HotelChatter

Room Reaction
Take a good listen to the sounds on the video above, those sounds, carried through the night, which meant, we didn't get much sleep. Actually, it was worse than that. Not only could we not sleep, but in the middle of the night we found the room downright uncomfortable. Not the bed, the bed itself was fine, but the peekaboo bathroom lurking right behind the bed was bothersome, as was the fact that there was no real closet in the room. Maybe it was our tired state, but the entire room just seemed too designy and not nearly practical enough for us. What were we looking for? That was hard to pinpoint, after all it was 3:30 AM, but we knew this, in the morning we were going to politely ask for a different room for the following night or we were going to bail. There were a couple SPG hotels in town and we would hit up one of those.

Yeah, it was that bad. That is what happens when you can't sleep. Mind you, never, in our 6.5 years of visiting hotel after hotel have we ever thought of bailing before our stay was up.

Staff
Incredible. We had heard rumblings that eastern hospitality staffers blew away westerners and in our experience that is true. Forget everything you have heard or experienced concerning aloof design hotel staff when you check in here -- these folks are great. They seriously go out of their way to help you with anything and everything you need.

View
The room was on the first floor, and the bulk of the view from the room's terrace was of the river and street below. However, if you turned your head you could see down the river towards the Bund center, and it was awesome.

Location
Location is tricky. You think you are close enough to the Bund to walk, but you are really about a half hour walk from the action. As far as subway stops, again, you are close to a half hour from the closest subway stop. That means you are going to have to take a taxi most places, which is not a big deal, but prepare yourself by writing down the name of the hotel in Mandarin, or better yet have the staff do it for you.

Staff
Um. Have you seen the photos? Even in the fog it is amazing. Oh, and the rooftop view one ups the in-room view. From the roof you can hop in the infinity pool, or, wait for it, the infinity hot tub and take in a 240 degree view of the city and harbor.

Cost
Right around $1200 元 Yuan .

Bottom Line
As for Room 15, it just wasn't for us. Bottom line is it was too loud, and we just couldn't get past that, even after two Benadryl (though around 4 AM we found some old earplugs hidden in our bag, stuck 'em in and got a bit of sleep). However, don't write this hotel off just yet. If you thought before, every small hotel stay depends on the room you get -- wait for tomorrow, when the awesome staffers upgrade us to a quiet courtyard suite. Room 31 review will be published tomorrow. Stay tuned.