Hotel of the Week: The W Fort Lauderdale

Although I have travelled around the US extensively for the past 30 odd years I had, until recently, never been to Fort Lauderdale in Florida. It’s about a 45, traffic dependent, minute drive north of Miami, has its own airport with very good connections to the Caribbean and a host of good eating establishments.

It also has a traditional British-style beach and a promenade surrounded by bars and even more eateries. The entire place is very relaxed and chilled, in fact you could go as far to say it’s cool. Much less frenetic than its big sister down the road, less crowded and easier to walk around.

One of the restaurants that took my liking was a 1950s style diner with burgers, shakes, fries, vanilla cokes and the like. Needless to say I felt like the Fonz and we know what he was …yes… Cool. So if you’re staying in Fort Lauderdale where do you stay, where would the modern day Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli stay? Only one choice ..the ‘W’. As its own website succinctly puts it, the W is "renowned as the hidden playground of stars and starlets, this once legendary party Mecca reinvents itself and emerges on the scene in the hottest comeback to hit the strip".

The entrance to the hotel is not so cool. It’s spread over two buildings and its seems somewhat awkward, with a less than impressive front door which is in fact round the back if you know what I mean. The minute you enter the lift to the first floor reception however the cool floods over you. The mats in the lift actually change depending on the time of day, good morning up until midday, good afternoon until 5 pm and guess what they put out then? Yes Good Evening. If you weren’t cool you may think that a simple hello would have sufficed.

The welcome from the posse on reception could not be faulted, friendly, chatty, humorous and above all helpful. I was given an ocean view suite that was so large you could have hosted a lib-dem national conference in there. Full kitchen facilities together with a dining room that overlooked the brightly lit down town area of Fort Lauderdale. All in all very acceptable. One small note, however, for a hotel group that prides itself on sustainability. Why leave every light on and the television when you come in for a turn down service? I thought that somebody had scaled Spiderman style (cool) up the side of the building, used as much power as possible (uncool) , left a few small chocolates (cool) and then spun away in a web of high energy bills (uncool).

The restaurant which I used for breakfast and lunch was rather modest when taken into scale with my monster suite but nevertheless very nice. Food and service was good with reasonable prices. As with many restaurants near to the ocean, a tank with sea life was part of the decoration but no ordinary goldfish bowl here. Nope, the ‘W’ restaurant had a jelly fish wall with sympathetic lighting so you could see every tiny movement of what are quite remarkable creatures. Cool. They were not, I am pleased to add, on the specials menu. The bar was equally cool with chilled out sounds, nooks and crannies to sit down in, and very helpful bar staff, which is just as well because it was so dark I needed my torch app to find my colleagues. This is probably how they saved enough energy to let Spiderman in and do his work.

So was it too cool for school ? No not in the least. The ‘W’ is a very good hotel which fits and suits the area perfectly. It suits the cool image that Fort Lauderdale obviously aspires to and in many respects delivers. If you’re like the Fonz and cool enough check it out when visiting the area, Happy Days.

Graham McFonzie

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