We Want to Raid the Mini-Bar at These Fictional Hotels

The Plaza (Eloise, by Kay Thompson)
The Plaza, of course, is a real hotel you can stay at any time you have a spare small fortune lying around. However, you probably won’t get the same experience Eloise has, because you won’t be able to get away with running amok throughout the halls at all hours, or writing on the walls, or harassing the staff—not tomention living at the “very tippy top” of the hotel for extended periods. Eloise’s charm remains strong 60 years after her first appearance, and part of that charm is her childlike view of the posh hotel she lives in, which is less focused on the expensive comforts and more on the sheer adventure of the place. We like to stay at the real deal, sure—but even more, we’d like to stay at the hotel Eloise sees.

The Boltzman Hotel (The Man in the Empty Suit, by Sean Ferrell)
The Boltzman Hotel featured in Sean Ferrel’s 2013 novel is a deserted wreck for most of the story, used by a time-traveler to host a birthday party-slash-convention with his various selves from each year of his life, congregating in the year 2071. With his youngest selves tending bar, the party is pretty awesome—but goes off the rails when an impossible murder takes place. Still, despite being abandoned, creepy, and filled with countless versions of the same man, who wouldn’t want to check into an hotel where time-traveling dopplegangers will serve you a drink? Considering the presence of a mysterious woman in a red dress—the only person in attendance who’s not, well, him—obviously you can get in, even if you’re not in the time traveling club.

The St. Gregory Hotel (Hotel, by Arthur Hailey)
Time is funny—for decades, Hailey’s Hotel was a prominent part of the culture, first as a bestselling novel, then as a film, and even on TV. In recent years, it’s been somewhat forgotten. Hailey’s story of an independent grand old hotel struggling against the cookie-cutter chains rising around it doesn’t resonate among readers who no longer remember a world where the luxurious and unique St. Gregory would have been the norm rather than the exception. Despite the hotel’s financial struggles and the soap-opera lives of the people who own it, run it, and stay in it, the St. Gregory represents a hotel experience that largely doesn’t exist any more, and is thus high on our list of places we wish we could magically book a room at one last time.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (These Foolish Things, by Deborah Moggach)
Moggach’s novel served as the inspiration for the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and the titular business is the brainchild of an Indian doctor living in Britain and his cousin Sonny, who hit upon the brilliant idea of opening a retirement home of sorts for British pensioners, reasoning that Britons and Indians have a mutual fascination, and elderly Brits living on fixed incomes would appreciate a cheap place to spend their twilight years. Moggach doesn’t sugar-coat the reality of life in India, but the hotel offers a chance for aging folks with some adventure in their hearts to reinvent themselves in a positive way, making the it sound like a place we’d definitely want to pencil in for our own retirement. Whether or not retirees shipping off to cheaper exotic locales becomes common, as Moggach believes, remains to be seen—but we’re certainly ready to sign up, especially after the film made it all look so fun.

The Overlook (The Shining, by Stephen King)
This one is both obvious and not obvious at all. On the one hand, King’s novel and Kubrick’s film version have made The Overlook one of the most famous fictional hotels of all time. On the other hand, The Overlook is haunted, and drives people insane and makes them chop up their families with an ax, among many other evil things only implied. Yet Kubrick made the hotel look so awesome, what with the amazing bar and ballroom, the maze-like hallways, and spectacular Indian-themed decor. We figure we can handle a ghost bartender or two, even the occasional bloody massacre, in order to soak in that incredible ambiance.
What fictional hotel would you love to visit?