When the Fantasyland Hotel launched its new Gothic Princess theme room, I said, this is my sign to ditch my bed for a night in the hotel. I imagined an all-black space filled with spider webs and blood-stained glass panels, and the bed better be an old fashioned coffin. But maybe I went too far with the gothic fantasy and forgot the “princess” part.
Walking into the black-and-red room lit with shimmering Swarovski crystal chandeliers, I felt under-dressed on the blood red carpet. It sure is a hotel room, with telephones, a wall-mounted TV and pure white towels on the side of a black luxury Jacuzzi surrounded in beveled antique mirror tiles.
“We asked for black towels, but the coloured linen was not very friendly for the rest of the hotel’s laundry,” says Creative Director Ken Christensen.
The queen bed in a horse drawn carriage takes up half of the room. Only when you walk up close can you see a skeleton driver riding the carriage. I heard he hasn’t received much appreciation from kids.
Christensen has been designing theme rooms for Fantasyland Hotel for decades, but this is the first time he gets to innovate with “the beauty of death” at this family-friendly hotel.
“We wanted to go in a niche direction. You know how every hotel has rumours about haunted rooms. This room doesn’t have a rumour, but we thought we could tap into that. Maybe people don’t want all rooms to be formally princessy, right?”
All princess themed rooms each have a set of velvet balloon chairs but in different colours. For the Gothic Princess, a murder of crows resides inside — and one of them sits on the antique table in between the red velvet chairs.
“I love this vibe, and I’m in love with Kat Von D’s gothic mansion,” says Christensen. “When we wanted to expand the lineup for princess rooms, I thought that we should have a dark, gothic room for an undead princess.”
If the Gothic Princess loves appreciating her deathly beauty by taking selfies, the room also has a “selfie mirror” inside the bathroom. Crows rest on both sides of the red walls, observing the bloody surroundings. But I do wish the mirror does more haunting tricks, like showing reflections in the corners or having blood streams down every now and then. Is that too much?
For a limited time, the Fantasyland Hotel, located at 17700 87 Ave. NW) now offers complimentary gothic-inspired blackberry mojitos and a charcuterie box for guests during their stay in the Gothic Princess room. No blood is infused in drinks.
