that blends invisibly into the happening Lustre bar. And for all this, there’s a special summer opening rate that will let you get all this for $149 US a night.  That also includes free access to the new Gold’s Gym Elite opposite, a nightly wine reception and a $25 nightly food certificate.

Believe me, you’re going to want to use that at the delicious Blue Hound Kitchen & Cocktails, one of the best spots I’ve eaten at in North America this year (see photo). Small plates with pizzazz and punch, thanks to Chef Stephen Jones and a cocktail bar that mixologist Jacques Bezouidenhout keeps to state of the art standards.

Then it's time to hit the desert.  Take a 2 hour drive to Tuscon and drop by the Tanque Verde Ranch (14301 E. Speedway Blvd.; 1-800-234-3833; www.tanqueverderanch.com). It's the perfect combination of authentic Southwestern atmosphere and upscale Eastern comfort. Individual adobe-walled villas are incredibly spacious and beautifully equipped, many with a two-person Jacuzzi!

And that's going to come in handy after you've been out on the trail horseback riding over breathtakingly rugged cactus-covered terrain.  You can ride up to 3 times daily, get fed 3 enormous, delicious meals daily and enjoy all the other nature and fitness activities. Believe me, there are plenty.

Thanks to their "Fill Up Your Tanque" special, good until Sept. 15, you'll get to enjoy all this for $199 a night, $375 double.  That's all meals, horseback riding, activities, everything!  and they'll even toss in a $100 gas credit! 

How about getting a little closer to the Mexican border?  One hour further south brings you to the historic town of Tubac. Originally a Spanish colonial garrison back in 1752, it later became known as an artists' colony and a recent reinvention of the town has made it a fantastic place to visit, shop, eat and enjoy.

Mission central will be the Tubac Golf Resort and Spa (1 Avenue de Otero, 1-800-848-7893; www.tubacgolfresort.com).  Once a historic working ranch, it added a 27-hole championship golf course (see photo), a luxurious spa, several first-rate restaurants and 98 individual sleeping units to fill out the 500-acre ranch in comfort.

Bing Crosby and John Wayne loved to tee-off here, the movie Tin Cup was shot on location and during the summer, you can golf for as little as $29 (including a cart) depending on the time of day. I don't golf, but I found the location itself beautiful and restful enough to warrant a visit, especially at this summer's prices:  3 nights for the price of 2, with rooms starting as low as $114.

Like most of Arizona this summer, it's an offer you can't refuse.

 

 

 

 

Looking for bargains? Try Mexico ... Also, worldwide airline fees top $22 billion

Looking to book your winter vacation or something for the fall? Mexico might be a great option, says Taylor Cole of Hotels.com.

I had a coffee with Cole in Toronto on Monday and she said she hasn’t seen a concerted tourism push like the one Mexico is putting on in a long time. A spate of shootings and violent incidents in Mexico a few months ago put the nation on alert, and she said the tourism chief has been on TV all over the place, seeking to assure would-be visitors that all is fine.

“We’re seeing 30 per cent off right now for some places,” Cole told me. She singled out Los Cabos, Acapulco and Cancun/Riviera Maya (see photo) as places to look for deals. Cancun and the Riviera Maya, as well as Cabos, are particularly known as some of the safest spots in the country.

One might expect huge deals in Spain given the economy, but Cole said there are really only “pockets” of bargains to be had. One piece of advice she likes to give, and it goes for many countries/cities/destinations, is to stay outside of the most popular spots and commute. Or check out a secondary destination as well as the big boys.

In Spain, I’d advocate checking out Madrid or Barcelona but also spending time in the coastal city of Valencia, which has a fabulous old town and castles and a great market, plus a long stretch of coastline and excellent food. It’s the home of traditional Spanish paella. It’s also got a fabulous museum with marvelous, modern design and a great aquarium that the kids will love.

“When I go to France I love Strasbourg,” Cole said. “It feels German (see photo) but you speak French and it’s a great mix. It’s only 2.5 hours from Paris on the TGV, too.”

There’s been an “influx of inventory” (that’s code for a lot of new hotels) in New York, which helps visitors. But it’s still expensive if you want to stay in Times Square. Instead, Cole advocates mixing it up and moving to another part of the city and taking a short commute to the theatre.

If you don’t mind waiting a while to nail down your accommodations, Cole suggests booking your hotel at the last minute.

“Hoteliers don’t want to leave rooms empty. Check out upper category hotels for last-minute deals if you want that four or five-star room with a view.”

Other areas of note from our talk include:

-         New Orleans. Decent room rates and hospitable people in a city that’s definitely rebounded from Hurricane Katrina.

-         Indonesia. “You can often find really good hotel deals for a beach bungalow or something near the rain forest.”

-         Manila. “I didn’t know what to expect but the Shangri La in Manila is a fabulous property with great service.”

-         Toronto. “To have four big luxury properties built in such a small radius is quite a bit. There’s a bit of that in New York, of course, and maybe Dallas and California. But not like this.”

In a related note, Carlson Wagonlit Travel yesterday released its 2013 Travel Price Forecast. The report calls for modest growth in travel costs next year, with the highest increases coming in the Asia/Pacific and Latin American regions.

That’s probably no surprise given the economic growth (with some exceptions of course) in those regions.

Airline prices should go up about 2.5 per cent in the Asia Pacific region, while hotel rates will go up about 3.5 per cent. Singapore will lead the way with a healthy 8 per cent hike, the study said.

You think that’s bad? Carlson Wagonlit is forecasting a double digit price hike for hotels in Brazil (see Rio photo at right) as the economy booms and because of strong demand linked to limited supply. That could ease a bit as hotels come on line for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics, officials said.

Overall, Latin America hotel rates are expected to rise about 6.3 per cent next year. Which means not all countries are as red hot as Brazil.

Here in North America, Carlson Wagonlit expects airline prices to go up 2.8 per cent in 2013. A whack of U.S. airlines raised air fares on the weekend. Yeah, it was only by a few bucks per ticket, but still….

North American hotel rates are expected to rise 3.2 per cent next year, but car rental prices should drop 1.1 per cent, the report said.

Over in Europe, airfares should climb 2.5 per cent next year, while hotel rates will go up only 1.3 per cent. Car rental rates in Europe should climb about 1.2 per cent, but the cost of a high-speed rail ticket likely will go up 4.5 per cent, so keep an eye on that.

$22.6 BILLION IN BAG FEES AND SKINNY BLANKETS

Wow. A report says that 50 worldwide airlines last year brought in $22.6 billion in ancillary revenue through fees for bags and other services. Not only is that a huge amount of money on its own, it represents a 66 per cent increase from what airlines brought in two years ago, according to the study by IdeaWorks, a consultant specializing in ancillary revenue and brand development.

So, if you have the feeling that you’re getting nickel and dimed and quartered and dollared to death, you’re pretty much bang on.

Amazing, isn’t it? I mean, $22.6 billion?? That’s a lot of extra bags and skinny blanket fees and tinny headphone rental fees, folks.

Want to avoid the fees? You might want to skip United, which brought in $5.2 billion in ancillary fees. Next on the list was Delta at a relatively paltry $2.5 billion, followed by American Airlines and Qantas, which I didn’t realize was so heavy into the extra fee policy.

Figures for Canada weren’t available, but there were no Canadian airlines in the top 10 fee earnings list.

 

Problems galore for London Olympics? Hey, we've seen this movie before

With four days to go, the headlines were brutal.

“Olympic track in no condition for the big race,” read the headline in the Olympia Oracle, explaining how a freak rainstorm had turned the foot race course for the first-ever Olympics into a quagmire.

Elsewhere, a controversy was brewing over the olive oil to be used in the naked wrestling competition.

“Greek crop weak,” screamed the Oracle, going on to tell its readers that Olympic organizers might, gulp, be forced to import inferior oil from Italy.

Fast forward some 2,800 years. The media frenzy in advance of the Sydney Summer Olympics was slightly larger and just a bit more worldwide than it was for the first-ever Olympic Games. One of the big topics was how the beach volleyball stadium at Bondi Beach (see photo with Richard Branson and some, uh, friends) was going to ruin one of Sydney’s top attractions, which was lunacy.

Four years later in Athens, the alarm bells were ringing in regards to the late construction schedule. In Vancouver for 2010, there were concerns about Mother Nature.

It has ever been thus. For weeks – no, make that years – the focus is all about a city or a country getting ready for the Olympics. The euphoria of the winning city announcement is quickly replaced by a sense of concern about roads that need to be built or subways that need expanding or building the stadiums that everyone assures taxpayers will be put to “absolutely marvelous” uses once the five-ring circus has left town.

For years, the Olympics media has nothing really positive to write about. It’s all preparation and security costs and budget overruns. And it happens in every city for every Olympics, because the media abhors a vacuum (we also abhor high beer prices at Olympic venues but that’s another story). Plus, we just love to write woe is us or, even better, woe is you stories.

You could set your watch by the oh-so-predictable pattern of these things. On Friday, the day of the Opening Ceremonies at the London Games, British tabloids will be filled with more impending doom stories about rain and unprepared security workers and probably even a story that quotes a British betting house on the odds of a plague of locusts landing on the head of Queen Elizabeth during the torch lighting ceremony. By Sunday it will mostly be forgotten because the media will be out watching cyclists racing and kayakers paddling and badminton types shuttlecocking, which is possibly why the media always feels obliged to write about the free condoms they tend to give out at the athletes village.

There will be still be a good deal of self analysis and daily quotes on the weekend from angry cabbies who don’t like the fact that Olympic poo-bahs from all over the world and scruffy sports reporters from Toronto get preferential lanes on impossibly crowded London streets while they suffer through nightmare traffic jams. Not to mention stories about when it will finally feel like summer in London, the answer to which is why worry about something you’ve never had?

As many of us recall from the Vancouver Games, the Brits were horribly hard on Canadian organizers in the early days of the 2010 Winter Olympics. The tragic accident on the sliding track at Whistler and the lack of snow on the mountains in Vancouver and the bus breakdowns were highlighted with what seemed like an extra serving of cold-hearted glee. It probably was, but I always thought Vancouver folks took it too personally.

As Canadians we likely read a bit of “ah, these rubes in the colonies don’t quite know what they’re doing” angle to things. In fact, I suspect the British tabs are just as adept at poking holes in just about every organization that runs just about any high-profile event in the world, whether it's an Olympic Games, a Euro Cup or one of the four dozen G-20 summits that seem to be held every year to absolutely no effect.

Still, one does hope that they’ll be just as vicious and catty when it comes to critiquing the work of London organizer (and British sporting hero) Sebastian Coe as they were in flailing away at Vancouver chief bottle washer John Furlong, who looked positively sick with worry for a few days before B.C. - and Canada - hit the big rebound.

Either way, at least come the weekend we can dispense with most of the items about folks in suits and ties and dig into stories about the real stars of the show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New shows and great steaks in Vegas - guest blog by Richard Ouzounian

This file comes from the Star's Richard Ouzounian

LAS VEGAS - There’s always something new going on in Sin City, which is what makes it such a live-wire place.  I stopped by for a couple of days last week to catch up on some celebrity interviews and found – as usual – a lot of stuff to explore in the worlds of food, fun and fascinating goodies.

As far as Toronto residents go, the big news is the opening of the new International Terminal 3 as of June 28.

Remember how depressing it used to be to leave Las Vegas, whether or not you had lost any money? That dreary departure lounge where we'd cluster to await the red-eye was a supersonic bummer.

But that's all gone now! A terminal so fresh it still has that new-car smell, with lots of room, a killer duty-free shop and plenty of places to grab a bite, including Carl's, one of my favourite US fast-food chains.

Don't worry, there's still those kinda sad last-minute banks of slot machines, just so you don't think you've suddenly touched down in Minneapolis, but you'll love every other square inch of this new destination.

Once in the city, my work kept me close to the tight little area defined by three hotels (Paris, Planet Hollywood and MGM Grand), but I found more than enough to keep me occupied.

The MGM Grand, long one of the Strip’s landmarks, is in the middle of a giant reinvention and renovation, which they hope will result in rebranding it as the city’s major go-to destination.  I stayed in one of the freshened-up rooms and am pleased to tell you that while maintaining a state-of-the-art sense of luxury, the overall effect is now much more big-city sophistication than wanton Vegas excess.

They also have one of the best large-scale performance arenas around, and their acts over the next little while include such superstar names as Madonna and our own Justin Bieber.

But at the other end of the spectrum, they’ve wisely let Brad Garrett (remember him as Ray Romano’s low-key brother on Everybody Loves Raymond?) open a basement comedy club which has a wonderfully retro feel about it, from the giant cocktails and outrageously clad waitresses to a solid format which puts a guest host – Garrett himself one week a month – in charge of three visiting comedians.

The material is even more adult than what you’ll find on cable, the packed houses love it and it has that rough-and-ready feel of the older Vegas which has sadly vanished over the years. 

And for an example of the tremendous lineup of restaurants the Grand has always had available, pay a visit to Shibuya, a cool and elegant Japanese eaterie that has no bells and whistles, just superb cuisine, whether you’re looking for paper-thin yellowtail sashimi or a deeply indulgent order of Kobe short ribs with foie gras.

Planet Hollywood continues its crusade to snare the young, hip and happening crowd with an electric bar scene, a variety of cool clothing stores in its Miracle Mile shopping complex and some zappy entertainment.

Holly Madison and her XXX-rated Peepshow are running late some nights along with Surf!, a newly opened show that is just as much fun and something you can even take the teens to.

Kirstin Hanggi, whom Toronto will remember as the woman who directed Rock of Ages, is in charge here, but the show moves with a totally different aesthetic. This is happy-time California in the 1960s, with knockout video-wall projections that take you from beach to bedroom, while a sexy young cast belts out a score totally composed of Beach Boys hits.  I’d be very happy to see this one in our fair city.

And next door at the Paris, Jersey Boys continues to pack ‘em in, with Toronto’s Aaron MacKenzie taking centre stage as Frankie Valli some evenings, but the big news here is on the culinary front, where Gordon Ramsay Steak, which has only been open for 8 weeks, and already has the crowds lining up when the doors open at 5:00 PM.

Having enjoyed a knockout dinner there, I can easily see why.  There are dozens of steakhouses in this city, but Ramsay has cannily placed his own vivid stamp on the place.

The bar buzzes like a Vegas bar should, but the rest of the service is as white-glove perfect as you’d get at one of Ramsay’s European establishments.  (The wine list arriving on an iPad is a nice, cool North American touch.)

When it comes to the steaks, they offer you a generous choice of top-of-the line cuts and I picked the 8 ounce American Kobe rib-eye which packed a powerhouse beefy punch in each bite.

But Ramsay hasn’t forgotten to include those suave Britain-meets-France dishes he based his reputation on and you can start with a creamy asparagus soup poured over a parmesan custard that results in melting delight.

I went on to his signature pork belly, glazed to perfection, served with swiss chard and marinated peaches and it totally blew me away.

Naming a favourite Vegas steakhouse is like picking a favourite one of your children, but right now, I've gotta tell ya that Gordon Ramsay Steak is looking mighty good to me.

Lower East side dining spot and a fab stay at the W hotel Union Square in NYC

NEW YORK - Two girls on a fire escape on a hot summer’s night. A humming corner restaurant with enough noise to rival a 747 at takeoff. Tons of fun bars and a real, edgy feel.

I managed a bit of time in this city’s Lower East Side on my recent visit and checked out Schiller’s Liquor Bar on Rivington St.

It has the feel of a subway station, with off-white tiles on the walls and floor and a black-and-white floor that had the 70’s music bouncing around like shoes in a washing machine. It was awfully hard to hear anything but the music, but it didn’t seem to bother the huge throngs of folks who gathered for a relatively inexpensive meal.

There’s a bit of a bistro feel to the menu, with steak frites (excellent, at $25 ) a mainstay, as well as roasted chicken and chicken pot pie ($18), which I thoroughly enjoyed. They also have a variety of oysters for $3 apiece, which is quite reasonable.

The wine list is divided into three categories; cheap, decent and good. The menu tells you cheap is best, but I went for the good.

The drinks are terrific. We sampled a nice pear margarita and, even better, a Schiller’s Storm, which has Makers Mark bourbon, ginger, pineapple and plum. Wow.

A fun spot with good food and a fabulous atmosphere in a real up-and-coming but still edgy part of town. Highly recommended, but only if you don't mind concert-level noise over your meal.

After staying the first night at the Z hotel in Long Island City, we switched over to the W at Union Square. I’d never stayed at a W property and was curious about what they’d offer.

I kind of expected a bit more edginess, if you like. But the lobby check-in area felt like a Four Seasons, with marble all over, a sweeping staircase (it's a restored 1911 beaux art building), a lovely floral display and pink-orange lighting. The lobby/sitting area was a little more casual, with sofas and chairs decked out with bright pillows in shades of purple, pink and orange, and a series of large windows looking out onto bustling Park Avenue.

The fake shrubbery and plastic butterflies on a couple of the lobby walls was a complete mystery to me. Some folks seemed to enjoy it and were having their pictures taken, but I couldn’t help thinking it felt like the Rainforest Café, which I would be very happy to never see again in my life.

The lobby then spills into Olives, a Todd English restaurant with some nice food offerings. I loved the chorizo flatbread but wasn’t so crazy about the spaghetti carbonara with crab, as the shellfish somehow didn’t match up well with the main dish.

Still, there’s a nice wine list and the place was absolutely packed with pretty people on a Friday night.

There are WAY too many hotel rooms done up these days in UPS colours of crème or white and brown. Thankfully, that’s not the case at the W. Our room was mostly off-white, but one of the walls was done in a cool, ribbed wallpaper and one of the wallpapered walls was Los Angeles Dodger blue.

The headboard was bright orange, with a white patterned wall above it. Our room looked south toward Union Square and City Hall and lower Manhattan, and it seemed a good 20 per cent bigger than most standard hotel rooms. The bathroom also was bigger than most, with nice fixtures and amenities and enough space for a couple of toiletry bags.

Toss in a nice fitness centre (called Sweat) with a punching bag, use of a bike if you want one (or a car), a good concierge service (called Whatever, Whenever), a nice business centre and a prime location that’s two blocks from the subway and close to great food and shopping and walking distance to Greenwich Village and SoHo, and you’ve got a fine hotel for folks of just about any style.

 

 

 

 

Wall Street Experience a great way to learn about New York and finances

I'm always slightly hesitant before heading to New York, as I really do crave a little more quiet in my life as I get older. And, hey, in my defence, I live in a pretty big city.

Anyway, that always changes the second I set down in New York. I start looking out the window after 45 minutes to see if I can see the skyline and my heart starts pumping.

It was the same this time. I mentioned yesterday that my son and I stayed our first night at the Z Hotel in Long Island City Queens. We were up early the next day and dropped our bags off at the W Hotel (I guess I somehow missed the X Hotel and the Y Hotel; next time maybe) at Union Square. Which I'll write about later. From there it was down to Wall St. for the Wall St. Experience tour, which I'd found out about through a Google search.

The tours are led by former Wall St. executives from some of the big firms. They have "regular" Wall St. tours but I opted for one that was centred on the financial crisis the world finds itself in. Tour guide James Mosiej knows his stuff and was able to explain what went wrong in fairly simply language.

The general public is no longer allowed inside the New York Stock Exchange, but we got to see the beautiful Federal Hall and the interior, right across the way. And we learned about earlier terrorist attacks on New York (one took place in 1920, right outside the Federal Hall on Wall Street itself.

We also got some good history, including a fun bit about how there's only one tree on Broad St. in front of the NYSE. It's a buttonwood tree. Why? Because back in the 1700s, when early traders in New York got together to talk about Goldman Sachs and AIG they did so in the shade of a buttonwood tree, which is part of the sycamore family for those of you keeping score at home.

He also got into a fair bit of depth on what folks in various companies were up to and why the U.S. securities folks failed to do enough to stop the crisis. And lots more, including a look at lovely Hanover Square and a tour of lower Manhattan in general. Definitely worthwhile and only $50 for two hours.

We grabbed lunch on a hot day on Stone Street, supposedly the first paved street in New York. It's lined with pubs and restaurants and they have picnic tables taking up the street so you can dine outside. Or enjoy the A.C. inside, which in retrospect might have been a better idea in 30-degree temperatures in a concrete canyon.

We also took in a lovely ride on the Clipper City courtesy of the Manhattan by Sail company, which organizes boat rides out in the harbour on beautiful tall ships. It's a great way to see lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, and a nice way to cool off on a hot day.

More to come tomorrow on some great drinking/dining spots in the Lower East Side, the Meatpacking District and lower midtown areas of the city.

 

 

Yankee Stadium great aside from the subway home .. Z hotel Long Island City

I covered a lot of games at the old (not original, but the version that was recently torn down for the NEWEST new version) Yankee Stadium. And it was pretty cool.

But also pretty dumpy. Historical, sure, but awfully shabby around the edges.

I hated to see that one go, and I realize the new version is awfully high end and super expensive, but it's a fun place to watch a ballgame. I bought a pair of tickets for $100 each for my son and I last weekend, and that got us the 14th row in the second deck a bit past third base. Not quite prime seating, but a good view of the whole ballpark and, thankfully for a summer's visit, some shade. At a price.

They've kept the old, white arches-style from the old ballpark, with a huge ring of them on the upper deck. You can see the monuments to the former stars out behind centre field, but I'm not sure if they're as visible as they used to be.

The food was quite good, with a great variety. We had some Carolina pulled pork from Brother Jimmy's bbq (I couldn't resist the name) and a couple of large Stella Artois. The price? Just $44. Ahem.

I think the Italian sausages were $8, but they come with sauteed peppers and onions so that seemed reasonable.

The cheapest part of the day was the subway ride from lower Manhattan and back. It's $2.25 for the subway in Manhattan, and it's a breeze as the new park is maybe 50 meters from the 161st St. stop on the four, B and D trains. Going up was fine, as people arrive at different times. Going home, on the other hand, is crazy.

Making matters worse is that I had bought a MetroCard, hoping to save time and effort of paying cash fares all the time. But the damned thing hardly ever worked. The magnetic stripe readers don't seem to get the signal, and my card kept getting refused, even when I had plenty of money left on it.

My card was refused again at Yankee Stadium on the way home. Even though we had dawdled a bit on the way out listening to the refrains of Sinatra singing "New York, New York" there was a crush of fans trying to get onto the subway. Because my card wouldn't work, I had to join a lineup of about 30 people needing to pay cash fare. And there was only guy working at the entrance we were at, and it was hot and crowded and he was NOT in a good mood and was not working real fast.

I looked around and couldn't find a machine to dispense the Metro cards. They have the machines all over at other subway stops, but I didn't see one at Yankee Stadium, one of the busier stops in the city before or after a game I'd think. Crazy.

Anyway, at least the crowds were gone by the time we got on the four train headed south, and we rode in style and comfort. Thank goodness for the NYC air conditioned - and clean - subway cars. Folks who didn't visit the city in the 1980s probably have no idea what the subway was like in those days. Absolute filth doesn't begin to describe it, from my memory. Graffiti everywhere and dirty, smeared windows and garbage and probably not much air conditioning, as I recall. A far cry from today. It's still hot as blazes as you wait on the platforms and traverse the stairs and walkways between train lines, but at least the cars are cool and comfortable.

We got in late on Thursday of last week and stayed the night at the Z Hotel in Long Island City. It's a fairly new spot we featured briefly last year in Star Travel in a story on new hotels in the "suburbs" or Manhattan.

This one is in Queens, maybe four blocks from the East River, with an absolutely breathtaking view of Manhattan and the Queensborough/RFK/59th St. Bridge. All the rooms face out to the river and the city, although views up higher are presumably a little better. We were on the ninth floor and the rooms have floor to ceiling windows, so it's QUITE something.

My son has been around a fair bit, but he took one look and said, "Holy s---."

The rooms have free wifi and calls to anywhere in the world also are free. They also have iPod docks and LCD TV's and a lot more, including free bikes and free, hourly rides into Manhattan. It only takes a few minutes to get over the bridge and into town, and the shuttle goes to 59th St. and Lexington Ave., near Bloomingdale's and next to the subway. Central Park is three blocks away, and Rockefeller Center is only a few blocks past that, so it's a great place to get dropped off.

The front desk folks were nice, but they didn't tell us about the shuttle or much else about the hotel.

There's a wonderful view from the bar on the rooftop, with more awesome views (see the morning photo above). Drinks were $12, which is fair and a lot cheaper than fancy joints in Manhattan. It was fairly quiet up there but the bartender told me he's a month into the job and still not tired of the nightly light show from across the river.

The room we had was small but fine, with an illustration of Billie Holiday on the wall and some cool, funky light fixtures. There also was a steel storage contraption in the corner with some magazines and a purple construction helmet. Why, I have no idea.

The neighourhood is said to be improving but you're basically staying in what looks like industrial Leaside, with transmission shops and such all around. The other real downside to me was the food downstairs at the lounge/diner. It's done up nicely with a library/Paris kind of feel to it. The $10 hot breakfast buffet was quite good, but at dinner it took a half hour for the kitchen to deliver up some very mediocre hamburgers. Disappointing, for sure.

Still, it's not a bad alternative for folks on a budget or looking for something a little different. And you won't find a view like this in Manhattan.

Rooms in mid-August today were listed from $165 to $260, and weekdays seemed cheaper than weekends. Which is a reverse from most Manhattan hotels that are more business dependent. So this might be a good place for a weekday visit for folks on a budget. You surely won't find a place this nice - despite its faults - for $165 on a weeknight in Manhattan.