A ROOM ON A ROOF, A SALT HOTEL OR A DAY IN DOGHOUSE?
Acouple of years ago I obsessed about staying in ‘A Room for London’. This is an unusual ‘hotel’ (apartment, really), under the auspices of the Living Architecture people, designed in the shape of a boat (like you’d imagine Noah’s Ark in your mind’s eye), and perched on the roof – yes, the roof – of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.
Right on the Thames and with a bird’s eye view of St Paul’s Cathedral out of one window and Big Ben from the other, it seemed, even though London wouldn’t be especially high up on my must-visit cities list, like too good an experience to miss.
The problem was that the nights were allocated randomly. You had to email your requested date (first and second choice) by a certain cut-off point ahead of when you wanted to stay – and if you were lucky enough to be first out of the hat, so be it. If you weren’t, tough.
I tried twice and unfortunately drew the short straw on both occasions. At the moment, A Room for London is not available because the Queen Elizabeth Hall is being refurbished – but I intend to try again in the future.
Why? Because it’s different, quirky even, and it certainly beats a night in a bland, ‘plastic’ chain hotel.
There are loads of unusual hotels out there – some with a particular theme, others just a bit out of the ordinary, and some down- right strange. On the themed hotel front, it’s all about ‘The Force’ right now, with the announcement of the world’s first official Star Wars hotel, planned by Disney (who else?) and set to open in Orlando in the US in 2019. (There’s another scheduled for California.)
It will look, apparently, like the Millennium Falcon spaceship and the accommodation will afford guests a view of the ‘galaxy’ from their bedroom windows. With all the standard Disney hotel amenities – pool, fitness centre, water park, etc – as part of the package, one thing out of the ordinary in this Star Wars hotel will be found in the restaurants and bars, which will be staffed by butler-type droids! That’s the likes of R2-D2 and C3PO, presumably.
Unusual hotels are nothing new, of course. For decades now the Icehotel in Sweden’s Jukkasjarvi village has been written about ad nauseam.
But what about staying in a salt palace? That’s a bit different, alright, but that’s what you can do if you make your way to Uyuni in Bolivia and book into the Palacio de Sal. The hotel is completely built from salt (as is most of the furniture), and has 30 en-suite rooms. Not terribly surprisingly, the speciality in the dining room is... salt chicken!
You’d get fed-up, I’d imagine, if you stayed for longer than a couple of nights in a ‘quirky’ hotel (unless you’re a youngster tucked up in bed in the Millennium Falcon), but there are so many that could be fun as a short stopover. Like the Dog Bark Park Inn in Idaho, for example.
An ideal spot for any dog lover, this residence – in a similar fashion to A Room for London – is more of an apartment than a full-blown hotel and is constructed in the shape of a beagle that stands 12 feet high. Breakfast is laid on and there’s a terrace off the bedroom – at tummy level!
I’d prefer a night in A Room for London, I have to say, but an overnight in the Dog Bark Park Inn would definitely be a bit of fun – and would certainly give a whole new meaning to being in the doghouse for the night!