loews hotels

Loews' Voga Voyage Combines a Slice of Venice and a Slice of Heaven

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Spas

For the rates Venetian gondoliers charge you might expect a massage and a 3-course meal during your cruise of the canals. With the introduction of the Voga Voyage at Loews Coronado Bay Resort Gondola Company, you can at least check the massage off the list.

Your vessel for the journey among the Coronado Cays will be a softly wrapped, sun-warmed massage table. In turn, that table will ride upon an authentic 33-foot gondola that launches from the resort's private marina and then embarks on an hour-long cruise of Mediterranean-like waterways. Forty minutes of that will be occupied by masseurs tending to your physical needs, which includes the laying on of sunscreen before the more serious application of massaging hands. The last ten minutes of the trip will be given to sight-seeing, if you're in any mood for that, while you and your chère company feast on the gondola's supply of champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries.

Booking the $499 Voga Voyage also gets you a free night at the resort and its amenities, spread out on a secluded, 15-acre peninsula. And having saved on airfare to the Italian province, you just might have enough left over for the 3-course meal. It's certainly not what Iago meant when he mentioned "creating the beast with two backs," but this ride has a far less drama and a much happier ending...

Gallery: Loews Coronado Voga Voyage

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Chicago's Block 37 Loses Its Loews

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Real Estate Developments

Chicago's new planned retail complex Block 37 has hit another snag. The development, which will contain offices, shops condos and hotel rooms has lost their anchor hotel. Chicago Business reports that Loews Hotels has walked away from the deal to build a four-star, 384-room hotel at the project even though they received the site for the low, low price of $1. The Loews move follows walkaways on the retail side that included Apple Computer, David Barton Gyms and Lululemon Athletica. So far only the office portion of the project is complete. The first phase of the retail side is supposed to open later this year and is more than 70 percent leased.

Loews cited a lack of construction financing and the general travel industry slowdown as reasons for not going forward with the $175-million project.Block 37 developer Joseph Freed & Associates LLC is searching for another hotel operator. This may be no easy task. As the Chicago Business article mentions, lenders now require that developers pony up nearly half of a project's cost, compared with as little as 10 percent a few years back. This requirement and the work of constructing has led many hotels to seek expand by seeking existing space rather than build new projects.

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Tags: block 37, Block37, chicago, loews hotels, retail shopping, RetailShopping