Review - The Victoria Hotel
Edit - We’ve been told that the Victoria Hotel has now closed
Because of the lack of really good hotels on open sims (e.g. where you can just go and visit, without pre-booking on a website), I was excited to learn about the opening of the Victoria Hotel.
So much so that my friend KT Syakumi and myself let ourselves in to have a look around and enjoy the pool before it was officially open.
On the day it opened we checked ourselves in and stayed for several days. There's much to like about it, the owner has managed to pack quite a lot into a small space, indeed at first sight it has a kind of boutique hotel feel about it.
At the same time, we encountered quite a few teething problems. These need to be sorted out, but once they are, then the Victoria could be a good hotel destination and hang-out spot.
Overall look and feel
The Victoria is on quite a small plot of land, and so it extends vertically rather than horizontally so to speak.
The owner, Stephanie Youngu, has built the hotel on several levels, with a basement that includes a laundry room and natural rock pool, a main area with a glass bottomed pool and restaurant, a gym level and finally a tennis court on the roof.
Meanwhile the rooms themselves are all on skyboxes.
I actually liked the more compact feel, it makes a nice contrast to the grandiose entrances you see in other Second Life Hotels. And overall it was quite nicely designed.
However, at the same time it's worth mentioning a few things.
First of all the mesh people. I am all for resorts using mesh people to make a place look less empty, but they should be used in moderation, and in the right setting.
Above you can see the ones used in the bar. Would you want to take a date somewhere surrounded by them?
Then a few of them looked sort of creepy and strange, like the guys lounging around the pool, or the mother with baby at the rock pool.
Personally, I would use mesh people in the reception and restaurant only, I wouldn't feature them in other areas of the hotel.
There are still script menus visible around the pool area. To me this looked like a new build in RL where the construction crew hadn't properly tidied away the cables. Just like RL this is messy and does not give a good impression.
When asking for rental information at reception (you touch a screen), you are given a board you need to rez, after which you get a notecard.
How many potential guests will the Victoria lose this way, as some people won't bother to go home and rez.?
Why not just give out the notecard? And the notecard itself didn't change in the week we were there. It still listed the same rooms as unavailable.
Apparently the owner of the Essencia gave advice when developing the hotel.
The Essencia has a fairly hassle free room rental system using Casper Let, so I don't really understand why the same wasn't used here.
Overall - 2.5 / 5 (once the above issues are addressed it will be more)
The rooms
I've already addressed the issue with renting the rooms, but once you get in, the rooms are impressive, so much so that I am going to include them in an upcoming feature for Attention SL.
We stayed in a premium suite at 300L a night, there are also deluxe suites at 200L and a single VIP suite (which seemed occupied - couldn’t tell as the rental information card was never updated) at 500L.
Our suite had a living room and kitchen, a bedroom, bathroom and an office.
Overall it was well designed and the welcome flowers waiting for us on arrival was a nice touch.
One thing to mention is the over eager security system. You are only given 30 seconds to look around and book, which is too little, ideally you need to give people at least 90 seconds.
Also, if you don't wear your tag when coming into the room, you'll activate security (for other hotels, the security system recognizes your AV, no matter what tag you are wearing).
Finally, the room lacked a teleport board or button letting you go straight to reception or other hotel areas. Again, the Essencia has this (as does just about every SL hotel I have been in)., so I don’t understand why this wasn’t included here.
Overal - 4 /5
The facilities
Quite a lot has been added into the Victoria, including two pools, a gym, a DJ area, a rooftop tennis court, a restaurant and a bar.
The problems I've listed above aside, the list is quite good given the small space the owner had to work with.
Overall - 4 / 5
The animations
The bed is customised from Felgo Universe, so it's different than the usual Rawage or Ruckus beds you see in hotels.
Most animations worked well enough, KT did notice that a few of the gym anims were not working.
With a group tag you can however rez your own.
Overall - 4 / 5
Other considerations
The region is moderate, but there are adult anims throughout the hotel and in the rooms.
Lag was not too bad, I was getting 10fps+ on ultra on 2019 Macbook pro
Privacy in the individual skyboxes is good, you can't see other people when you zoom into them.
Overall
This would be a really nice little hotel if only the owner could sort out the issues we encountered.
In particular, the process of renting rooms needs to be made much, much simpler otherwise the Victoria will lose paying guests at the first hurdle.
Some of the animations need to be sorted out, and the script menus need to be hidden. As mentioned, I'd also get rid of the mesh people around the two pools, and put more cheerful looking ones in the bar.
Overall - Recommended, but with reservations.
Finally, a huge thank you to KT for coming with me, for her patience and invaluable photo advice. Please follow her on Flickr here!
