Seaweed, Hotels and the Vancouver Olympics

Travel Blog  •  Alexander Basek  •  06.11.09 | 11:03 AM ET

Shangri-La, Vancouver. Photo by sashafatcat via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Today I’m on the west coast of Vancouver Island breaking open the pod from some seaweed and squeezing the gel inside of it over my hands. Ew. Wait. I mean: so natural and healing! Diane Bernard, the self-styled “seaweed lady,” harvests the stuff here, advising spa directors and chefs what might work in their treatments or food, respectively. (We already sampled some seaweed that was begging to be stuffed with blue cheese and plopped into a martini). The gel from this particular strain of seaweed works like aloe, soothing the skin.

From here, Diane’s seaweed ends up in CHI, the Spa at Shangri-La Vancouver. Sampling the spa ingredients is the closest a spa visitor can come to the factory tour. Frankly, most factory tours don’t have Diane. If she worked on the Heineken Experience, for example, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. CHI incorporates the seaweed into the treatments, but it’s nice to know that they’re throwing something vegetal in there because it works, not just for the sake of it.

That philosophy—cutting edge but functional—is on full display at the Shangri-La Vancouver. It opened in January of this year, and boy howdy, it’s important to both the company and the city itself. On the Vancouver end of things, it represents a world-beater hotel chain in town. This is especially important as the 2010 Winter Games approach. Apparently, there are a lot more bookings in Vancouver than up at Whistler, despite the fact that the winter games require a visit to the mountains for many of the events. In short: pick your hotel wisely, sports fan, because you may be stuck there if the weather (or traffic) turns nasty.

For Shangri-La, it’s a foothold in the North American market. Having the showcase of the Olympics is an added bonus. (As is the luxury of a year to work out the kinks—unlike the Fairmont Pacific Rim, which is scheduled to be completed a few minutes before the opening ceremonies next year.) The property itself, considerably taller than the buildings around it, towers over the Central Business District. Only the first 15 floors are given over to Shangri-La; the rest are condos. It delivers exactly what you’d expect from the Shangri-La experience, right down to about six turn-down services, a Jean-Georges restaurant with a killer bar scene (he’s no Bachelorette, but I did see internet hipster icon Clark Duke there one night) and boffo rooms with heated bathroom floors and DVR-equipped televisions, lest you miss your stories.

Unlike in Athens or Turin, there’s no doubt that the Canadians will build the infrastructure for the games in time. Much of it is already done, in fact. Surprisingly, it was the hotel quality that needed upgrading. Now, the Canadians can tick that box off their list and move on to more important matters, like prank calling the hockey teams from other nations. The Swedish national squad is going to be mighty surprised when they find they left their refrigerator running, I can assure you.


Alexander Basek is a food and travel writer based in New York City. He is the Best Deals reporter for Travel + Leisure. His writing has also appeared in the New York Post, Time Out New York, and Fodor's.


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