With Valentine’s Day falling on a Thursday this year, you can make it a full weekend where you can woo your sweetheart with flowers, chocolates and a romantic tryst at a hotel.
You could book the “Close the Deal” package at Denver’s Hotel Monaco, which starts at $225 and includes sparkling wine in a deluxe room, turn-down service with rose petals and chocolate treats, and breakfast the next morning. But if you've got a bit more imagination and loads more money to spend, you might instead consider one of these unusual and over-the-top stays.
Seattle’s saucy Hotel Max is offering a Risqué Business package (starting at $439) that includes accommodations, a bottle of bubbly, locally-made chocolates, an in-room couples’ photo session with a boudoir photographer and town car service to a weekend performance by a local burlesque troupe.
Documentation of the weekend is also an option with the Capture Your Enrapture package in the Extreme Wow suite at the W Atlanta – Midtown. Rates start at $5,000 and include an in-suite photo shoot and session with a celebrity hair and make-up artist, private dinner with wine pairings, dessert and champagne, massages and room-service breakfast.
“This is the first year we've offered the package,” hotel spokeswoman Tucker Berta told NBC News, “and it’s both inspirational and aspirational. It’s available if you want it and have the means, but may also give someone a great idea about lower cost, but equally romantic, weekend romps to book at the hotel.”
The weekend-long Luxe Valentine’s Day Package at Chicago’s Palmer House Hilton has a hefty $30,000 price tag. But, the penthouse suite package is packed with perks such as airport pickup in a stretch limousine, champagne and in-room breakfasts. Activities included range from massages and a private screening of a romantic movie, to a helicopter ride over the city and a horse-drawn carriage ride through it. A mink coat and a diamond ring are included.
Participating Renaissance Hotels in the Marriott portfolio have created Love Blossoms Valentine’s Day rooms in which more than 27,000 assorted flowers have been affixed to everything from the walls and the beds to the nightstands. The $15,000-a night suites don't just smell great, they come with breakfast in bed, love potion cocktails, bath salts and bubbles, decadent chocolates, fruits and cheeses.
And yes, lovebirds may take home a souvenir bouquet to “help others discover something just as sweet and encourage love to blossom,” said Tina Edmundson, senior vice-president of lifestyle brands for Marriott International.
Love Blossoms rooms are at Renaissance hotels nationwide, but only the Renaissance San Francisco Stanford Court Hotel has the "Love Don't Cost a Thing" package. And while it’s named after the popular Jennifer Lopez song celebrating bling-free love, the package has a hefty $65,000 fee.
For that amount, couples get a private round-trip jet flight from anywhere in the United States, a night in the hotel’s presidential suite, a 24-hour on-call Rolls Royce, an eight-course truffle dinner served on a private yacht and a rose petal turn-down with gold leaf chocolate cake and Godiva chocolate martinis. Two private after-hours shopping experiences come with the package; one includes a $10,000 credit at Tiffany & Co.
If you do book one of these Valentine’s Day packages, we hope it’s your partner – and not the price-tag – that will make your heart flutter.
Find more by Harriet Baskas on StuckatTheAirport.com and follow her on Twitter.