world's best hotels

Set right on the downtown harbor and adjacent to Canada Place (home of the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre), this modern 23-story tower is big with business travelers and conference attendees. The 503 rooms are beige, beige, and more beige, but they're also large and airy, with big windows overlooking the water and the mountains beyond. Of the three on-site restaurants, the Cascades Lounge, in the atrium lobby, morphs into a swank nightspot, where live jazz musicians often play. The outdoor pool and Jacuzzi are both heated, the Spa Utopia's treatments are sumptuous, and the 2,000-square-foot fitness center is far and away the best hotel gym in the city. Book early during spring and summer, the busy Alaska cruise-ship season; and if you're easily put off by crowds of people wearing suits and name tags, you might prefer the Fairmont Waterfront across the street.


This onetime icon of Miami Beach, with its Aztec headdress of a roofline designed by Robert Swartzburg, was redone by Philippe Starck with his standard postmodern wit in 1995. The 194-room Delano got a bit soft when the swanky Shore Club opened nearby six years later, but after a lull—and the 2005 departure of founder Ian Schrager—it's now back and fiercer than ever. The sexy crowd is returning, thanks to an 2006 upgrade of the all-white rooms, which brought in everything from plasma TVs to new bedding. A state-of-the-art fitness center also opened in 2007. One other major improvement: Now that it's strictly Schrager-free, the legendarily beautiful but snooty staffers have retained their model-good looks but lost most of the attitude. Just remember to pack something skimpy but fabulous for the scene at the infinity-edge pool.



in the heart of South Beach and directly on the ocean, Delano is the ultimate world-class urban resort and self-contained destination. It is a cool haven of relaxation in the middle of one of the world’s most vibrant cities. Boasting America’s first Indoor/Outdoor Lobby, the hotel’s public spaces create the feeling of an interwoven “village” with almost no separation between indoors and out.

With its soaring and unforgettably beautiful Lobby, legendary white Guestrooms, lushly landscaped Orchard, breathtaking Pool, renowned Agua Bathhouse and stunning private beach, Delano epitomizes Simple Chic for a modern world.