Second Life Blogger Reviews Virtual Hotels - Yes They Exist & Some Charge Over $12/USD a Night!

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

The SL Hotel Inspector is an amazing hotel review blog by Dirk Vanlager, the only hotel inspector in Second Life that I have heard of. Since Valentine’s Day is on the horizon, his most recent post of hotel recommendations for Valentine’s Day seems timely. You will want to get your reservations in. Romantic hotel picks for Valentine’s Day lists several options with many kinds of activities as well as a restaurant recommendation if you would rather not travel. It can be very elaborate, for example, to travel to Bonaire YanuYanu, you can arrive by private jet transfer from Second Norway Airport to Fiji, and then a helicopter transfer to the resort. 

For a friendly how-to, click here:

SL Hotels 101 is a useful introduction to the virtual hotel traveler. For example, there are two basic kinds of hotels, the self-check-in ones without staff and those that are staffed and usually require advance booking. He even went to a hotel that sent a passport prior to his booking so he could present it at check-in. 

Dirk reviews so many hotels and they sound lovely. His blog is well designed. He has a few pages that link in the header. One is an intro to the SL hotels, another is recommendations, then there is his blog, and his about page. He also has a link to blogs he likes. Everything is easy to find, including his Flickr and Facebook. 

I want to note that I discovered his blog from an interview he did with the Second Life Community Spotlight, a wonderful new weekly feature that began in November. Each week an SL resident, sim, or event is highlighted. This is quirkier than I have come to expect from Second Life since it does not focus so much on just creators, but also artists, musicians, and bloggers. Check it out while your staying at a lovely SL hotel. 

See all of Cajsa's Choices here. Follow Cajsa on Flickr, on Twitter, on her blog, and on her Ko-Fi.

Editor's note: In a separate conversation with me, Dirk mentioned that some Second Life hotels charge as much as L$3000 a night, i.e. over $12 USD. -- Wagner James "Hamlet" Au

Comments

[RobertBose1]

This is extremely interesting. Thanks for the write up. I've been in SL forever and while I've seen hotels, I had no idea there was an actual subset of SL users that RP (and pay for!) staying in hotels and eating in restaurants. I'm definitely going to check some out. Thank you Cajsa for this and for always alerting us to interesting photo streams!

[lkosov]

Browsing through the website, there are/have been places charging up to at least L$4,500/night (Cheri Noel's Chateau).

I've known about a couple of very lower-tier (L$9-20/day) motels that I've stumbled across, but never realized there was this whole other world of accommodations out there. Very cool!

[A Facebook User]

Hi, first of all thank you Cajsa for the amazing shout out, I appreciate that the topic of SL Hotels is kind of niche, which is probably why I'm the only one doing this.

In answer to the comment about the prices, there are some places that are basically free. The Baxton Motel for example charges a nominal membership fee of 100L a year. However to a certain extent you get what you pay for, and most of the free or almost free places are pretty basic.

However, the Smith Hotel, which is good, is in fact free (https://virtualhotels.online/blog/review-the-smith-hotel). Having said that, the owner intends to change this soon.

And yes at the other end of the scale, I once almost died of shock when paying 7000L a night (that rate included RP dinner and spa) for a date and myself at the now shut Cairo Garden City.

What's interesting for me is how the hotels landscape will evolve as we emerge from the worst of the pandemic.

After all, I originally got into this as a form of pandemic therapy, at a time when I rarely ventured more than two miles from my house.

[Lyssa Oh]

He's gone to something like 40+ hotels so far, but hasn't even looked at one of the oldest on the grid? Brunel Hall has been around for years, not even a hint of a mention of it on his blog.