Swanky Modern in Motown - MGM Grand Detroit

I spent a couple days at the MGM Grand in Detroit recently. The hotel is only a couple months old and apparently the only luxury hotel in town. I took pics and then mistakenly deleted them, so you'll have to take my word on it.
Holy cow is this place NICE!
The lobby lounge is called the living room, it has some suede armless sofas, and the coolest fireplace that runs through the middle of the length of the stainless steel wall.

The rooms are super cool, and technologically a bit too advanced for me and my friends. 42" plasma tvs, a phone that shows your name on the screen, it also has some sort of touch screen functionality we couldn't figure out. The hotel info book in the room also claimed there was a butler button on the phone for room service, but none of us could find the button. The phone had too many buttons. But no room service button.

The walls against the bed are some sort of bamboo textured wallpaper that I couldn't stop touching for 5 min. The curtains were also a touchable silk crinkly material. A velvet couch which was comfy to lay on, silk throw pillows, and a velvety bench at the foot of the bed rounded out the textural furniture.

The bed, oh the lovely bed I didn't want to get out of. Featherbeds, down comforters, soft soft cotton sheets. It got mighty hot in there at night, and my only complaint was that we couldn't get the thermostat to go under 67 degrees. Yes, it was winter and there was a snowstorm outside, but that bed was just too hot.
The thick espresso stained headboard had a light in it that wasn't controlled by any of the switches in the room. This was weird. And annoying while trying to sleep. It took 2 days to figure out the switch was on the side of the headboard.

More about the lighting, there is one lightswitch that controls all the lights in the room. Not your traditional sliding dimmer switch, this one gives you 5 options for controlling just how much light there is. I liked it. There is also a very cool orange light panel in the wall that separates the bedroom from the bathroom.

The bathroom was huge and marble. With two undermounted sinks, which was very cool. The shower and toilet were both behind frosted doors. This was so sleek that neither of us initially noticed the toilet wasn't out in the open. The shower had two rainhead showerheads. Which makes for fun 2 person showers. Bathroom amenities were all h20+ brand, smelled soooo good! I forgot to take them home with me though. Lots of fluffy towels, and two very thick and comfy robes. There was a weird mirror within the mirror of the bathroom, which I found out after the fact was apparently a tv. See? Too much fancy technology!

Room service was from Wolfgang Puck's restaurant. We ordered a italian sausage, eggplant, carmelized onion and mushroom pizza and a couple beers. The pizza wasn't all that great, the Italian sausage tasted a bit weird and there was cilantro on the pizza, which didn't blend well with the other flavors. Service was very prompt, although they didn't bring us any ice water with the dinner, which I've never had happen before.

The hotel also has two of Michael Mina's restaurants, Bourbon Steak and Saltwater. I meant to try at least one of these as he is one of my favorite chefs, but both of us were under the weather most the weekend and room service was just easier.
There is also a Starbucks, which strangely enough closes at 7 pm.

The hotel staff and concierge were all very nice and as helpful as could be.

If you have to go to Detroit and want a truly luxurious stay, I highly recommend the MGM Grand.

Cutest Hotel Ever -Pod Hotel - NYC

I've never been compelled to review a hotel the minute I walked in the door, but the Pod Hotel did it for me.

Now, I tend to like the luxury hotels, and this certainly is not one. But it's cute, boutiquey, has a great staff, and a total find!
I was looking for a cheap one night stay in NY, and stumbled across this place. It has bunkbeds (also, the cheapest room option) and I thought it would make for a fun stay with L. The room is tiny, as in I think my walk-in closet may be larger than this but, it is incredibly charming!The concept of a shared bath (they do have rooms with private baths, but not the bunk rooms) seemed a bit sketchy and weird, but as I was coming up the hall two bathrooms were being meticulously cleaned by the housekeeping crew. They bathroom may actually be larger than our room, but it's clean, has one of those rain showerheads, music piped in and is not at all run down. The room has all the towels and toiletries and a sink. Picture an airplane bathroom sink.
They offer free wireless (yeay!), an ipod docking station/stereo, the rooms temperature control works well, and as I am using the air conditioning in January it really is individually controlled.
The lobby is large and very modern trendy, I shall go hang out there shortly.
So far the bed I am sitting on is comfy, with it's own small tv screen.
This place gets an A+ rating from me.