Moopere
Established Member
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2010
- Posts
- 2,652
Thought I'd jot down a few notes on a recent stay at the Harbour Grand Kowloon in Hong Kong - not to be confused with the Harbour Grand Hong Kong (not in Kowloon)
I'm normally a loyal hilton customer but needed to dash to HKG with almost no notice for a week in late January and the Conrad was asking AU$600-700 a night, too rich for me. The Harbour Grand is a proper 5 star hotel and I booked a harbour view 'club' king room, probably the equivalent of a Hilton Executive room with a view, for about AU$390/n including the 10% service charge. This is the first time in a very long time that I've stayed at a hotel and not had status with them - so I booked a room that I hoped would give me a similar experience and I was not disappointed in this instance.
As it turned out, the location of the Harbour Grand suited me better anyway, not that you are ever really far away from anything in HKG, its pretty small and despite a fair bit of whinging from the locals I rarely found myself taking more than 30 minutes to get anywhere, even during peak hours.
This hotel immediately presents as pretty special, doorman opens the door to a beautiful marble featured entry and reception area with a really impressive marble staircase winding up to the lower floors where the ballrooms and meeting rooms are.
We got in just before lunchtime and there was a bit of traffic checking out at this time, so a bit of a wait, maybe 5 minutes, before they looked at my details, realised I was booked into a club room, then whisked us up to the 19th floor for private checkin at the club (essentially an exec lounge). The lounge staff are absolutely fantastic and described fully all the features of the hotel and the club floors and the various free shuttle buses that the hotel runs to various places. Out room was on the 20th floor, facing Kowloon harbour and was very quiet, clean and well maintained. Only complaint from me was a somewhat noisy airconditioner which kept me awake on the first night - we turned it off subsequently and as its winter in HKG at the moment there was no problem with temperature.
English was excellent, though I think I missed something in translation during the conversation relating to what I thought was them telling me that this hotel used to be a Hilton ... I checked this later and I don't believe its the case, the original Hilton Hong Kong was demolished in 1995 (I think) replaced later by the now Conrad at a different location. Nevertheless, wrong or not, immediately something 'clicked' - for all intents and purposes this was a hilton experience ... from the way the desk staff were dressed to the design of the hotel paperwork and even the bagged white slippers in the room ... it all felt very Hilton .. as it turns out, this hotel is indeed owned by the same ownership group that used to run the Hilton Hong Kong and I think still runs the Conrad - so they have direct experience with the hilton 'theme', I even managed to bag 500QFF points as part of the deal
The hotel pool was undergoing repairs when I got there, but I still went up to check out the pool deck, very nice. There is also a lovely promenade at the harbour side of the hotel which is lovely and allows a great view across the harbour to the mass towers and lights of Hong Kong on the other side.
There are I think 6 restaurants in the hotel though I didn't try any of them as eating out in HKG is easy, varied and cheap - they looked nice enough though. Breakfast in the lounge was included in club access and was very good, at least on par with the normal buffet type experience at a hilton in Aus. The club room included 2 shirt/dress pressings per day and free shoe shine as well as 10% off on 5 of the 6 in-house restaurants. I didn't use the gym as I was pressed for time but it looked decent and they had the normal towels and whatnot available for the gym and pool.
Housecleaning was good, kept the room in good order and there was a nice turndown in the evenings where they refresh the room and put out your slippers. We received a lovely fresh fruit platter on the first night. Bathroom was marble, clean and well stocked with amenities.
All in all, a great stay, very impressed, and though I will still choose the Conrad if pricing is not ridiculous (need the stays and points as a HH member) when you need a more 'sane' priced stay this hotel will definitely be on my future list.
I'm normally a loyal hilton customer but needed to dash to HKG with almost no notice for a week in late January and the Conrad was asking AU$600-700 a night, too rich for me. The Harbour Grand is a proper 5 star hotel and I booked a harbour view 'club' king room, probably the equivalent of a Hilton Executive room with a view, for about AU$390/n including the 10% service charge. This is the first time in a very long time that I've stayed at a hotel and not had status with them - so I booked a room that I hoped would give me a similar experience and I was not disappointed in this instance.
As it turned out, the location of the Harbour Grand suited me better anyway, not that you are ever really far away from anything in HKG, its pretty small and despite a fair bit of whinging from the locals I rarely found myself taking more than 30 minutes to get anywhere, even during peak hours.
This hotel immediately presents as pretty special, doorman opens the door to a beautiful marble featured entry and reception area with a really impressive marble staircase winding up to the lower floors where the ballrooms and meeting rooms are.
We got in just before lunchtime and there was a bit of traffic checking out at this time, so a bit of a wait, maybe 5 minutes, before they looked at my details, realised I was booked into a club room, then whisked us up to the 19th floor for private checkin at the club (essentially an exec lounge). The lounge staff are absolutely fantastic and described fully all the features of the hotel and the club floors and the various free shuttle buses that the hotel runs to various places. Out room was on the 20th floor, facing Kowloon harbour and was very quiet, clean and well maintained. Only complaint from me was a somewhat noisy airconditioner which kept me awake on the first night - we turned it off subsequently and as its winter in HKG at the moment there was no problem with temperature.
English was excellent, though I think I missed something in translation during the conversation relating to what I thought was them telling me that this hotel used to be a Hilton ... I checked this later and I don't believe its the case, the original Hilton Hong Kong was demolished in 1995 (I think) replaced later by the now Conrad at a different location. Nevertheless, wrong or not, immediately something 'clicked' - for all intents and purposes this was a hilton experience ... from the way the desk staff were dressed to the design of the hotel paperwork and even the bagged white slippers in the room ... it all felt very Hilton .. as it turns out, this hotel is indeed owned by the same ownership group that used to run the Hilton Hong Kong and I think still runs the Conrad - so they have direct experience with the hilton 'theme', I even managed to bag 500QFF points as part of the deal
The hotel pool was undergoing repairs when I got there, but I still went up to check out the pool deck, very nice. There is also a lovely promenade at the harbour side of the hotel which is lovely and allows a great view across the harbour to the mass towers and lights of Hong Kong on the other side.
There are I think 6 restaurants in the hotel though I didn't try any of them as eating out in HKG is easy, varied and cheap - they looked nice enough though. Breakfast in the lounge was included in club access and was very good, at least on par with the normal buffet type experience at a hilton in Aus. The club room included 2 shirt/dress pressings per day and free shoe shine as well as 10% off on 5 of the 6 in-house restaurants. I didn't use the gym as I was pressed for time but it looked decent and they had the normal towels and whatnot available for the gym and pool.
Housecleaning was good, kept the room in good order and there was a nice turndown in the evenings where they refresh the room and put out your slippers. We received a lovely fresh fruit platter on the first night. Bathroom was marble, clean and well stocked with amenities.
All in all, a great stay, very impressed, and though I will still choose the Conrad if pricing is not ridiculous (need the stays and points as a HH member) when you need a more 'sane' priced stay this hotel will definitely be on my future list.
