India trip part 4: The Intercontinental Marine Drive
I love hotels. I'm kind of a connesieur. By far my favorite hotel ever on earth was at the Intercontinental Marine Drive, overlooking the ocean in Mumbai. I really wanted to go to The Taj Hotel (infamous now for the terrorist shooting there in 2008) but it was expensive. We used Thomas' business points to get into this one for two nights, and it was AMAZING. SO glad that we did. We later stayed in the Intercontinental in New Orleans and it couldn't compare even a little to this one.
See that window? It's the bathroom. You tap the wall and the shade goes down, or you can keep it open like that so you can look out the window while you're in the bath! LOVE it. Also makes the room feel so much bigger.
Hi!
This is a terrible picture, but you get the idea.
The wall of mirror also helps it look even bigger. You can see the two doors on the side, one is to the toilet, one is the large, two-person compatible shower. they are split in between with frosted glass, which was kind of strange and prevented any modest (prudish?) person from using one while the other was occupied. The door to the rest of the hotel room was slidey and japanese-like.
Reflection from the mirror over the desk.
View out the window!!!! <3 <3 <3
Marine Drive is famous, you see. Lots of scenes in movies are filmed here, and lots of people go here to sit on the wall with their friends/partners/families, and one of the few places in the city where we saw PDA. We were usually polite about it, but we actually got to stroll down that walkway next to the ocean at night, holding hands, and it was SO lovely!
Those lights all along the water is called "the Queen's Necklace"
Back to the hotel... There was a rooftop pool, though I didn't swim in it:
view from pool
Also a rooftop bar that looked out over the ocean (there were fancy people around (this is one of the fanciest hotels in the city- so much so that i was reading a book on Mumbai at the time and every single time the referred to rich people, it was at events here at this hotel) so I felt weird waving my big old camera around.
You can see the ocean through the blinds. As well as ugly roof stuff. They wouldn't open the blinds for us though. =\
Breakfast dosa!
.
Pillow menu! There was a bath menu in the bathroom too. You could order all sorts of fancy things to put into your bath.
This just amused me.
Okay now pictures i stole from the internet that show it off better:
I wish they hadn't had that white tarp up everywhere so that the roof actually looked like this!!
I mean, DAMN, yo.
Really mad that I didn't get more pictures of the gorgeous interiors. Most hotels are so loud and garish, but this one was so simple and tasteful.
We were so busy keeping busy in Mumbai I really regret that we didn't just sit the hell down and enjoy such a fantastic hotel. Although I should mention that we definitely took advantage of the complimentary 15 minute couples massage we received in our room one morning. :) We really saw very little of it. I really hope by some miracle that next time I go to Mumbai I'll be able to afford at least a night or two there!