Talk about cattle class. Ryanair is an ultra budget airline out of the UK (did we mention ULTRA?). It’s perfected the a la carte pricing system, meaning that although prices are mad cheap, so is the experience. They’ve gone far beyond just charging to check-in bags. Now the airline is talking about charging a pound to use the toilet. Yes, a coin-operated system to access the bathroom.
To make matters even worse, it is also likely to allow cell phone use onboard — which it will also charge (presumably) customers the ability to access.
So, the cheapest people on earth, who desperately need to pee, but don’t want to spring for it — but who will be complaining loudly to their friends back at home via cellphone about it. Sounds like a GREAT flight.
{Courtesy Chateau Marmont}
My story about the Chateau Marmont ran today on Bloomberg News. I make it to Los Angeles several times a year, and I’d always wanted to stay there, propelled mostly by curiosity. The place has an amazing history, much of it pretty illicit. (We’ve written about it a number of times on Concierge.com — including notorious Hollywood Hotel Hookups and the best hotels to have an affair in.)
Supposedly Jean Harlow hooked up with Clark Gable on her honeymoon night — the fact she had just married someone else non-withstanding. Of course John Belushi did his last dance in one of the bungalows, and the antics continue today, from 2003 photos of Colin Farrell romancing Britney Spears to Scarlett Johansson having to publicly deny that she’d had an elevator liaison with Benicio Del Toro after the Oscars in 2004.
The first room I stayed in was right next to the lobby, and close to the check-in area. Everyone can see you coming in and out. Not exactly the venue for dastardly deeds if you’re, say, a married star meeting up for another married star — and you’re the same sex. (more…)
{Courtesy of the Chateau Marmont}
Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — The Chateau Marmont is Hollywood’s most notorious hotel, so you could hardly call it a hidden gem. Yet the fanciful 1930s-era mansion is famed for both discretion and privacy, important considerations during paparazzi-mad periods like last week’s run-up to the Oscars.
You arrive at the hotel on a narrow driveway off Sunset Boulevard that leads to a low, hidden garage where a tiny, creaking elevator goes straight up to the main floor. {For more background, see my blog note on the Chateau Marmont.}
Otherwise you can hoof it up a gloomy stairway to the lobby and cramped check-in nook. Grand? Not a bit. Yet that’s part of the allure of the place, where the Hollywood history is as thick as the grime on the baseboards. [To read on Bloomberg News] (more…)
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — Me, a car snob? As an auto critic, I wouldn’t like to think so, though admittedly it’s easy to get lost in the rarefied air of $100,000-plus cars and forget what choices I myself could afford.
This was on my mind as I exited the reworked Mazda6, a workaday auto that’s far better — and more fun — than it has any right to be. [To read on Bloomberg News]
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