High-Tech Hotels

What are your favorite high-tech features in hotel rooms? I've got a couple. In Seattle, the Hotel1000 opened a year ago and touted itself as the highest of the high tech, with all kinds of gadgets and features wired into the guestrooms, including a "smart" telephone that can do things like check the status of your flight and give you tips on area attractions. I'm not so sure that I want my telephone to be smarter than me, and I mostly eyed the telephone with suspicion during my stay at the 1000. The minibar was also smarter than me, because it sent a message to the front desk every time an item was removed, which was a little spooky. I picture the front desk staff monitoring my consumption of Sprite and getting nervous.

I'll tell you what I did like: The high-tech golf simulators in the basement of the hotel that allow you to play the likes of St. Andrews and Kapalua without ever leaving the hotel. I was astounded by how realistic and lifelike the games played as I hacked and sliced my way around both courses, which I've played in real life. Who needs real life when you can play golf badly in the basement of your hotel? I also loved the unique plumbing feature in the bathroom that filled the bathtub with a glistening cylinder of water that fell from the ceiling into the tub, instead of the usual tub-side spout.

I like it when hotels have CD players that double as alarm clocks, and I like when I can figure out how to retrieve my messages and program the telephone to make wake-up calls. The Heathman Hotel in Portland, Oregon has the best movie service I've ever seen, with hundreds of movies available to be piped into your room on demand, instead of the usual dozen or so from Spectravision. And the Princeville Resort in Kauai has cool windows that turn opaque at the flick of a switch when you want privacy.

Which high-tech features do you use in hotel rooms? And what would you like to see in the wired room of the future?