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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.
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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.
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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]
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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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Sofitel Continues to Conquer China with 23rd Hotel
Whoa, we are totally blown away by the fact that Sofitel, after the recent opening of their Huanghe Sheshan Resort outside of Shanghai, now has 23 China properties. That is beyond awesome, considering how some chains tend to tiptoe cautiously into Asia. So what does this extra-urban resort bring to the area besides another Sofitel sign? Apparently, an escape from the bustling city and a whole boatload of objects d'art and Hermes toiletries.
Set within the Sheshan National Tourism Resort and only a 35-minute drive from the city, the hotel boasts 368 rooms, including 53 Luxury Suites and an Imperial Suite. An extra seven luxury villas also exist for the express purpose of making government officials and business delegations feel at home without metro surroundings. Hmm, this doesn't sound like the Sofitels we know (and love); this is like Mandarin Oriental territory. Nonetheless, this is a full-service resort with multiple restaurants, spas, pools, bars, and pool bars. For those desperate for an escape from the Shanghai grind, rates for spring are looking trim at 161 Euro for a Luxury King room.
[Image: Sofitel Huanghe Sheshan Resort]
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Inside The Grand Hyatt Shanghai
Thanks to Flickr member YY for dropping this excellent snapshot into the HotelChatter Flickr Pool. It's of the Grand Hyatt Shanghai which occupies floors 53-87 of the Jin Mao skyscraper. We've seen other views from inside this hotel but thankfully, this one doesn't give us a nasty case of vertigo.
Got your own hotel snapshots you want to share? Drop 'em in the HotelChatter Flickr Pool
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Langham Yangtze to Resurrect Shanghai Art Deco in May
Thinking of abandoning Cancun this summer for something a tad more exotic? Just beyond the hassle of negotiating a visa is Shanghai, and coming in May, its first Art Deco Boutique Hotel: the Langham Yangtze. Having taken over the old Yangtze Hotel masterpiece in 2008 for a renovation, Langham was lucky to have snatched a rare bit of Shanghai's old world architectural glamor.
Since this will be a part of the luxurious Langham line, expect rates to be far higher than they were as the old and generically-outfitted Yangtze Hotel; something like $300 a night versus the $60 of several years ago. For this price and to rival the growing competition among luxury hotels in Shanghai, the hotel has some goodies planned.
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The Grand Hyatt Shanghai Inspires Awe and Headaches
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
This is unpleasant. This will make you dizzy. Therefore, this is an anti-view.
This comes to us via randomwire on Flickr, and it appears to be a shot of the Grand Hyatt Shanghai's rather grand atrium. Perhaps it is the composition of the shot or the way all of this comes together on our screen at such a wee hour on a weekday morning, but it brings pain to the eyes and to the head.
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The Peninsula to Up Shanghai's Luxury Quotient
Before both the W and Waldorf-Astoria come and wave their flags on both sides of the Huangpu River, The Peninsula will have a good solid year of being the premiere new luxury hotel in. Scheduled to open in autumn of this year, The Peninsula on the Bund will sit right on a throne of land right at the bend in the river, affording awesome views of everything from the highrise-filled neighborhood across the river to the former British Consulate gardens below.
With decor inspired by the Art Deco era, we can expect the Peninsula Shanghai to surprise with little unnecessary, yet appreciated, additional touches of pomp. For instance, all 235 guest rooms will be subdivided into separate living spaces, so as to give the feeling of a suite even if you've booked a regular room. This extra space will function as a dressing room, yes a dressing room, because having a designated space for storing your shoes and all your black-tie ensembles is the epitome of extraneous luxury.
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Shanghai Packs 'Em In: Waldorf Astoria to Come in 2011
With their newly-opened Park Hyatt and a Peninsula and W Hotel coming in the next few years, Shanghai is primed to become one of the world's top urban luxury destinations. While most of the new development is occurring in Pudong, across the river from the old city, the new Waldorf Astoria slated for 2011 is set to take full advantage of the classic buildings along Shanghai's high street.
The Bund, as the multi-lane street along the bend in the river is called, features stately architecture hearkening back to the opium-fueled days of Shanghai's colonial past. The new hotel, Waldorf Astoria On the Bund, will sidle up next to popular retail and dining hotspot 3 On the Bund while encompassing two of its own historical structures, including the iconic site of the former gentlemen-only Shanghai Club.
We are irrationally excited for this property, as the 266-room Waldorf means that when we go to Shanghai in 2011 or after, we will have an alternate to M on the Bund restaurant for catching the best views of the river. We're even more psyched to sit back in neoclassical splendor and chuckle at the modern skyscraper city of Pudong across the river, since by then it should be rife with triple the development (and more hotels) than it has now. A serious congratulations to the Waldorf Astoria on scoring their prime Bund space, as it will bring about the restoration of landmark buildings and help smarten-up what is otherwise an unavoidable tourist trap.
[Photo of the Bund: Ted Woodham]
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Ivy Shanghai is Red, White and Boutique All Over
Seems like the Chinese are really catching on to the idea of the boutique hotel, and in Shanghai another one's just opened up. Ivy Shanghai is a 46-roomer built into the former Jiangning Cinema, one of the first cinemas built there in the 1950s when cinemas were finally allowed to be built! The area where the cinema screen used to be is now an atrium for guests to hang out it, including a coffee bar and a WiFi area.
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Shanghai Chic :: The PuLi Opening in January
With post-Olympics fever promising a tourist rush to China, we're advising you to wait until next year, at least if you're visiting Shanghai. That's because there's a new hotel opening up called The PuLi that we're keen to try out.
Its big promotion line is that it's China's first urban resort, although we're not keen on the concept that the relaxed nature of a real resort can truly transfer to the city--but then again, if the PuLi's relaxed-but-city-chic website is anything to go by, we could be wrong.
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