From an ice rink in Miami to a recording studio in the Belgian Ardennes and a Muay Thai ring in Bangkok, these hotels give you plenty to do besides sleep.
A bowling alley in the basement, a cocktail bar in an old bank vault, a cinema screen where the TV used to be. Hotels are getting wonderfully inventive with their spaces, and some of the most fun nights out in their cities now happen inside them. It’s the lifestyle hotel idea we’ve been writing about for years, where the bar, the cinema and the dance floor matter as much as the room. These are 11 of our favourites from around the world.
Miami has no shortage of nightlife, and The Miami Beach EDITION keeps a good share of it under one roof. Downstairs, its Basement complex has four bowling lanes with glowing balls, a 2,000-square-foot indoor ice rink and a nightclub used for private events. Food and cocktails come straight to the lanes, so a quick game can easily run into the whole evening.
In Soho, Ham Yard Hotel has an original 1950s bowling alley in the basement. The Croc has back-lit bowling balls, a collection of vintage bowling shoes, two large Howard Hodgkin artworks and its own lounge, bar and dance floor. Next door, the hotel’s own theatre hosts film screenings and private events.
Fitler Club is a private members’ club in Philadelphia with a 14-room boutique hotel attached, and hotel guests become members for the length of their stay. That gets them into the Trophy Room, two levels of bowling lanes, billiards, ping pong, classic arcade games and a bar, where a quick catch-up can turn into an entire evening. There is also a screening room, a golf simulator and a 75-foot pool.
Ian Schrager, who co-founded Studio 54, has just opened PUBLIC West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip. Every room doubles as a private cinema, with an 11-foot floor-to-ceiling projection wall and a 4K laser projector where the TV would normally be. Up on the roof, a three-quarter-acre private park has a 30-foot outdoor cinema screen of its own, and there is a speakeasy-style nightclub too.
Daft Hotel sits in the Belgian Ardennes near Malmedy and grew out of Daft Studios, one of Europe’s largest residential recording studios. The main recording room is 220 square metres, the console is a Rupert Neve 5088, and the control room has a cutter that records straight to vinyl.
The hotel itself has just 14 rooms, with a vinyl lounge, a home cinema that hosts listening parties and a heated pool where you can hear music underwater.
On the 30th floor of Rosewood Bangkok, Lennon’s is a cocktail bar designed like a mid-century recording studio. You walk in through a record shop holding about 6,000 vinyl records, and a spiral staircase leads up to a cigar lounge. Live music runs from jazz to pop and rock, and the signature cocktails take their cue from well-known songs. In July it came in at No. 7 on Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2026, the highest new entry on the list.
Bali’s own example is Desa Potato Head in Seminyak. DJ Harvey conceived its club, Klymax Discotheque, where the speakers were built by Australian engineer George Stavro and the sprung dance floor is made from four layers of wood and foam. On other nights the same room hosts deep-listening sessions and sound healing, and the property has its own radio station and record store, Headstream.
Beside the Chao Phraya River, The Siam is owned by the Sukosol family, one of Thailand’s best-known music families. Guests can spend an evening in the vinyl room, which holds hundreds of records, or book the screening room for a classic film. Next to the spa there is a Muay Thai boxing ring, where you can train with local fighters before a cooking class or a trip along the river.
The Ned took over the old Midland Bank headquarters in the City of London, and its most memorable room is underground. The original bank vault, lined with about 3,800 of the bank’s safety deposit boxes, is now The Vault, a late-night bar and lounge inside Ned’s Club Downstairs. It is for Ned’s Club members, their guests and people staying at the hotel.
In May, Fairmont Singapore turned its back-of-house laundry plant into a cocktail bar for two nights only, as part of Fairmont’s Disappearing Bars series. Guests collected a VIP key and a welcome cocktail in the Fairmont Gold Lounge, spent 45 minutes in the laundry tasting five Belvedere martinis, then finished the night at the hotel’s ANTI:DOTE bar. Only 40 people got in each night, with tickets from SGD98++.
Outside Shanghai, this hotel is built down the wall of an 88-metre-deep flooded quarry. Only two of its floors sit above the rim, and the lowest are underwater, where guest rooms and a seafood restaurant look straight into an aquarium. For anyone after more adventure, there is rock climbing on the quarry walls.
A great bar, cinema or bowling alley gives people a reason to come back to a hotel, whether they’re staying the night or just out for the evening. Locals book a lane for a birthday, meet friends for cocktails or hire the theatre for a private screening, and the hotel can put dinner, drinks and entertainment together into one night out.
Some hotels take it further. At The Ned and Fitler Club, membership gives regulars their own spaces and events all year round. Fairmont Singapore sold tickets to a bar that only existed for two nights, and a bar like Lennon’s draws its own crowd, many of whom never book a room. These spaces become part of a city’s social life, with their own regulars and reasons to return.
Bali already loves a long lunch, a beach club and a late night out, so a hotel with plenty to do under one roof fits right in. We are designing The Wylder, our lifestyle hotel in Canggu, the same way. Alongside the rooms, it is designed to include a Gold Class-style cinema, a speakeasy, rooftop dining, wellness and entertainment spaces, open to our guests and to anyone in Bali looking for a good night out.
Every hotel on this list gives people more to do, and that is what keeps them coming back.. The Wylder is built on the same idea, with 94 rooms plus a cinema, speakeasy, rooftop by Locavore and wellness spaces for guests and locals to enjoy. It is due to open in 2029, and investment starts from A$49,000. Every investor receives a share of the revenue from the whole resort, so the bars, restaurants and cinema work for investors as well as guests.
Talk to our team about The Wylder and the experiences we have in store for our guests.
