F2 BEDCHECK True-Bleu to its Brooklyn roots BY ANDREA SACHS It would be so easy to describe
Brooklyn’s Hotel Le Bleu inMan- hattanterms,usingtheinsomniac island as a point of reference. If I were going that route, Iwould say that the property sits in a neigh- borhood that resembles SoHo without the pretension. That the boutique decor looks as if it had been furnished by MoMA’s gift shop.And that the rates are based on New York currency; you don’t get a discount just because you have to cross water to reach the front desk. But that comparison would be
unfair tothe48-roomhotel,which opened about three years ago in the neighborhood of Park Slope, known in the 1800s as the Gold Coast.HotelLeBleudoesnotpass itself off as aManhattan property thatwoke up on thewrong side of the East River. It brandishes its Brooklyn roots, so guests won’t confuse their boroughs. “We get two kinds of people,”
saidMichael Jones,who tendsbar in the top-floor restaurant, Il Tet- to. “People fromNewYorkwhono longer live in New York and are returning to visit friends andfam- ily. And vacationers who want something different, who like the idea of the challenge of Brooklyn, the unknown.” The location of the hotel is a
puzzle. It sits a few yards back frombusyFourthAvenue,wedged between a dialysis center and a taxi dispatcher. With my organs workingwell andtheNinthStreet subway station a fewblocks away, I assumedIwouldnotneedeither service. In a very neighborly gesture,
the hotel offers free parking in its onsite lot, plus generous space in
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bathroomand shower, a fishbowl for those who forget to close the cloth curtain. However, with the flick of a switch, the ivory cube transforms into a luminescent aquarium, thanks to lights bor- dering a longmirror over the bed that bathe the room in Atlantic blue. Fromthe outside, passersby see a ghostly glow and the shad- ows of giant sea creatures that turn out to be guests. Unless you crave greasy Chi-
nese food or corner bodega fare, the bulk of good eating is a few streets up, on Fifth and Seventh avenues. For onsite dining, op- tions include theminibar—sam- ple menu: Swedish fish and Whoppers, chased with Brooklyn lager (a cheap $4 per bottle) or
finder: the Statue of Liberty, her torch touched by a star; and the brawny skyline of LowerManhat- tan melding into the equally dra- matic structures of downtown Brooklyn. “You get to see the scale of
Manhattan without being op- pressed by it,” said Jones, “and the scope of howbigBrooklyn is.” The metropolis outside my
window, however, was in minia- ture, a shadow box with live fig- ures. On a morning excursion to nearby Prospect Park, I watched Park Slope tend to its weekday rituals. Mothers escorted their children to school. Nannies pushed covered carriages. Resi- dents walked fashionable city dogs. When I returned to the hotel,
the staff had delivered my free breakfast in a box, a plain bagel (my choice among three carbs) and yogurt. I took my meal out onto the balcony, but first turned off the colored bulbs to enjoy the true blue of theBrooklyn sky.
sachsa@washpost.com
the guest rooms, which measure 425 square feet, including abalco- ny that snugly fits two chairs. Though the hotel is named after the color of oceans and the cheese (as pronounced by Jean-Claude), it uses the hue with restraint: as accents on the throw pillows, for example, and on that slip of fabric that delicatelywarms ankles rest- ingonthebed.Theroomismainly cloud white, from the textured walls andtheCEO-sizedesktothe
chardonnay—and the Italianres- taurant upstairs. The main dining room on the
seventh floor has a Mediterra- nean villa feel, but the bar one floor up is real Brooklyn. TVs flashed images of tumbling New York Giants and batting Chicago White Sox, and the wait staff lin- gered between checks to watch theaction.Outsideontheporch,a vista never seen by Manhattan eyes appeared through the view-
EZ EE K
KLMNO COMING&GOING
MoreWiFi in the air, giving to the gulf, and more
Log on to JetBlue Coming soon to a JetBlue
plane near you:WiFi. And not just any old WiFi, but “the industry’s best in-flight broadband for commercial aviation,” JetBlue promises. The airline announced last
week that it will partner with ViaSat to create in-flight broadband using satellite technology. That’s a huge departure from other airlines, which offer Internet access through ground hookups. And that’swhy it’s going to be
a while before JetBlue customers can take advantage of the newperk. The system first has to be tested and then certified by the FederalAviation Administration. JetBlue and ViaSat expect to begin rollout on the fleet’s more than 160 planes by mid-2012. It’s unclear how long it will take to complete— or how much customers will have to pay for the access. LiveTV, a wholly owned subsidiary of JetBlue that handles the airline’s in-flight entertainment, will install the newsystem and lead the certification process. JetBlue has tested WiFi in the
past, providing what it called BetaBlue on one of its flights. But even the airline admits that the connection was limited. In the three years since,
“technology has advanced by generations,” said JetBlue chief executive Dave Barger in a written statement. “Rather than invest in current technology, designed to transmit broadcast video and audio, we elected to partner with ViaSat to create broadband functionality worthy of today’s interactive personal technology needs.” With the expanded
broadband, passengers will be able to e-mail,watch videos and much more. “It will probably feel much like what you have at home,” said airline spokesman Mateo Lleras in a phone interview.
Check in early, help the gulf
Here’s one airline fee you
might not balk at: From now through Oct. 4, Southwest Airlines will donate $1 of every EarlyBird Check-In purchase to theNational Wildlife Refuge Association’sGulf ofMexico wildlife recovery efforts. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of its early check-in program, Southwest will contribute up to $100,000 of what it collects in the $10 fee. Since the airline doesn’t assign seats, passengers who pay for early check-in can board earlier and presumably get better seating. TheNationalWildlifeRefuge
Association is a nonprofit that has been working to restore and conserve habitats for pelicans, sea turtles, terns and other species affected by the BP oil spill. “This giving programis
particularly relevant as oil spill recovery efforts will continue far into the future,” said Linda Rutherford, vice president of communication and strategic outreach for the airline, in a written statement. For more info:
www.southwest.com/nwra.
Upgraded lounges The drinks are on American
Airlines, at least if you’re a member of its Admirals Club lounges. Starting Oct. 1, American will
offer wine, beer and spirits free of charge to passengers visiting any of its domestic clubs (international clubs already serve complimentary alcoholic
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2010
beverages.) For all you teetotalers out there, complimentary coffee, tea, soft drinks and juices will also be available. For those more interested in
working than drinking, the airline also announced that it is adding newHP personal computers to its lounges inNew York, Chicago and Dallas/Fort Worth. Lounges in Atlanta, Boston, Raleigh-Durham,N.C., and San Francisco also have the newcomputers. The airline will install theHPCompaq 8000 Elite Business PCs andHP TouchSmart PCs in other lounges throughout the year. Aone-day pass to the
Admirals Club costs $50. Annual membership for the first year starts at $350 depending on your frequent-flier status. In other American Airlines
news, passengers departing fromNewYork’s John F. Kennedy Airport and San Juan, Puerto Rico, as well as six foreign airports—Barcelona, Rome, Frankfurt,Manchester, Milan and Zurich—can now receive their boarding passes electronically on their mobile phones. The mobile boarding pass option is available at 50 airports.
Travel Ticker The Ritz-Carlton has
launched a newfree membership rewards program. Earn Ritz-Carlton Rewards points or frequent-flier miles with participating airlines, or redeem points with partners such as Abercrombie&Kent, NeimanMarcus and VeraWang. Info:
www.ritzcarltonrewards.com Reporting: Nancy Trejos. Help feed
CoGo. Send travel news to:
cogo@washpost.com. Bymail: CoGo, Washington Post Travel Section, 1150 15th St. NW,Washington, D.C. 20071
CLICKIT Smart design, but light on data BY NANCY TREJOS Every other week, it seems, a
new site promising to help trav- elers find the cheapest, most convenient flights pops up on the Web. But I couldn’t resist trying onewith a name as hip as
Hipmunk.com. Launched in August, theWeb
site has a minimalist look: The first thing you see upon logging on is a graphic of an adorable chipmunk and columns to plug in your departure city and date, arrival city and date, and pre- ferred airline or alliance. There are no ads to distract from the mission — yet. Once I plugged in my infor-
mation, the site quickly pro- duced several options, includ- ingAmtrakwhen the trainwas a possibility. And here’s the best part: everything’s displayed in a single-page chart. There’s no need to click the “next” button, the way you often have to on sites such as
Kayak.com. “We show all the results on
one page and sort them intelli- gently, not just blindly by price,” said co-founder andMIT gradu- ate Adam Goldstein. (Gold- stein’s partner is Steve Huff- man, who also co-founded the aggregator Reddit.) Price is only one of many
ways in which the site sorts flights. The other criteria,which you can choose by clicking on the options on the top left-hand
HIPMUNK.COM
side of the screen, are duration, number of stops, departure time and arrival time. Then there’s the “agony” option, which ex- amines price, length and num- ber of stops to measure how undesirable a flight is. I particularly liked the design
of the chart, which displays the prices and flight times on a graph, providing a quick visual reference for how long and costly a flight would be. Run- ning down the left-hand column are the prices. Across the top of the page are the flight times. The flights themselves, shown as thin bars color-coded by
airline, are plugged into the appropriate spot. Longer flights produce longer bars, and a lay- over is indicated by a tan band inserted into the bar, giving a visual sense of its duration. The site automatically hides
“worse” options, but if youwant, you can click on the boxes along the right-hand column to see what those less desirable op- tions are. My biggest complaint is that
the site pulls information only fromOrbitz and Amtrak. When I recently did a search
for a flight from Washington to London, the cheapest one I found on Travelocity was $838 round trip on Continental Air- lines from Dulles to Heathrow. The cheapest Hipmunk flight was $985 round trip on Delta from BWI Marshall to Heath- row. But Hipmunk did produce a $265 round trip from Ronald Reagan National Airport to Chi- cago’s O’Hare, beating Kayak’s lowest price by $1. Bothwere on Delta. Goldstein said he’s hoping to
expand the site’s search capabil- ities soon. If he does, Hipmunk could certainly live up to his description of it as “a radical departure for people used to old-fashioned online travel agencies.” For now, I’d add Hipmunk to
my search engine repertoire, but I wouldn’t abandon the old standbys yet.
trejosn@washpost.com
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