Room Service

Hunky Steven Seagal did his spoiled brat act at the Westin Canal Place in a 2,000-buck-a-night Presidential suite (which he got at half-price) during the Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans. He was there to help open yet another Planet Hollywood. First he outraged the hotel management by demanding they find six blonde masseuses for him to interview. He must have found something he liked about them, because he had six massages in three days - including one that lasted three hours . . . before breakfast.

You might say the semicircular Windsor Hotel and Residential Apartments on Benjamin Franklin Parkway has come full circle over the years. Built in 1963 as the Oakwood Apartments, it became a hotel in 1998. Then in 2000, about one-third of it was converted back to rental apartments, offering residents, too, the amenities of a full-service hotel. "I like the combination of hotel and residence. If you want your bed turned down every night . . . or if you want room service three meals a day, you can have it," said Melanie Katzmann, a former investment banker who has lived at the Windsor for about two years.

One of Center City's oldest continuously operating hotels, the Holiday Inn Midtown at 1305 Walnut St., is about to get a new identity and new marketing niche: By the end of September it will be the Holiday Inn Express Midtown. The Express label is a new brand name that Holiday Inn Worldwide Inc. is using for limited-service hotels, the fastest-growing category in the lodging industry. Holiday Inn has converted 104 of its 1,600 full-service inns to Express hotels and plans to convert 500 by the end of 1995, officials of the Philadelphia hotel said.

PETIT ST. VINCENT, Grenadines - Most Caribbean resorts start from a level playing field. They have clear turquoise waters, coral reefs, and sandy beaches. There's swimming, kayaking, sailing, snorkeling, and diving. But Petit St. Vincent, a tiny (115-acre) secluded island in the Grenadines, just north of Venezuela, is much more. PSV is better described by what's not there - no airport, no automobiles, no formal check-in, no keys, no TV, no room phones, no Internet, no shopping. The resort has 22 luxurious stone cottages that are either set on hills with panoramic views of the Caribbean or look directly out at gorgeous, white sand beaches.

Helpful hint for Atlantic City casino room-service waiters: If asked what the weather is like outside, say it's sunny. You'll get a better tip. Who says? Temple University psychology professor Bruce Rind. Rind, with the help of a student who works as a room-service waiter in an Atlantic City casino, proved the point with two studies conducted over a period of two months. "Previous studies have shown that people tend to be in a better mood when the sun is shining and so they tip more," Rind said.

They're Magellanic penguins, cute enough to hug, and they're here to help publicize a touring exhibit from Sea World in Orlando, Fla. The Little Gentleman and his Lady were put up at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza - way up. Their diet? Herring and smelt, smelt and herring, it's all the same. From Room Service or the same old bucket, life on the road goes on. They're temperate birds, so they like temperatures of 50 to 70 degrees. These two were hand- raised, so they're comfortable around humans.

New Year's Day and the Mummers' strut down Broad Street traditionally bring joy to Philadelphians' stride, alcohol to their lips and dollars to their hotels. Posting full houses for the holiday were, of course, the Bellevue Stratford and the Hershey with their parade-route views. Also, the Adam's Mark, Warwick, Latham, Holiday Inn Midtown, Philadelphia Dunfey (formerly the Marriott) and Airport Quality Inn. Some of the hotels made their own successes with celebratory deals that included feasting and champagne and a room to sleep it all off in. Others made gains boosted by the Convention and Visitors' Bureau sales staff and tour operators from other cities who bring groups to Philadelphia for the festivities.

"I find television very educational," Groucho Marx said. "Every time someone switches it on, I go into another room and read a good book. " Groucho might not leave the room if the set were tuned to cable's TCM this week. Through Friday, beginning at 8 each evening, Turner Classic Movies will show Groucho, Harpo and Chico cutting up in every movie they made - all 14. The retrospective goes in chronological order: Today: 8 p.m., The Cocoanuts (1929). 10 p.m., Animal Crackers (1930)

When a full-service deluxe hotel proudly promises 24-hour room service to its guests, a lot of harried business travelers may respond with a yawn. That is among the conclusions that can be drawn from a recent study by Opinion Research Corp., which found that in many cases, what airlines, hotels and car-rental companies regard as special services to lure customers are not what business travelers consider really important. The study questioned 400 executives from large corporations on what was most important to them when it comes to on-the-job traveling.

The door of the Rittenhouse Hotel opens and a collie pads onto the cool tan marble floor, past the polished brass and blond wood veneer, up the stairs, and onto an elevator that will take him up to his suite. The collie is Lassie, the star of a recent movie now on a 13-city tour plugging a line of OshKosh B'Gosh children's merchandise. Although Lassie may not come to Philadelphia every day, the Rittenhouse Hotel hosts dogs all the time. Some live in the Rittenhouse's condominiums, said Lucia Pernot, the front-office manager.

PETIT ST. VINCENT, Grenadines - Most Caribbean resorts start from a level playing field. They have clear turquoise waters, coral reefs, and sandy beaches. There's swimming, kayaking, sailing, snorkeling, and diving. But Petit St. Vincent, a tiny (115-acre) secluded island in the Grenadines, just north of Venezuela, is much more. PSV is better described by what's not there - no airport, no automobiles, no formal check-in, no keys, no TV, no room phones, no Internet, no shopping. The resort has 22 luxurious stone cottages that are either set on hills with panoramic views of the Caribbean or look directly out at gorgeous, white sand beaches.

MANY MAJOR LEAGUE baseball general managers would hear the word omerta and start checking baseball-reference.com for a Latino middle infielder. Omerta is a Sicilian-originated word for an oath of silence, the violation of which can lead to a halibut in the mail, a cement shoe fitting or a bullet in the eye. Baseball GMs don't realize it but they are practicing omerta this November, thanks to the downsized window through which to negotiate with their former players who have filed for free agency.

IF YOU HAD a crappy, lonely Valentine's Day weekend, please skip ahead to the next item. It's not going to make you feel good knowing that even the Octo-Mom had a date. RadarOnline.com reports that Nadya Suleman on Saturday enjoyed her first night with a gentleman caller in four years. The fella, according to an insider, is a friend of one of Octo's nannies. The date, which sounds like one of those staged events on "The Bachelor," involved a picnic, chocolates, roses, time with the kids and dinner at Joe's Crab Shack.

We were sailing through the Panama Canal when my husband, David, stabbed me in the chest. "Darn, I missed the heart," he hissed, then lunged again. Isn't it romantic? Actually, yes. David's attack was during the morning fencing class on a cruise aboard Cunard's Queen Victoria. And his rubber-tipped sword wasn't nearly as sharp as the words we use when we're really fighting. Playing, that's what we were doing - joyfully recapturing the sense of fun and humor (and yes, passion, too)

They have changed the sheets for world leaders. Popped champagne corks for mobsters. Lugged the suitcases of royalty. And delivered room service to Hollywood megastars registered under aliases. Oh, the stories the employees of the Philadelphia Four Seasons could tell. But won't. Of the several hundred loyal souls on staff, 31 have been working there since it opened 25 years ago. They are sworn to secrecy about the guests they serve. So they'll never reveal what happened in the summer of 1989 when the Rolling Stones blew through Philadelphia for the launch of their comeback Steel Wheels tour.

TORONTO - One of the hits at the Toronto International Film Festival last month was the Ryan Gosling romantic sex-doll comedy, "Lars and the Real Girl," opening today. (See Gary Thompson's review on Page 46.) We spoke with one of the film's stars, the versatile British actress Emily Mortimer , at the Intercontinental Hotel while she was in the middle of a publicity whirlwind. . . . She gives such a subtle performance. And then I did a film with Chiwetel Ejiofor called "Redbelt.

Unlike Eloise, the little girl who grew up in Manhattan's glamorous Plaza Hotel, Danielle Rizk grew up living in her family's hospital in war-torn Beirut. Eloise, the storybook character, ordered room service. Rizk and her real-life siblings ate in the hospital cafeteria, peeked in on the day's newborns, and got in trouble for making too much noise in the hallways. "We had to be quiet," she said, "and it was terrible. " These days, Rizk, her husband, Tom Spies, and their 5-year-old son, Eric, live in Center City, although not in a hospital.

While Philadelphia was ground zero for musicians and actors for Live 8, the Ritz-Carlton hotel seemed to be the weekend hub for celebrities and other high-profile attendees. Spotted there were Jon Bon Jovi, Rob Thomas, Sarah McLachlan, Black Eyed Peas (a suite for each Pea), Keith Urban, Al Sharpton, Linkin Park (six rooms), Jennifer Connelly, Natalie Portman, Don Cheadle, Naomi Watts, Chris Tucker, Destiny's Child (equal-size suites for Beyonc?, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams)

IN THE time it took you to turn from Page 30 to Page 32, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have made more non-news. According to the New York Post's Page Six, the couple may have checked into L.A.'s W Westwood hotel as "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" after the movie's Hollywood premiere. An eyewitness allegedly saw them enter Room 816 then saw them again the next morning wearing bathrobes as room service brought breakfast. Did they both come to the door and poke their heads out in the hall for easy viewing?

True story: One Sunday morning a girl walks into a bedroom, sees woman sipping coffee, reading paper. "But, Mom," exclaims the girl, who would be my daughter, "it's not Mother's Day!" There you have it: A mother is entitled to precisely one day of rest a year - two if she's fortunate enough to have her birthday fall on a weekend. Mother's Day, as we all know, is a canard, a joke. Every day should be Mother's Day. Why are we only allowed to be feted annually the way Elizabeth Taylor is treated daily?