You can get a quickie wedding, so why not a quickie divorce? That's the logic behind the Divorce Hotel, where you can check in as a couple, and check out in two days as singles:

In the Netherlands a weekend break can become a weekend break-up for couples hoping for a swift and cheap divorce.

It is a concept called the 'Divorce Hotel' and helps husbands and wives to arrange all the necessary legal documentation to end their marriage over the course of just two days.

They meet a mediator and series of lawyers behind closed doors who will split assets, agree alimony payments and arrange visitation rights - all for a fixed fee.

It is the brainchild of entrepreneur Jim Halfens, who said he spotted a gap in the market in a country where the average divorce can easily run into five figures and take months to complete.

"When they leave the hotel, all work is done," he told Sky News.

"The only thing that happens then in Dutch law is that they have to show the agreement to a judge in the Netherlands and that takes a couple of weeks.

"They walk divorced out of this door and to make it official takes a couple of weeks."

If you're wondering, the couples mostly choose to stay in separate rooms: Link

Previously on Neatorama: The Increasingly Rapid Decline of Marriage

Did you leave your phone at the hotel? Don't feel bad, because that ain't nothing compared to what some people left behind at Travelodge hotels!

The list of lost-and-found items compiled by the budget hotel chain include Frederick the Hamster and an 18-month-old baby.

Among the quirkier items left behind include a life-size Mr Blobby costume, a case full of 100 Duchess of Cambridge masks, and an urn containing the ashes of a guest’s late wife.

One careless visitor left a box contained £50,000 worth of watches and a newlywed bride nearly lost her Vera Wang wedding gown when her husband forgot to pack it.

Staff at Nuneaton Travelodge were even treated to a Christmas surprise when a couple left an entire Santa’s grotto is their room.

They appear to have held their own early celebrations, and left a whole Christmas tree with decorations, lights, a model reindeer, a Father Christmas outfit and a turkey dinner behind.

An 18-month-old boy was accidentally left behind in a Winchester Travelodge, after his busy parents each thought the other had placed him in his car seat.

They drove away to attend a wedding, before realising their toddler son was not in the back of their car moments later.

An energetic Roborovski hamster was also found in his cage in Knutsford, after his forgetful owner drove back to Bristol without him.

Link

Many of the pools in this list are spectacular because of their location or view, but the pool at the Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas has a shark aquarium in the middle of it! The salt-water aquarium is separated from the swimming area, but only by glass -and they even have a water slide running through the shark enclosure! Link -via the Presurfer

The Chinese construction company Broad Group built a 30-story hotel in just 15 days (360 hours) in December. This time-lapse video shows the process. See another, longer video showing more details at Geekosystem. Link

Love colors? Then staying at a boring ol' hotel simply won't do! Thank goodness Pantone came to the rescue!

Behold, the Pantone Hotel, a seven-story, 59-room hotel in Brussels by architect Olivier Hannaert and interior designer Michel Penneman. The colorful hotel utilizes a lot of colors from those color chips designers love so much.

So here’s the story: it’s 1728 and you live in Amberg, a little Bavarian town somewhere north of Munich. You and your lady friend really, really want to get married, but there is a little snag; the council laws permit only homeowners to marry, and you’re still stuck renting a place. But all is not lost! You pick up a little strip of empty land between two other buildings – just 2.5 meters wide. You run up a quick wall on the front, another on the back, slap a roof on top, and presto – you’re a homeowner. The council falls for it, and allows you to get married.

But now what? Well, it’s not liveable, so you head back to the rental place to live, but you recoup your investment by selling the Eh’häusl (Little Wedding House) to the next couple with the same problem.

Link to story. Link to hotel site.

(Image: Google Street View)

Ms Burke rang around but discovered all the local bed and breakfast places were full, so she offered them a room for the night in her house.

The couple, who were exploring New Zealand while visiting the country to watch South Africa play in the Rugby World Cup, had mistakenly booked into the hotel in Eastbourne, Sussex, on the internet.

“I booked into the right hotel, just in the wrong country,” Mr Adendorff told the Dominion Post newspaper.

Despite the good-natured ribbing they received, the couple said Eastbourne was very nice and the locals were friendly.

The Adendorffs were unable to get a refund on the hotel due to short notice. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Wikipedia contributor NordNordWest)

Going on a little vacay but can't seem to untether yourself from your gadgetry? Well, Marriott's Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel may just have the kick in the pants you need to unplug and disconnect.

The hotel will require guests that buy the "detox" package to surrender their gadgets at the door:

This is chance to revive yourself from an over stimulated world. [...]

Your laptop, cell phone, and all other digital devices must be surrendered upon check-in, and will be held for you until your departure. Prior to your arrival, the television, phone, and ihome dock station will be removed from your guest room and replaced by literary classics.

Link - via The Next Web

Diving for a ball could be deadly at the world’s highest tennis court atop the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai. The hotel’s helipad, 650 feet in the air, was converted to a special court for Andre Agassi and Roger Federer to play a match on in 2005. It’s terrifying. The Burj Al Arab is the fourth-tallest hotel in the world (the three that rank above it are also in Dubai).

Link via Laughing Squid

Tired of lying awake in the middle of the night because the man in the hotel room next to yours is snoring like a freight train?

That won't happen at Leeds Crowne Plaza hotel in northern England. See, they've got a snore patrol:

Crowne Plaza is trialing the first "snore absorption" rooms at 10 hotels in Europe and the Middle East, whilst six branches in Britain have implemented "snore patrols" this month in a bid to combat noisy sleepers.

"Snore monitors" patrol corridors in the designated quiet zones of Crowne Plaza hotels in the cities of London, Leeds and Manchester. Their job is to listen out for offensive noises and knock on the door of guests who snore too loudly.

Link

Based in a converted vacuum cleaner factory, the hotel is the brainchild of Silke Lorenzen and Sarah Vollmer.

Ms Lorenzen said: ‘We wanted to preserve the integrity of the building but at the same time create a  communal atmosphere for guests.

‘Where people actually meet each other and not only get a key at  reception and disappear in their rooms forever.

‘We thought about a room-in-room concept and decided to build  little wooden cabins in the hall.

‘But we wanted more flexibility  inside the place so it could be used for events of all kind as well so decided to put wheels under the cabins.

‘It was then we realised there are already cabins with wheels – caravans.’

Link | Image: Caters

IF you thought you were a bad hotel guest for failing to wash up or make your bed then think again, a comedian has been leaving some "creepy" surprises behind that are designed to truly shock hotel staff.

A frequent traveller, funnyman Bert Kreischer has been giving hotel rooms around the world "disturbing" makeovers by leaving items behind or re-arranging them so that they appear to take on spooky forms.

Some of the creepy scenes by Mr Kreischer appear to show a man hiding underneath a food cart, a toilet transformed with fangs dripping with blood and a stuffed shirt inside a fridge.

In other rooms a sheet hangs out of a window like a rope and toilet paper is made into the outline of a body in a crime scene. Legs are seen poking out from underneath a bed, curtains and even from under a television mounted on a wall.

Link – Thanks Tiffany!

It’s a hotel – but with a major difference. Instead of booking in guests in human form, Cornwall’s newest hotel only takes chickens.

The aptly-named Chicken Hotel recently opened for business at Boskenwyn, Helston. The venture was set up to give chicken owners a place to check-in their birds while away from home.

David Roberts, 31, a maths teacher who keeps his own chickens as a hobby, runs the hotel. He said: "With more people looking to escape the rat race and move out in the country with a little bit of land, keeping chickens is becoming more and more popular. "Producing your own eggs is better for the environment and better for the animals and people, you know exactly what’s gone into your eggs.

"But what do you do if you go away on holiday? "Who would look after your chickens?"

Link – via The Presurfer

Nhow Berlin (in Berlin, of course) calls itself “Europe’s first music hotel.” It has a state-of-the-art recording studio and amenities that cater to musicians. But the real attraction is the weird architecture! The inside is artfully designed as well. See more pictures at Jetsetta. Link

Beyond the Hive was a design competition where architects and designers vie to create urban housing facilities for insects. This one above, the "Insect Hotel" is the winning entry by architecture firm Arup Associates.

More entries over at Vidafine: Link

Is it bad that the first thing that came to mind was the phrase from roach motel insect trap? Roaches check in, but they don’t check out!

If you’re the sort of guy who slept on a car-shaped bed when you’re a little kid and loved it, perhaps this is the hotel for you: the V8 Hotel, a car-themed hotel in Stuttgard, Germany:

Welcome to the hotel that offers you the night – and the ride – of your life.

The V8 Hotel boasts rooms guaranteed to rev the engine of any car lover – because the beds and rooms are made from their favourite vehicles.

Based in the centre of Stuttgart’s Meilenwerk – a German international hub for car dealers – guests can sleep in everything from a Morris Minor to a Mercedes.

The Daily Mail has more pics: Link | V8 Hotel website (in German)

The boutique property lets you “order” your mattress off their Art of Sleep menu. Choose from European featherbeds, European pillow-tops and Tempur-Pedic mattresses. And you’re not the only one who gets the royal treatment: The hotel also offers an Art of Sleep for Paws menu, featuring pillow-top beds, heated beds and organic bumper beds for dogs.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Robert Pisano

Most hotels try to convince you to book your stay with them by touting their five-star ratings. Not Null Stern Hotel in Switzerland! Not only does it have "zero star" rating, the hotel is actually a converted bomb shelter.

Annie Scott of Gadling stayed there and lived to write about it:

The "Null Stern," or "Zero Star" Hotel is a cross between a hostel and an art installation by Swiss concept artists Frank and Patrik Riklin. The former air raid shelter retains remnants of its past purpose and challenges one’s perception of what "hospitality" means. There are ear-protecting headphones and heavy machinery, as well as sleigh beds and a sexily-dressed female butler. It was quite an experience.

Link – Thanks Willy!

The Plaza Athénée, a luxurious hotel in Paris, has decorated a number of rooms with a Barbie theme. They’re made for children (sorry, Alex) and are pricey at €1,600 per night. The rooms will be available from August 5 through September 5.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Plaza Athénée

Judy Mandell of the Los Angeles Times writes about the more unusual behind-the-scenes hotel jobs. Take for instance, Jason Sensat’s job. He’s the Duckmaster at the Peabody hotel:

At the Peabody hotel in Memphis, Tenn., five mallard ducks live in a penthouse on the roof. At 11 a.m. each day, they march to the lobby, where they splash in the fountain until 5 p.m., when the ceremony reverses. Duckmaster Jason Sensat feeds, cares for and trains the ducks.

"Many think this is a fun and glamorous job, and quite often it is with media interviews, travel and celebrity honorary Duckmasters — but it’s also a dirty job, as cleaning up after the flock is part of the job too," Sensat says.

Read the rest: Link | Jason’s official page at The Peabody

“The hamster in the world of children is that little cuddly animal. Often, the adults who come here have wanted or did have hamsters when they were small,” said Mr Falquerho, who was dressed as a hamster.

The price for the room is currently 99 euros for a night, but the price will go up when Wifi and a TV screen are installed. Link -via Arbroath

Photo: Design Boom

In 1979, Japan built its first capsule hotel — an inn with rooms consisting of little more than a bed, and certainly not enough room to stand up. Now developers in Kyoto are contrasting that minimalist approach with luxury furnishings at the 9h Hotel, which will open in December. It’s called 9h because users are expected to shower, sleep for seven hours, and then rest in a nine-hour period — although you can rent your room for up to seventeen hours at a time. Each pod comes with customizable lighting to help lull you to sleep and then gently wake you.

Link via Fast Company (where there are pictures of a similar endeavor in Manhattan)

The travel industry may be suffering during these tough economic times, but hotels in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have found a way to attract new visitors – let them sleep in beds of freshly raked hay in converted barns. For as little as 8 Euros per night ($11 U.S.),  backpackers, couples, families, and (in the case of one German hotel) groups of up to 60 can bond by eating together around a camp fire and then
rolling around in the hay.

Without the need for new construction, heavy laundry bills or other forms of high energy consumption, hay hotels are also an effective means of low-impact, sustainable tourism.

Link – via holeinthedonut

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by baweibel.

Have you ever gone to your hotel room and thought "hey, this rinky dink room wasn’t at all like the photo on the website!" (I’m looking at you, Boston Omni Parker House Hotel). Well, a website named Oyster has stepped up to the task of taking actual honest-to-goodness (not photoshopped for brochures) photos of hotels. Surprisingly, a lot of the hotel rooms – especially the expensive ones I never stay at – are really nice looking, so it’s kind of a fun way to gawk at hotels you’d never stay at …

So far Oyster only has a limited number of hotels in just a few cities* but photos of the one I’ve stayed at, the Embassy Suites Hotel on Paradise Road in Las Vegas looked exactly like what I remembered. They should step it up a notch and maybe accept user submitted photos (this being Web 2.0 and all).

Link – Thanks Leah!

*Too bad they didn’t have photos of the rinky dink room I stayed in at the BOPH – it was literally the size of a closet! And actually the experience is quite useful: whenever I read reviews of a hotel at TripAdvisor, Expedia or similar websites, I always look up the Omni Parker – that way, I can gauge how much of the review is plain BS.

The company say the mistake was made at the offices of IHG in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States.

“Although a pricing error, IHG is committed to honouring the 1-cent rate for guests who have a valid confirmation,” the hotel group’s Monica Smith said.

The total cost of the mistake could be 90,000 euros (or $128,000). Link -via Digg

The Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego is trying a new tactic for drawing guests in a struggling economy: the "Survivor Package." For $19 a night, guests get a tent to sleep in (no mattress, linens, lights, or air conditioning, and forget the free breakfast).

Managers of the luxury resort hope people will return after the promotion willing to pay full price for all the amenities.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by PlumPerch.

As well as being physically beautiful, ex-monasteries are often strikingly spiritual, as if centuries of prayer and plainchant have seeped into their massive walls. A stay in a cloister seems to incline one to contemplation, reading, sleeping well and turning off the mobile.

Get a closer look at five such ex-monasteries. Link -via Boing Boing

Everland is a hotel with only one room including a bathroom, a king-size bed and a lounge.  What makes it so different is that – because it is also an art installation – this hotel travels! The Everland has been ‘parked’ in the most unsual places, like the roof-deck of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Leipzig, Germany.

Now the hotel is in Paris, high above the city, with a spectacular view on the Eiffel Tower from its place at the roof of Palais de Tokyo.

Considering how unique a night in this hotel is, the price is not so crazy: you can get the only room and the unique view for 333 Euros during the week, 444 Euros during the weekends.

Link – via uglydoggy

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by scbr.

The dirtiest hotel in America?  According to millions of voters and reviewers, that distinction goes to the Carter Hotel in Times Square, New York city.  Everything from rats and mysterious stains to dead bodies under the bed have earned this one star hotel this unique distinction. 

"Hey, maybe Times Square isn’t so Disneyfied after all; millions of travelers on Trip Advisor have voted Hotel Carter on West 43rd Street the #1 filthiest place to stay in America. Comments on Trip Advisor range from revolting ("I don’t know where to begin… Roaches, rats, mice, horrible smells, dirty sheets, horrifying bathrooms, outlets that hang out of walls… But the worst part about it was that at 4 a.m. I woke up to a bunch of guys breaking into our hotel room while we were sleeping!!") to panicked ("It’s like a HORROR movie in real life, it’s so bad that its just not for real. Barack Obama, please shut it down!").

Hotel Carter’s manager tells NY1 that because they are a one star hotel, they have one star standards of cleanliness. But we’re pretty sure even a one star hotel shouldn’t be charging $130 for rooms that come with a dead body under the bed."

See also TripAdvisor’s  Top 10 list of the filthiest hotels in America.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

Big jumbo jets have to be taken out of service after so many years in the air for safety reasons, which leaves the owners with the problem of what to do with them. Most end up in vast aeroplane grave yards where they’re stripped for their useful parts then left to rust.

This 1976 Boeing 747-200 plane (formerly of Singapore Airlines) in Stockholm, Sweden got a lucky break when a budding hostel entrepreneur bought it and converted it into the worlds first Jumbo Jet hostel.

With suitably uniformed "cabin crew" and loads of the plane’s original features, the grounded aircraft is a unique hostel experience. You can even spend the night as the captain in the converted cockpit suite!

Book a night in the plane.

More pictures at the link below.

From the mid of January, hostel guests will, for the first time ever, be able to spend the night in a real, seasoned jumbo jet – on the ground! This is the perfect way to start your trip abroad. The plane is a used out jumbo jet model 747-200 made in 1976. It has been awarded a brand new, modern interior decoration, offering night guests an experience apart. It’s exciting for aviation enthusiasts and families with children as well as for business people. This exhilarating experience leaves no-one indifferent –we promise.

Link – via funtasticus

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.

A hotel in Bolivia always has salt on its dining table – actually, its dining table is salt! Here’s the strange Salt Hotel of the Uyuni Flats:

The hotel was built in 1993 by a salt artisan who saw a mint in the number of tourists looking for places to stay while visiting the flats. The lodge has 15 bedrooms, a dining room, a living room and a bar.

The buildings’s roof, and bar are built of salt and even the floor is covered with salt granules. The walls are made of salt blocks stuck together with a cement-like substance made of salt and water. During rainy seasons, the walls are strengthened with new blocks, while the owners ask the guests to avoid licking the walls to prevent deterioration.

Link

This game is surprisingly hard. You have to figure out how to get through each page without any direction whatsoever. It’s believed that there are 12 levels, but apparently there are some hints on the site that more exist. Will you figure it out? If you do, let us know in the comments. I got stuck on the Cirkles level (you can tell what level it is by the URL). I know what to do; I just can’t get it done.

Link via Jayisgames

The beach will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface.

The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.

Versace’s plans have shocked environmentalists. Rachel Noble, the campaigns officer at Tourism Concern, which promotes sustainable tourism, said that the carbon generated by such projects would contribute to climate change, whose worst effects would be felt by the poor.

“Dubai is like a bubble world where the things that are worrying the rest of the world, like climate change, are simply ignored so that people can continue their destructive lifestyles,” she said.

The hotel should open in late 2009 or early 2010. Link -Thanks, Chris Tackett!