Tiffany Owens – Clips & Samples

World's 5 Most Bizarre Hotels

Publication:  MSNBC.com | Take3 Magazine | Nov 2005

Date Published: 3/16/2006

Photographs: Yes

Content

**online feature no longer available on MSNBC.com -- original text appears below**

By Tiffany Owens

For most vacationers, a hotel room is a minor necessity: a place to sleep, shower and store luggage. But in other instances, the hotel can be the main attraction of the entire trip.

Not unlike Fantasy Island, there’s something here to fulfill everyone’s wildest dreams – from a saucer high above the Amazon jungle to five-star decadence a league under the sea. Our roundup of the world’s top five bizarre hotels could help make your next overseas holiday a decidedly different experience.

The Ice fans cometh

Situated 125 miles inside the Arctic Circle in the village of Jukkäsjarvi, Sweden, the famed ICEHOTEL is constructed entirely of crystal-clear ice from the nearby River Torne. Each year, artists from around the world are invited to design and completely rebuild the hotel – no two are ever the same.

As the name implies, everything at ICEHOTEL is made of ice and snow: tables, chairs, walls, windows – even the chandelier. The hotel holds impressive ice sculptures in the Iceart gallery, two saunas, an Icebar that serves up Absolut drinks in solid ice glasses, a cinema that projects films onto a giant ice screen and, most recently, an Icechurch for weddings and christenings.

With 60 rooms, the ICEHOTEL has a wide range of choices, from simple snow tunnels with beds for up to eight occupants or elaborate ice suites with ice sculptures illuminated by dozens of candles and intricately carved ice windows. The two-bedroom Aurora house boasts a ceiling skylight (of ice, I presume) to view the Northern Lights. Guests snuggle into specially designed thermal sleeping bags on beds made of snow and ice, covered with wooden boards and reindeer pelts.

ICEHOTEL opens this year on December 9 – and melts the following April.

Colors, clouds & coffins

Propeller Island City Lodge in Berlin, Germany, bills itself as a “visionsmachine” and “living work of art.” Created by artist Lars Stroschen, the lodge has 30 rooms in a three-story 19th century apartment house – each with wildly different décor and custom-made furnishings.

For starters, there’s rooms outfitted entirely with symbols, clouds, mirrors and colors, such as the “Orange” and “Blue” rooms or “Therapy,” an all-white, minimalist room with adjustable colored lighting.

Other zany themed rooms include the Gallery (with spinning bed surrounded by empty picture frames to be filled by guests), the Padded Cell, the Space Cube, and “Gruft,” the Coffin Room, where guests can sleep in two ventilated coffins – lid open or closed.

Underwater world

Interestingly enough, Dubai is now promoting itself as the luxury hotel capital of the world. Its coast is already home to the Burj al-Arab – the world's first seven-star hotel – and construction is currently underway on a $3 billion Palm Island offshore project that will host two vast manmade islands with 2,000 villas and up to 40 luxury hotels.

The newest project on Dubai’s drawing board, the Hydropolis Hotel, is slated to open at the bottom of the Persian Gulf in 2007. The ambitious, $500 million-dollar project will utilize steel, concrete and clear plexiglas to create the world's first underwater luxury hotel with 220 transparent, bubble-shaped suites, 65 feet below the surface.

Slated for a grand opening in late 2007, Hydropolis will feature a wave-shaped 98,000-square-foot 'land station' and a jellyfish-shaped, 246,000-square-foot underwater hotel, linked by a 1,690-foot-long submerged transparent train tunnel. The hotel will also contain a spa and sauna, concert hall, cinema, grand ballroom, exclusive shops, three restaurants, two bars and themed pavilions in the external circular pathway, such as a “silentium” (silent room) and e-library.

Staying in the hotel's high-end suites may cost more than $7,000 a night, but all