Hong Kong and Macau Part 5: Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel and Towers

After the relatively short flight from ICN-HKG, I headed straight for my hotel. A quick train and bus ride later I arrived at the Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel and Towers, where I’d booked all 3 nights of my stay in Hong Kong.

If you’ve read my blog for any period of time you’ll know that I’m a big proponent of Twitter, and here is yet another example of why. I didn’t know anything about Hong Kong and didn’t know what hotels would be my best option. All I knew was that I wanted to stay at an SPG hotel since I’m a very loyal Platinum member, but that still gave me the options of either the W Hong Kong or the Sheraton Hotel and Towers. The prices were similar, so I took to Twitter to ask which is my best option.

• Introduction
• Part 1: Star Alliance Lounge at LAX Tom Bradley Terminal
• Part 2: Asiana Business Class Quadra Smartium LAX-ICN
• Part 3: Asiana Business Class Lounge at ICN
• Part 4: Asiana Business Class ICN-HKG
• Part 5: Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel and Towers Review
• Part 6: Sightseeing in Hong Kong
• Part 7: Getting from Hong Kong to Macau
• Part 8: Sheraton Macau Hotel, Macau Central
• Part 9: Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Lounge at HKG
• Part 10: Singapore Airlines First Class HKG-SFO

Stacey of Very Good Points (and now also of First2Board) is as much of an SPG expert as anyone since she stays at SPG hotels for well over 100 nights per year. She saw my tweet and responded that they’re both nice hotels, but the Sheraton is in a better area with regards to things to do.  That was enough for me, so that’s why I selected this particular hotel…and boy was she right.

First I’ll go over the actual booking. I always search Kayak first to see if I can score a Best Rate Guarantee claim, which would net me either 10% off the lower rate or 2,000 SPG points. That didn’t work out, so I went straight to the SPG website. The nightly rate was about $250 or 12K SPG points per night. I’ve been hoarding SPG points and still didn’t want to use any, plus I’d only be getting a little better than 2 cents per point (I value them at 3 cents+), so I decided to go with cash.

The $250 was still looking a little high so, as I always do, I decided to enter all the corporate codes that I know (read here for more info, and to be straightforward I don’t feel comfortable giving people any codes). One of the codes I had in my arsenal came indirectly from Mr Pickles, who you should all follow on Twitter. A long while back he simply tweeted a string of digits with the words “for those that missed it” or something to that effect. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but a few days later I realized it looked like a corporate code for SPG. I tried it and it worked, and this is the code I used for my Hong Kong booking. My nightly rate came down to about $200 a night, saving me over $150 for my stay…all from a simple tweet from Mr Pickles.

I checked in at the hotel (no they didn’t ask for ID or anything for the corporate code) and was told no suites were available. I was kind of bummed because I would have liked to have one for my three night stay, but there wasn’t anything I could do. Thankfully I was upgraded to a Deluxe Harbor View room. Before I got to the room, I tweeted that I was bummed about no suite upgrade (keep that in mind).

I got to the room and was very happy with it. While the hotel’s lobby wasn’t anything special, the rooms seemed very updated and modern. My room’s view was of not just the harbor, but of the entire downtown area, and I thought it was an absolutely fantastic view. It was easily one of my best non-beach views ever.

 

 

So as you can see, the room is pretty nice. It’s not very big, but it is well-furnished and pretty comfy. Then there’s the view of the downtown area that I had…

 

When you think about it, the one thing in Hong Kong that’s iconic is the downtown area. The skyline is what everyone takes a picture of when they come to this city, so to have a view like this from my hotel was pretty spectacular to me. There’s also a “light show” where all the buildings light up for a few minutes, but I found it to be pretty underwhelming. Still, I had a good view of it. And no your eyes are not deceiving you…that really IS the building Batman jumped off of in The Dark Knight!

You can’t see it from the above pictures, but just to the left of that “SOGO” building is the InterContinental hotel. That hotel is right on the water, and if you got a bay-view room you’d probably have an even more spectacular view of the city. Either of these hotels would be fantastic options if you’re visiting.

Now, back to my tweet about not getting a suite. The SPG Twitter team, in all their awesomeness, replied shortly after telling me that they contacted the hotel about this and that I’d be receiving a call shortly. I received a call from the front desk telling me that while no suite was available that night, there would be one available for the two nights after that. I thought that was great, so I told them that I’d like to make that switch.

So that means you get to see another room as part of this review. Everyone loves a 2 for 1 deal!

 

 

Just like the last one, this room was great. The furniture and bathroom were almost identical to the previous room, but obviously the suite was about twice the size. The bathroom had double sinks and the shower/bath were exactly the same.

But there was just one not-so-small problem…

 

Oh. My. Goodness. What have I done?! I gave up my view of Hong Kong for a view of a nasty building’s air conditioners! That wasn’t cool with me…not after having seen the view on the other side of the building. I called the front desk as soon as I finished taking pictures to ask for my old room back. They asked if there was a problem, and I told them that I simply preferred my old room. They said that was fine and that my old keys should still work, so I went back to my original room. To my pleasant surprise, housekeeping had just finished cleaning my room and was walking out the door. Crisis averted, with a clean room to boot.

Now, on to the food. The breakfast buffet wasn’t spectacular, but there were definitely some good dishes. The food was a mixture of Western and Asian foods, including everything from waffles and an omelette bar to noodles and dim sum. The two items I found to be particularly delicious were the fried noodles and veggie spring roles. I’m also a big fan of waffles, and the ones here were pretty good if you could grab some of the fresh ones. The whipped cream was delicious as well.

I couldn’t get too many pictures of the buffet because it was always extremely crowded. Hopefully you can get a good enough idea from the few pictures below.

 

Other things of note: the hotel was very quiet, at least while in the rooms. There was very little noise from the outside or from the hallways, and that made my stay very pleasant. Below the lobby of the hotel and in the basement area is a small shopping mall. There’s really no stores of note except for a few custom men’s dress clothing stores. These stores are all over the city though, so do some shopping if you’re interested in a haberdashery (all my life I’ve waited for the appropriate moment to use that word!). You’ll be looking at anywhere between $50-$100 for a bespoke (there’s another one!) dress shirt depending on the fabric and other specifications.

Also, next to the elevators on each floor was a table with two plates of apples. These apples were replenished throughout the day, and were pretty good. A nice, quick snack to grab if you’re on you’re way out sightseeing for the day.

The top floors of the building were reserved for the fitness center and pool, which was on the roof. The pool was pretty small and only one person was making use of it when I went up at night, but I was more interested in the view. The view from my room was great, but the view from the roof was even better. I wish I had a proper camera to get a better picture, but my iPhone did an admirable job of capturing the view.

In summary, my three nights at the Sheraton Hong Kong were fantastic. The view was great, the Twitter team and hotel went out of their way to get me into a suite, which I then declined in favor of a room with a view. Breakfast was good, the shower was good, the hotel was quiet, it was a great area, etc. etc. I would definitely recommend this hotel to anyone that’s looking to stay here, particularly if you’re an SPG Elite member. I’m very glad I enjoyed my stay here considering I was spent $200 a night, which is more than I usually pay. The only disappointment I had with the hotel was the concierge, who led me to some not-so-great restaurant choices nearby. That was a minor detail though, so it definitely didn’t ruin my trip.

Next on the Trip Report list is a couple of things I did in Hong Kong, so stay tuned!