TRAVEL LOG

Serious soothing on Maui

It’s hard to imagine that one can become even more relaxed at the Hotel Hana-Maui, but that’s the aim of a 7,650-square-foot spa that opened this month.

Besides nine treatment rooms and a cold plunge pool, the spa has an ocean-facing Watsu pool, in which specially trained therapists work with clients in body-temperature water.

This “aquatic renewal” is quite different from traditional spa therapies, says Jacque Waters, spa director. You’re “rocked, moved, stretched and held.”

“When I get it, I go into baby mode,” she says. “It’s very nurturing. You get lost in the movement.”

Prices begin at $125 for this therapy; others are available. Spa packages begin at $250 per person; a couples package is $550.

Brochure rates at the 66-room hotel, on 67 acres on the eastern coast of Maui, begin at $375 a night. For information: (800) 321-

HANA (321-4262) (reservations); (808) 248-

8211, Ext. 5290; www.hotelhanamaui.com.

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Harrah’s sells

Binion’s hotel-casino

The World Championship of Poker will go on just as it always has -- for this year, anyway.

MTR Gaming Group Inc., of Chester, W.Va., agreed to buy Binion’s Horseshoe hotel and casino in downtown Las Vegas from Harrah’s Entertainment Inc.

The announcement comes less than a month after Harrah’s purchased the venerable Glitter Gulch gaming joint from Becky Binion, daughter of founder Benny Binion.

The casino, which will be operated by Harrah’s for MTR, is to reopen April 1 and host the 35th annual World Championship of Poker beginning April 22. Harrah’s has the option of running the casino for up to three years. But when it finally leaves, it will take the poker series and Horseshoe name with it.

“Our plan is to move the series to one of our other Vegas properties, probably the Rio, next year,” said Gary Thompson, a Harrah’s spokesman. “We may re-brand a casino in northern Nevada or use the ‘Horseshoe’ name for a place in Vegas on the Strip.”

MTR, which owns and operates the Mountaineer Racetrack & Gaming Resort in West Virginia, retains the right to call the downtown casino Binion’s.

Susan Spano

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Amtrak train

to detour

Amtrak’s California Zephyr, which runs from Chicago to the Bay Area, will be detoured away from one of the most scenic passenger rail routes in the country for about a month this summer while repairs are made on the historic Moffat Tunnel.

The 6.2-mile tunnel, which opened in 1928, punches through the Continental Divide in the mountains 50 miles west of Denver. Amtrak will detour north from Denver to Cheyenne, Wyo., and then west across Wyoming to Salt Lake City.

Normally, the Zephyr winds through numerous shorter tunnels in the foothills west of Denver, climbs to the Moffat Tunnel at 9,242 feet above sea level and then follows the Colorado River west through steep, narrow canyons until crossing into Utah and heading north to Salt Lake City.

Railroad officials have not set the exact dates of the closure.

From Associated Press

-- Compiled by Times staff