A Water Sculptor's Biggest Splash Yet

One Nobel Prize winner put it simply: There is no life without water.

It's a necessity of life, and sometimes an agent of death.

But to Mark Fuller, water is liquid gold . . . to be shaped and directed . . . the ordinary streamed into crowd-pleasing extraordinary.

"That was awesome!" That was cool!" said spectators outside the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

And every now and then, Fuller - equal parts artist and engineer - gazes with a touch of wonder at what he's created: fountains that dance, like the one outside the Bellagio.

"What we're focused on is just making people stop and think, 'Wow, I'm happy to be alive. This is a pretty neat thing. Somebody did this for me, and it's free!'" he said.

"We're constantly deluged with letters - people are writing and saying, 'We just got engaged by the fountains at Bellagio. We wanted you to know.' Or, 'We got married by the fountains.'

"I think the magic that we bring to these projects is something that sparks that sense of connection," Fuller said.

Mark Fuller has now created more than 200 fountains worldwide.

He's come a long way from his very first fountain, done for Disney's Epcot center in Florida…

He's also designed the fountain for Detroit's main airport. And the curtain is going up on one of his latest - the famed fountain at New York City's Lincoln Center.

"Creation sometimes starts with a bang," he explained, describing a "super shooter" that projects water 250 feet into the sky. "That's 25 stories," he said.

Fuller built his first fountain in the family garden in Utah when he was nine years old.

That childhood fascination led to the company he founded in Burbank, California: Water Entertainment Technologies (WET for short).

Here, it's not about water. It's about what Fuller calls laminar flow.

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Encore Beach Club to Open in Vegas

Never mind that there is no beach. Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas casino developer, is planning to unwrap the Encore Beach Club on Memorial Day: a 60,000-square-foot adults-only pleasure palace with three-tiered swimming pools, oversize lily pads, and some two dozen private cabanas with refrigerators and flat-screen televisions.

The club is part of the Encore at Wynn Las Vegas, a 2,034-room hotel and casino that opened in late 2008.

The owners say the goal is to combine the sizzle of a Mediterranean beach party with the exclusivity of Vegas’s nightlife. “The inspiration is from beach clubs and hot spots around the world, in tropical locations or the south of France,” said Sean Christie, the nightclub impresario and one of the partners behind the new club. “We think it’ll be a category-changer in Vegas.”

After the sun goes down, beach-club-goers can towel off next to the craps tables in the club’s gaming pavilion, nibble on a fresh salad on the expansive new patio connected to the Switch restaurant or slip into Surrender, a 5,000-square-foot nightclub with D.J.’s like Kaskade and Steve Aoki.

Cascades Hotel - Sun City, South Africa

The Cascades Hotel in Sun City, South Africa is a sophisticated and elegant hotel with lush gardens, tropical birds and water features. The Cascades Hotel is the grand old lady of Sun City, and still retains a timeless elegance. Understandably the Cascades Hotel is often the favorite hotel amongst visitors who know Sun City well.

All the rooms at The Cascades face the tropical splendour of the Cascades Hotel 's gardens and pools. There are 7740 square metres of water features, including 12 man made waterfalls and cataracts. These beautiful gardens at The Cascades Hotel offer unparalleled seclusion and escape from the hustle and bustle of the rest of Sun City.

ROOMS AND SUITES AT THE CASCADES HOTEL

The 243 rooms at the Cascades Hotel have en suite bathrooms, TV, radio, air-conditioning, telephone and minibar.



FINE DINING AND ELEGANT BARS AT THE CASCADES HOTEL AT SUN CITY

Two superb restaurants are located in the Cascades Hotel at Sun City, South Africa

The Peninsula Restaurant at the Cascades Hotel has an international dinner menu and a resident pianist. It is from this restaurant at Sun City that a a full continental buffet is served at breakfast time. Lighter food is served at the Fishmonger Restaurant.

Cocktails and bar service can be enjoyed at the Vistas Bar which has a view of the mountains and valleys surrounding Sun City. Pre dinner drinks at The Cascades Hotel can be ordered at the Peninsula Bar.


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Top hotels for sale in South Africa

Two top hotels in South Africa may be sold before the 2010 Fifa World Cup tournament.

German brewer Schörghuber will be selling its Arabella Western Cape Hotel & Spa with 145 rooms in the vicinity of Hermanus, as well as its Westin Grand Arabella Quays hotel in Cape Town which has 483 rooms.

On Tuesday the company confirmed its intentions to Sake24.com.

The Blaauklippen wine estate in Stellenbosch, which is also in the group's stable, will not be affected by the transactions and is to be retained.

From a statement issued in Munich it appears that Schörghuber has not lost confidence in South Africa, but that financial problems are forcing it to dispose of the assets.

Last year the company lost €88m.

The sale is part of a restructuring process after chief executive Stefan Schörghuber died unexpectedly at the age of 47 last year.

But the process is taking place under a veil of secrecy and hotel groups approached for comment said they had signed confidentiality agreements.

But Sake24.com did manage to learn that the transactions would be handled by Deutsche Bank and that the sale price for the Westin Grand is rumoured to be a stiff R1.2bn.

Rael Levitt, chief executive of the Alliance Group, which has recently auctioned off several properties to foreign buyers, says that against the background of limited finance in the commercial property market it will be difficult to dispose of the hotels, but not impossible. He reckons they will be bought by foreign buyers.

- Sake24.com

For more business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.

Fears over World Cup accommodation

South Africa has enough hotel rooms for the football fans expected to descend on the country for the 2010 World Cup, tourism minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Tuesday.

"The more than 202,000 rooms countrywide should make ample provision for the 450,000 visitors we are expecting," Van Schalkwyk said, announcing the results of a national accommodation audit.

The announcement aims to allay fears over a shortage of accommodation for visitors attending the world's biggest sporting tournament, running June 11 to July 11.

Van Schalkwyk said the audit by his department found at least 100,000 rooms in the nine host cities within a 50 kilometre (30 mile) radius of stadiums.

Despite the audit, concerns remain over accommodation in smaller host cities like Nelspruit and Polokwane, where authorities are working on plans to shuttle fans to the stadiums from other cities.

AFP

Source: theage.com.au

Travel Deals: Luxury for Less

Heads up luxury bargain hunters: the online discount retailer Gilt Groupe has created a series of flash holiday sales that combine upscale hotels and fashion duds from its invitation-only sites Jetsetter, Gilt Man, and Gilt at 30 to 50 percent off retail prices.

Though sale prices are still being set, here’s a sneak peak of the deals:

For partygoers: New Year’s at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, Fairmont Whistler in British Columbia or Ashford Castle in Western Ireland (from Jetsetter). Party dresses from Trina Turk and Gianfranco Ferre (from GiltGroupe).
Sale date: Today, Nov. 19.

A First Look Inside the New Rush Tower

The first new hotel tower built downtown since the 1980's opened Friday. The brand new 500-room Rush Tower accepted guests at the Golden Nugget.


The head of Landry's, which owns the Golden Nugget, thinks this will be the first step to what Mayor Oscar Goodman has been talking about since he was elected -- a revitalized Downtown Las Vegas.

From the moment you walk inside the Rush Tower, the rough image of downtown becomes a distant memory. The lobby could be in any new hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. “It's more of a boutique hotel where people can get in and out a lot easier and quicker. I can tell you our pool is second to none. Our restaurants are second to none,” said Landry's founder Tilman Fertitta.


Landry's grew into a billion dollar restaurant empire. In 2005, the company bought the Golden Nugget.

A 75,000 gallon fish tank flanks the new front desk. It's also the centerpiece to the newest Landry's restaurant called Chart House. “All of our Chart Houses have great scenic views. So we said if we want to put one of those in here we better create a scenic view. That is why we did the tank,” said Fertitta.