Get a new perspective on Boston and Cambridge from the new 16th-floor Charles View Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge (Mass.). The 2,900-square-foot function space features floor-to-ceiling windows and a panoramic view of the Charles River and the Boston skyline. It can accommodate up to 400 guests for a reception, 200 for dinner, and up to 300 for meetings. The hotel has 469 guest rooms.
Fresh from a $140 million renovation after a visit from Charley, of hurricane fame, South Seas Island Resort, on Florida's Captiva Island, re-opened early this year after an 18-month closure. All guest rooms are fully renewed, with “Euro-top” bedding, granite countertops, and flat-screen TVs. Meeting space tops 24,000 square feet, all with high-speed Internet access, video and data projection, and state-of the-art sound and lighting technology. The pool area is greatly expanded, and even the white-sand beach is renewed after a $14 million “renourishment” project.
The 2,000-room Orlando World Center Marriott Resort and Convention Center will unveil what it says will be the largest pillar-free resort ballroom in the country in October. Following a $200 million transformation, the resort will provide more than 400,000 square feet of flexible space. The 105,000-square-foot Cypress Ballroom, when connected to the Palms Ballroom, can provide 160,000 square feet of contiguous, pillar-free carpeted meeting space and more than 50,000 square feet of pre-function space. Outdoor functions can be held on the open spaces and terraces that surround or overlook the resort's million-gallon pool complex. The resort offers 2,000 guest rooms and 110 suites, as well as the 18-hole championship Hawk's Landing Golf Club and a full-service spa and fitness center.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts World-wide has broken ground in Raleigh, N.C., on the Westin Raleigh Soleil Center Hotel & Residences. Expected to open in summer 2009, the 43-story project will include a 290-room hotel and more than 30,000 square feet of meeting space, including a grand ballroom and eight meeting rooms.
The recently renovated Sheraton Gateway Hotel Los Angeles, near Los Angeles International Airport, has 802 guest rooms and 38 meeting rooms, totaling 50,000 square feet of meeting space. Its sister hotel, the newly reflagged and refurbished Sheraton Delfina, overlooks the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, Calif. It has 308 guest rooms and suites, along with 10,000 square feet of renovated meeting space. The largest of its nine meeting rooms is the Delfina Ballroom, at 4,700 square feet.