There is a real range of luxury hotels in the world  — from the down to earth comfort of “Forbes top hotel”  San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, California, to the old school European grandeur of the Four Seasons George V hotel in Paris.

Behold the Mardan Palace

And then you have flat out crazy, fake snow-making flash of the new Mardan Palace in… Turkey! I bet you thought I was going to say Dubai, the current champion of hotel excess. But this new property, owned by Russian billionaire Telman Ismailov, who spent more than £1billion to create his dream hotel, takes vulgar to a new level.

Showbiz reporter Ashley Pearson managed to get herself an invitation to the “grand” opening of the hotel and wrote up her visit for the Mail Online, which is always a good source for a little celebrity leering. In fact, celebrity attendees at the event included:

• Sharon Stone (sounds as crazy as ever, “I consider leopard-print a neutral”)
• Richard Gere (who was just there to get money for his foundation)
• Seal (mispronounced Ismailov’s name)
• Mariah Carey (she was the big name performer, reportedly for £1million!)
• Tom Jones (he opened for Mariah)
• Paris Hilton (towing her dummie boyfriend Doug Reinhardt)
• Monica Bellucci (gorgeous and can’t speak English)

This just a regular suite

Suites at the Mardan Palace can go for as much as £11,500 a night. The rooms are just as exquisite as you would expect for $20k+ — no bedbugs or jungle spiders here!

This is a deluxe suite

There is the fake snow room, for rolling in after a sauna (Ashley Pearson’s detail, not mine), there is a five acre pool, and you can swim in a man-made coral reef and shark grotto. You know, when you want to live large and dangerous, like rich people.

The grotto. With the fish. And sharks.

Is this kind of hotel relevant or necessary these days? No. Is it even ethical to spend a couple billion dollars to make another over the top hotel when there are people starving? Probably not. And can Ismailov justify the carbon footprint that this kind of operation generates? I doubt it.

But even with those three strikes, this place will probably become a big success, because there are still people out there with so much money, they almost can’t help themselves from staying in a place like this. And I have to admit, I sort of shame-envy them. What can I say? That pool looks really nice.

Twenty Dollar Trick

Have you heard of the Twenty Dollar Trick? It’s a great way to get a free (ok, almost free) upgrade to your hotel in cities like Las Vegas, New York and Boston. My fiance and I used it in Las Vegas, Nevada, this past weekend at Harrah’s and it worked wonderfully! Basically, this is how it works. When you check in, you slip a $20 bill between your credit card and ID, hand them to the receptionist and immediately ask, “Are there any free upgrades available?” If there are, chances are they’ll give you one. And if not, they give the $20 back. We tried this over Memorial Day weekend, and it worked like a charm! We had booked a standard room, and we were immediately upgraded to a Junior Suite that came with a King Bed, a large couch, a printer (really!) and a view of the pool. The room was in the newer tower, so it was nice and large.

I’ve heard that this tactic works in bigger cities like New York as well, so give it a try the next time you check in to a hotel and see what happens! Let good old Jackson do a little work for you. I wonder what would have happened if we had slipped the guy $40…

Harrah's Las Vegas

Photo Credits: StopnLook, ILoveButter

Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada

About one year ago, rooms at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada were pretty darn expensive. My Internet searches kept turning up prices in the $220-$400/night range. Now, though, with the economy in the gutter, room prices have been seriously slashed. I just stayed there with my fiance this Memorial Day weekend for under $200/night, and that was for a holiday weekend! I’m seeing prices now for as low as $89/night with special promotions, and it looks like the average prices are about $150/night.

Grab up these prices while they last! This hotel offers a LOT for your money. There’s an amazing 11-acre beach and wave pool (so cool), at least two other pools to choose from, fabulous restaurants, big, comfortable rooms and first-class service. All we had to do to get two extra keys for friends to get into the wave pool was ask, no questions.

We stayed in a jacuzzi suite on the 17th floor, which was completely awesome. The ONLY thing wrong with this setup was the elevators. I kid you not, we waited 30 minutes for an elevator to get down during checkout time! This is apparently not a problem in the lower floors, but the suite floors have major waiting times for the elevators.

This is my one and only complaint about Mandalay Bay, though. It’s still one of the nicest hotels in Las Vegas, and for right now, it’s an incredible value as well.

And don’t forget that it puts you only ten minutes away from the airport!

Mandalay Bay wave pool in Las Vegas

Photo Credits: Heather0714,

kckellner

If you love Myleene, check out her website!

Okay, you know how “fancy” is a relative term for hotels, depending on where you are? Reality TV show “star” (also a relative term) Myleene Klass found this out the hard way in Costa Rica.

She’s hosting the new US season of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here which puts “celebrities” (OMG, it’s a third relative term!) in Survivor-ish situations and lets us watch them live up, or down, to our expectations.

Myleene was on the UK version of the show a couple of seasons ago, but this hosting gig was supposed to be luxurious and easy. Since she’s not a participant she probably expected she would be safe from jungle crawlies. But no.

On her first night in the hotel — which The Sun didn’t name, darn it — she woke up at 3 a.m. to find her bed, and herself, covered in spiders, giant ants, and other bugs.

Of course she freaked out, and got moved to another room. I don’t think I would have slept a wink in that building, but she didn’t have much choice if she wants to earn the £100,000 for hosting the show.

I’m really struggling with this one: which is worse? Waking up with spiders all over you? Or finding out your hotel has bed bugs? Or paying “luxury” rates and having either kind of bugs?