A Delta Riverboat at the Gaylord Opryland

Are you planning on staying at one of the Gaylord Hotel’s gorgeous properties this winter?  If so, you may be helping to support VH1′s Save the Music Foundation.  Under the Gaylord Hotel’s Rooms for Good program, 10% of the room package rate will be donated to a designated charity (excluding taxes, fees and incidentals incurred during stay).  In January and February, the designated charity is the VH1 Save the Music Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to maintaining and restoring instrumental music education in schools.

If you’ve never stayed at a Gaylord Hotel, now is definitely the time.  These hotels are like a beautiful city all under one climate-controlled glass atrium ceiling – including waterfalls, restaurants, shops, clubs, conference facilities, a spa, bars, a fitness center, and much more.  In addition, the Gaylord Hotels are now partnering with Dreamworks for an even more family-friendly vacation experience.  Rates start at $179 at the Gaylord Palms, and $199 at the Gaylord Texan, the Gaylord Opryland, and the Gaylord National Hotels.

The Gaylord National
201 Waterfront Street
National Harbor, MD 20745

The Gaylord Opryland
2800 Opryland Drive
Nashville, TN 37214

The Gaylord Palms
6000 W Osceola Parkway
Kissimmee, FL 34746

The Gaylord Texan
1501 Gaylord Trail
Grapevine, TX 76051-1945

Photo credit: The Gaylord Hotels

With less than a month to go, football fever is building up and all roads now lead to the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX. Those who haven’t planned for Super Bowl XLV still have a small window of opportunity to get affordable hotel rooms on the dates (Feb 6, 2011) in question.

Cowboys Stadium & Hilton Anatole

Here’s a listing of the best hotels in Arlington, in terms of rates and proximity to Cowboys Stadium, and the hotel’s connection to the NFL and sports in general.

Hilton Anatole: The 1,606 room hotel is the official NFL hotel and headquarters for Super Bowl XLV. Spread over 45 acres with 3 swimming pools and 12 restaurants and bars and a private art collection, the hotel has recently undergone a complete transformation and reflects all the effort that Dallas has put into remaking itself in time for the Super Bowl.

Holiday Inn Arlington: Just around a mile off from the stadium, very much affordable and has an indoor pool and whirlpool. Sports fans won’t even have to go around looking for sports bars in Arlington, because the hotel has a media room with a 62′ flatscreen television and stadium seating, and also the Sporting News grill restaurant.

Courtyard Dallas Arlington/Entertainment District: Walking distance to Cowboys Stadium (0.8 miles), affordable and offers free wi-fi all over the hotel, and has an excellent lobby Bistro.

Days Inn Six Flags Ballpark Cowboys Stadium:  The closest hotel to the Cowboys Stadium (0.3 miles) and an affordable one at that. Has stadium view rooms and guests can expect a free breakfast and free high speed wireless internet.

Sheraton Arlington Hotel: The closest full service hotel to the Cowboys Stadium (0.9 miles) with 3 restaurants, an outdoor pool and spa. Guest rooms are very well furnished with granite counter tops, plasma television and walk-in marble tile showers.

Hyatt Place Dallas/Arlington: Just around a mile and a half away from Cowboys Stadium, guests can live it up here with spacious rooms and a whole lot of freebies including free wi-fi, breakfast and onsite parking. They also have a 24/7 guest kitchen that serves made-to-order snacks and entrees. Best part is that the hotel offers a Cowboys Stadium tour package.

For cheapskates, there are three or four inns/motels less than a mile from Cowboys Stadium including Century Inn (0.6 miles), an Econo Lodge (0.9 miles), the Fiesta Motor Inn (0.6 miles) and the Caravan Motor Hotel (0.7 miles).

Photo credits: bobbyh_80; Hilton Worldwide

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Being homeless is a bitter, painful experience but sometimes a little window opens and a ray of light shines in. For 500 homeless men and women in Dallas, this window just opened because they’ll be spending their Christmas in the warmth and comfort of the Dallas Hyatt Regency Hotel, courtesy the Soupman.

This is the 6th straight year that the Soupman and a volunteer army are doing this at the Dallas Hyatt Regency. This year, they’ve taken over the hotel’s entire skyline tower – all 14 floors.

At 6 am on Dec 24, six buses start cruising the streets of Dallas, picking up needy people off the streets who will eat and sleep in the hotel overnight, take warm showers, and get new clothes and gifts on Christmas morning.

As the buses roll into the hotel entrance, 1000 cheering volunteers await them with a red carpet welcome and a high school band playing the theme song from Rocky. At 1 pm, there’ll be a huge banquet in the landmark ballroom of the Hyatt Regency with 50 tables of guests being served by volunteers including Tom Leppert, the Mayor of Dallas.

The founder of Soupmobile is David Timothy, and they’ve been at this since 2003. All year round, Soupmobile serves 600 hot meals every single week day to the homeless in South Dallas. The difference is that they deliver the meals to the homeless, unlike other soup kitchens.

As for the 1,120 room Dallas Hyatt Regency Hotel, they’re paid by 14 different sponsors, each of whom is sponsoring one floor each. The hotel is an AAA four diamond hotel, with rates starting from around $179. So that makes at least around $90,000 for the 500 rooms. There’s also the banquet and other arrangements, so the total tab should be well over $100k, even with discounts.

More info:- http://www.soupmobile.org/

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The 251-room W Austin is all set to add some serious sizzle to the Austin hotel scene on Dec 9, 2010 with a grand opening bash. To drum up buzz for the opening, the hotel has got itself a fleet of W Smartcars that are being used for a clever social media version of slug bug.

Instead of a punch in the arm for every Volkswagen beetle spotted, the W Austin is offering a free stay at the hotel during the launch party to the winner of the W2Go contest.

W Austin's W2GO cars

Contestants need to spot one of the W2Go cars cruising around in Austin, and post on facebook or twitter where you spotted it.

Something like this: “I Spotted W2GO at (place spotted)” on Facebook, or on twitter like this: “I spotted @whotelatx #W2GO at (place spotted)”.

Winner gets:
1. Access for two to W Austin’s Premiere.
2. 1 night stay in W Austin’s Cool Corner Suite with breakfast in bed for two.
3. Chef’s tasting for two at Trace.
4. AWAY Facial or 75min AWAY Massage for two at AWAY Spa by W Austin.

The hotel has pretty much the usual W offerings, including the aforementioned AWAY Spa, the SWEAT fitness center, wireless internet in public areas and the signature W bed and Munchie Box in each of the 251 guest rooms and suites. Read More »