MARBELLA CLUB

Kate and her extended brood will be checking in on Thursday, which is prompting the hotel to close its doors to the public through Saturday. Tight-lipped staffers, who didn't want to disclose their full names, say the top floor of the 60-plus-room hotel -- which is just a stone's throw from the modest estate owned by their future in-laws (that'd be Buckingham Palace) -- has been under extensive renovation since January to convert it into one giant suite. One can only wonder what that might cost considering that simple rooms at the five-story hotel run from $800 to $2,600 a night.

While shuttering the hotel may seem extreme, it certainly makes it easier to handle security matters for the family whose daughter is marrying the future heir to the throne. Afterwards, no doubt the hotel will discreetly make it known that Prince William's betrothed stayed here on the night before her wedding. There's already a prominent life-size statue of hotel founder O.R. Goring -- whose descendants still run the enterprise -- in the lobby, as well as signage proudly passing on the fact that when the place opened in 1910, it was the first such establishment in the world in which all rooms came with a bathroom and central heating. In the chilly London of that era, that indeed was luxury fit for royalty.