China Travel Guide
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Dust Off Your Quilted Purse! Chanel Opens In The Peninsula Shanghai Tomorrow
Shanghai, China's first Peninsula Hotel may have just opened, but it's far from done stealing the show on the Bund. Tomorrow, the hotel opens a flagship Chanel boutique, complete with its own limited-edition "Paris-Shanghai Métiers d'Art" line of products specially designed by Karl Lagerfeld. Following the opening, a short film will debut on December 3 on the dedicated website for the store, featuring more on the special collection and this boutique itself.
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Please Welcome The Peninsula And Its Fleet Of Phantoms To Shanghai
We can talk about Art Basel Miami hotels and hotels for the holidays all we want, but we can't ignore one of the biggest hotel openings of autumn, that of the Peninsula Shanghai. It officially welcomed its first guests back on October 19, and yet it's already like a landmark on Shanghai's Bund—the street of shops, other high-class hotels, and historical buildings right at the bend of the Huangpu River.
The main thing to know about this Peninsula is its relatively low starting room rate: $295. With it, if you can score the deal (and we recommend searching for dates far into the future), you'll be sitting pretty in a room with the feeling of a suite, as each room is divided into living spaces and even features a dressing room in lieu of an itty-bitty closet. More on that dressing room, after the jump.
Tags: Amanresorts / China Hotels / Hotel Openings / → All Tags
Amanresorts Go All Cultural In China, Again
Staying in Beijing at Amanresort's luxury Aman At Summer Palace - the hotel that's actually built in part of the Summer Palace so you don't need to leave your room to go sightseeing - is apparently not enough. Amanresorts are now saying they're giving travelers to China the "town and country" version of a Chinese vacation, because in 2010 they will open the Amanfayun Resort on the outskirts of one of China's seven ancient capitals, Hangzhou.
Hangzhou is about a hundred miles south-west of Shanghai, and the Amanresort will be twenty minutes outside of its center, in the buildings of an old village. Tea farmers used to live in the 47 stone courtyard houses which have been turned into 16 rooms, 21 suites and 5 villas, and with a pilgrim's circuit of Buddhist temples passing through the area, it's currently under consideration to become World Heritage listed.
Tags: Hard Rock Hotels / Macau Hotels / Sweet Suites / → All Tags
Hard Rock Macau's Got A Fancy Rock And Roll Suite
If you're a fan of Asian pop music then you're bound to know that Hong Kong singer Jacky Cheung is quite a star – they even call him the "God of Songs" in that part of the world. Knowing that, the fact that there's now a Jacky Cheung Rock Star Suite at Macau's Hard Rock Hotel is pretty cool news.
Even if you don't know too much about Jacky Cheung, you'll learn plenty by staying in his suite. You'll be greeted by a video of Jacky explaining both the elements of design in the room and his favorite spots to visit in Macau. The room itself includes plenty of Jacky Cheung memorabilia, including his own white baby grand piano, a microphone, gloves and a CD of his favorite songs. Oh, and there are life-size photos of Jacky Cheung in concert on the walls. On second thoughts, if you don't know him, staying in this room could be a little freaky.
Tags: NYT Reviews / China Hotels / Hotels Near The Great Wall / → All Tags
NYT Not Particularly Impressed by China's Commune by the Great Wall
Sometimes a view is so awe-inspiring, we’ll admit we can’t be bothered caring quite so much about creature comfort details. At China’s Commune by the Great Wall, though, not only do some guests nab views of the Great Wall, but the collection of vacation homes is an architectural marvel in its own right too, or so says the New York Times.
Designed by 12 Asian architects as a “retreat from the urban sprawl of Beijing,” the collection of homes is a mix of originals and more recent copies, the most popular apparently being the Cantilever House and Bamboo House. Sitting in the valley at the food of a “wild section” of the Great Wall, the homes are a steep 10-minute hike from the “ancient ramparts.”
Highlights: Original homes have views of the Great Wall. Enough said.
Lowlights: Though the bedrooms are comfortable, one of the NYT writer’s friends complained of a “toilet smell.” Um, ew. And the kitchens are functional but include rental fees for any supplies, from plates to cutlery to wineglasses (“very chintzy,” says the NYT). The food was “mediocre” and “overpriced,” and the restaurant charges a pesky corkage fee.
Bottom line: “Being able to see both the Great Wall and creative modern architecture in a short trip is a huge plus,” admits the NYT, but “the service and the food could have been better.” Plus, nickel and diming for every item? Not cool.
[Photo: Gilles Sabrie for the New York Times]
Tags: Hotel Delays / Hotel Openings / Shangri-La Hotels / Beijing Hotels / → All Tags
Behind Schedule With Your Hotel? Do a Shangri-La And Hedge Your Bets
Here’s some skewed logic to start your week off. You’re a soon-to-be-open hotel, you’re not sure exactly how long it’s going to take for your paint to dry and your air con to get whirring, and you’re watching other new hotels around the globe getting called out for opening late. What’s the solution?
Well, if you’re Shangri-La, your solution is to hedge your bets. The bizarrely named Shangri-La China World Summit Wing in Beijing was originally slated to open "at the end of the year". And even now, despite Shangri-La just having appointed a GM, they’re not quite sure when it’ll be ready for us to bed down, announcing this weekend that it’ll open "at the end of 2009 or early 2010."
Tags: NYT Reviews / Beijing Hotels / Boutique Hotels / → All Tags
NYT Reviews Beijing's Cool 3+1 Bedrooms
We hate to strum our own chord, but usually by the time the New York Times reviews a hotel we’ve already heaped an overgenerous amount of hype on the place, and often have even already checked the place out ourselves firsthand. But we’ve got to hand it to them this week — they reviewed a tiny little spot in Beijing that wasn’t even on our radar.
The Chinese capital city is home to the hyperbolically understated 3+1 Bedrooms, a teensy hotel with just three guestrooms and one suite. “Too intimate to be pretentious,” writes the NYT, with “all the amenities (well, almost all) of a larger boutique property — minus, of course, the scene.”
The highlight: Location? Check: “…in the heart of old Beijing, a stone’s throw from the historic Drum and Bell Towers and a short walk to the shops, bars and cafes of the artsy-hipster Nanluogu Xiang alleyway and picturesque Houhai Lake.” Clean “minimalist’s dream” décor? Check: “more clean than cold.” And the writer’s room was 500 square feet, with “palazzo-height ceilings” and a private terrace lined with bamboo stands. A walk-in shower that feels “big enough to swim in”? Check. Free Wi-Fi? Check. Free mini-bar offerings? Check: Pellegrino, soda and beer.
Tags: Pan Pacific Hotels / Hotel Openings / China Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Pan Pacific Hotels Start To Take Over China With Second Hotel
The Pan Pacific Hotels group are at the start of a "growth strategy" for China – they sure aren't the only ones – and that means they're going to open their second hotel in China in January 2010.
After opening up the Pan Pacific Xiamen earlier this year, they will now be taking over and rebranding the Sheraton Suzhou Hotel and Towers in the east coast city of Suzhou. It's a 484-room place which Sheraton just added a brand new wing of 99 rooms to earlier in the year (obviously nobody told them they'd be handing it over).
Before the January reopening they'll be putting some Pan Pacific "brand standards" in place. And then the group will be looking ahead to its continued attempt to rule China, with its third hotel planned for Tianjin in 2011.
[Photo: bernardoh]
Tags: Hotel Opening Rates / Hotel Opening / Shangri-La Hotels / China Hotels / → All Tags
New Shangri-La Ningbo Gives Shanghai Luxury Style For Just $120 a Night
Although properties in New York and Chicago are out of the picture for now, Shangri-La Hotels are continuing to expand in Asia, just opening a new fancy high-rise is the Chinese city of Ningbo. The Shangri-La Ningbo would be your typical five-star property, if it weren't boasting of special introductory rates as low as $120 and a residential community of 60 apartments.
Available until December 31 for stays in a deluxe room, the $120 opening deal will hopefully attract tourists on a sidetrip from visiting Shanghai, as Ningbo is just across the Huangzhou Bay. For that $120, you'll get a whole bunch of free stuff: free buffet breakfast, free broadband internet access, free use of hookups and speakers for iPods and other digital accessories, and access to the gym with pool and two tennis courts.
Tags: Hotel Opening Rates / Hotel Openings / Peninsula Hotels / Shanghai Hotels / → All Tags
Peninsula Shanghai Opening October 19 for $295 a Night
The ninth addition to the posh Peninsula collection of hotels, The Peninsula Shanghai, opens on The location is out of this world – on the banks of the Huangpu River and conveniently located near the shopping capital of Nanjing Road. But it’s the super huge rooms – larger standard rooms than any other major hotel chain in Shanghai – that have set size queen’s tongues wagging.
Tags: Swine Flu Hotels / Shanghai Hotels / Hotel News / Ray Nagin / → All Tags
We Hope Ray Nagin Has Free Internet at the Jinjiang Inn
There's been another quarantine in China for folks possibly exposed to the Swine Flu and this time New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is amongst the group under lockdown at the Jinjiang Inn in a suburb of Shanghai.
Nagin and his wife Seletha have been in quarantine since Sunday, along with a member of the mayor's executive protection team, after they had the misfortune of sitting within a few rows of a French student now confirmed ill with the A-H1N1 virus on their flight from the U.S.
Nagin planned to be in China for several days for trade-related meetings but it looks like he'll just be killing time in the hotel room instead. Authorities are also screening his phone calls while there to "keep him safe."
The Jinjiang Inn is a popular Chinese budget hotel brand and the rooms do come with internet access. From what we could gather, some Jinjiang Inns offer it free, some do not. Coincidentally, an AP reporter was quarantined at the same hotel last month. There was limited English language television channels and lots of boredom. Hopefully, they waive the internet charges for Nagin.
But just remember, he's definitely not Twittering about this thanks to China's strict social media controls.
[Photo via The Times Picayune]
Tags: Hotel Technology / Park Hyatt Hotels / Shanghai Hotels / Hotel Toilets / → All Tags
Park Hyatt Shanghai Is Serious About Its Service and Its Toilet Lids
Allegedly the highest hotel in the world, the Park Hyatt Shanghai (which takes up the 79th to 93rd floors of the Shanghai World Financial Center) isn't just amazing for its high views and dizzying heights. It's also one of those hotels that's found all kinds of small and not-so-small ways to make it stand out from the crowd.
For one, the service is intense. And we mean intense in a good way — as in, there's a lot of it. Every floor has a 24-hour housekeeper and they'll greet you when you arrive, help you unpack and get your first cup of Chinese tea brewing. Apparently there are 750 employees for the hotels 174 rooms. Yep — quite the ratio.
According to a recent review by Toronto's Globe and Mail, the Park Hyatt Shanghai is also good at including technology and gadgets that are actually useful and not impossible to use. There's free WiFi (just as there should be), cordless phones, a DVD player and heated flooring in the bathroom. But there's one piece of technology that the reviewer thought was going too far, and in fact got listed as the only negative of their whole hotel experience:
A toilet lid that lifts of its own accord may be more service than is needed.
More than we need? Actually, we're thinking that could be a great way to avoid leaning over and lifting up the toilet lid, although we're wondering what kind of command we have to use so that it does actually lift. We love technology for lazy people.
[Photo: LitteMay]
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