Best Hotels of 2012

Niyama Maldives
Location: Dhaalu Atoll, Maldives
Price: starting at $690/night, packages available

Sandy, sumptuous beach resorts are plentiful in in the Indian Ocean. But, the Niyama Maldives, which opened in March after a five-month delay, offers some unique perks: a floating award-winning restaurant, Edge, only accessible by boat, and the first-ever underwater nightclub, SubSix. During the day, kids can hang out at the underwater daycare and learn about marine conservation (or play with the Wii). The resort even has a resident marine biologist on staff to help with coral restoration and guests are welcome to visit the marine biology lab.

Spread out over two islands, the hotel has 87 secluded beach and water studios, many with their own pools and open-air cinemas. The pavilions are so private that some even have luxurious, al fresco bathrooms!

If the floating restaurant isn’t to your taste, you can have your food cooked over an open fire on the beach or spend the night in a traditional Maldivian sailboat – fitted with the non-traditional personal chef and butler.

Snoozebox
Location: Anywhere
Price: Starting around $240/night
This innovative concept combines two hot trends: pop-ups and micro-hotels. Snoozebox uses 45-foot shipping containers to create pop-up luxury hotels – useful for popular events where rooms are often overpriced or booked and camping offers far fewer amenities. A 300-room hotel can be ordered, transported (using the shipping containers that house the rooms) and built within three to four days.
Though the company unveiled its first hotel in 2011, it only had a full launch in 2012 – a fitting year for a London-based start-up. The temporary hotels were in hot demand during the Olympics and the Queen’s Jubilee events.

Each container typically holds either two or four rooms, depending on the size, and containers can be stacked three high. Inside, the rooms are modular and small, but high-end, with all the standard amenities. Every 80 rooms has a mother unit, which provides all the utilities to those rooms in case access to water, sewage, and electricity isn’t available at a motorcycle rally or festival.
The hotel also comes with its own staff and regular housekeeping and concierge services – something else not usually available at your standard music festival.

Palacio Nazarenas
Location: Cuzco, Peru
Price: starts at $595/night
From the outside, the Palacio may look like just another a restored, historic site tucked away on an ancient street. But, inside, it’s anything but.

Opened in June, this luxury, 55-suite historic hotel was a long time in the making – 400 years, in fact. The former 16th-century Carmelite convent took four years to restore and convert simply because so many archeological treasures were found during the excavation. Some of those artifacts, including an 18th-century statue of the Archangel Gabriel and original Spanish colonial friezes, have been incorporated into the high-end décor. It seems only fitting, in what was once the capital of the Inca Empire, that the luxury boutique includes local touches throughout the hotel. Glass-covered floors expose Incan stonework and traditional Andean ingredients are used in pampering spa treatments.

There are, of course, non-historic aspects to the Palacio Nazarenas. It seems unlikely the Incans had oxygenated rooms (Cuzco is just over 11,000 feet) or pillow menus or complimentary iPads. The hotel, three hours from Machu Picchu and one hour from Lima, also houses the only outdoor, heated pool in Cuzco, hidden inside the former convent courtyard. The nuns would have been appalled.

Emakoko Lodge
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Price: from $400/night
There are plenty of safari lodges in Africa, but often getting to and from these remote locations can make the trip more of a headache than an exciting vacation. Anthony and Emma Childs, who have worked at safari camps their whole lives, wanted to solve that problem. The Emakoko Lodge, opened this past January, is their answer. (It’s also their baby. The pair live at the lodge and offer their expertise to guests).

The lodge is both 30 minutes from the Nairobi airport and nestled in a valley on the edge of the Nairobi National Park. That gives visitors the the chance to see lions, antelopes, and giraffes – and, of course, the resident hippo camped out on the lawn – within a short drive after landing.

The 10 cottages are built into the side of the valley, with open views of the lodge’s 15-acres abutting the park. Understandably, the luxury is more on the rustic side than the Ritz. (It’s unusual for a high-end hotel to boast of 24-hour power and hot water.) But, the personalized service – not to mention the infinity pool overlooking the valley – make up for anything lacking in refinement.

And, you didn’t come here for the massages, drinks, or customized meals (all included) anyway. You came for the game drives into the national park to see African buffalo, baboons, leopards, cheetahs, gazelles, impalas, ostrich and zebras. Excursions, helicopter rides, and game drives are organized by the Childs. Or, visit the nearby Giraffe Center or elephant relocation wildlife trust. Then, hop on a plane back home again.

Pod39
Location: New York, NY
Price: from $119/night
In the tradition of micro-hotels comes the Pod39 in Manhattan on East 39th St., which opened in July. The 366-room hotel capitalizes on the need for affordable, high-quality accommodations in central New York by copying the trendy pod hotels of Japan. Rooms range from 60 to 120 square feet – even smaller than the usual small New York hotel room.

Everything about these micro-rooms maximizes the use of space. Beds are bunked, TVs mounted into the walls, and even curtains are eschewed because of the area they occupy. Built in the renovated former Allerton club hotel, Pod39, though, is designed not to feel cramped or small.

To give guests – frequently young, hip, trendy guests – space to gather and mingle outside their tiny rooms, the hotel includes nearly 4,500 square feet of communal space in the Great Room and in a two-story rooftop garden. While the rooftop garden offers your standard panoramic views of Manhattan, the Great Room is a workspace/library/bar/community center with communal iPads built into the building and an interactive screening wall. Guests are also encouraged to log-in to the Pod community blog, designed to act as a wiki-style online concierge. (There’s a normal concierge too.) Even if the online community doesn’t provide flawless advice, at least you’re only three blocks from Grand Central Station and a short walk to Times Square – for just over $100.