In April 2022, I cruised on board Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas. At the time, it was the largest cruise ship in the world, but the title has since been replaced by Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas.
02.04.2024 - 16:03 / forbes.com / Michael Mina
Regent Santa Monica Beach opens this summer on a prized stretch of Santa Monica sand, bringing with it a restaurant from heralded chef Michael Mina, a café and boutique from celebrity/entrepreneur Ayesha Curry, a 10,000-square-foot Guerlain Wellness Spa, an oceanfront pool deck and beach butler service.
Regent Hotels & Resorts first opened in Hawaii in 1970. IHG Hotels & Resorts acquired the company in 2018 and set out to relaunch it as a modern upper-tier luxury brand. It debuted new properties like Regent Phu Quoc in Vietnam and revamped others like Regent Hong Kong and Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel. The Santa Monica hotel will mark the brand’s return to the Americas and its flagship in the region.
Taking over the former Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, the more than $150 million project channels Beverly Hills glamour and beachfront serenity with designs from AvroKO (whose work includes The Jay Hotel in San Francisco and 1 Hotel Central Park in New York) and Wimberly Interiors (which did Rosewood Baha Mar in the Bahamas and Waldorf Astoria Lusail Doha). Expect an airy, bathed-in-white lobby and rooms infused with subdued colors like cream and blue.
The accommodations — 24 suites and 143 guest rooms — will start at 720 square feet. Indulgent bathrooms will feature soaking tubs, rainfall showers, bidets and double vanities. Gaze out over the ocean from the 2,180-square-foot, two-story Atrium Suites on the second and third floors, or sprawl out in the largest room, the eighth-floor Santa Monica Presidential Suite, which will have a game room, a living room and four Juliet balconies.
Foodies will flock to the Santa Monica hotel to dine at Mediterranean-focused Orla, a restaurant that chef Mina recently debuted in Las Vegas. “Orla is an incredibly personal concept for me, taking inspiration from my childhood,” said Mina, known for spots like Forbes Travel Guide Four-Stars Michael Mina in Las Vegas and Bourbon Steak in Orange County. “The earthiness of za’atar, the tang of citrus and the intricate layers of a perfectly cooked piece of fish or charcoal-grilled meat all take me back to the captivating flavors I grew up with and enjoyed around the table with my family. With oceanfront views and the vibrant energy of the restaurant, guests will instantly be transported to the Mediterranean.”
Curry, who collaborated with Mina on his upscale barbecue chain International Smoke, will open an outpost of her Oakland lifestyle boutique, Sweet July, in the L.A. hotel. The sage-hued Santa Monica shop/café will highlight bespoke products from Black- and women-owned brands and a menu inspired by Curry’s Jamaica roots alongside staples like Sweet July signature coffee, tea, pastries and desserts.
“I am so excited to
In April 2022, I cruised on board Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas. At the time, it was the largest cruise ship in the world, but the title has since been replaced by Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas.
In a landscape sparsely populated with people but covered in spruce forests, taiga, tundra and lakes, a singular physical force reigns supreme – the 20,310ft imposing elevation of Denali, the mountain that dominates its eponymous national park in Alaska.
Green is the overwhelming color on Washington's Olympic Peninsula.
The 2023 Miami Grand Prix proved to be the pivotal race in Max Verstappen’s dominant and historic performance en route to securing his third World Drivers’ Championship title. The Dutch driver started from P9, while his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez started from pole. Verstappen sliced his way through the pack, as if in a different formula category. With nine laps remaining, he emerged from the pits and not only closed a 1.8-second gap to Perez but passed him and put another five seconds into the Mexican driver before taking the checkered flag. What we didn’t realize at the time was that Verstappen would proceed to win every remaining race of the 2023 F1 season, save for a glitch in the Red Bull matrix that was Singapore.
Online travel agency MakeMyTrip has announced a new exclusive charter service between Mumbai and Bhutan. This service is a part of its holiday packages and the exclusive charter will depart once a week.
You will wake up at 5:30 a.m. and stretch for 30 minutes. You will eat something vegan and organic for breakfast followed by an hourslong hike on which you will hear words like “verticality.” If you need a snack, you will get six almonds. Not seven — don’t be gluttonous.
Did you know the City of Las Vegas is not the Las Vegas Strip? For that, you would have to go to the unincorporated City of Paradise.
I'd traveled by car, bus, train, and plane, but boats of any kind were completely new to me until April 2022, when I went on my first cruise to the Caribbean.
At the beginning of the year, TPG shared its list of the most exciting hotels set to open in 2024, and those properties spanned from New Jersey to the Seychelles. One of these hotly anticipated hotels, which sits on a stunning stretch of California coastline, has shared new renderings of the property ahead of its summer opening.
Last year, my husband and I splurged on round-trip first-class tickets on Japan Airlines from San Francisco to Tokyo for $13,474 each. We reserved them in February for an October flight through American Express Travel. On the same day, I also bought business class tickets for a couple who was traveling with us at $8,429 apiece. In September, Amex notified me that we had been downgraded to business class for the return flight. JAL’s conditions state that we would receive “the difference between the normal fare amount of original class of service and for the normal fare of lower class of service.” To me that means that since the difference between our first class seats and our friends’ business seats was $5,045 each, we should be refunded about half of that — around $2,522 per person — for the second leg. But we got only $941 each. I contested this with Amex Travel, but they rejected our claim. Can you help?
Even celestial events need a backing track—and the April 8 total solar eclipse is no different. Whether you’re road-tripping down to Hot Springs, Arkansas for Atlas Obscura’s Ecliptic Festival or flying over to Cleveland, Ohio, you’ll undoubtedly need some tunes to get you in the mood.
As the largest carrier at Sonoma County Airport since 2007, Alaska Airlines now offering service to seven nonstop destinations.