Luxury Accommodation

Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & Towers is at the top of Kowloon’s Gold Mile in an enviable position that the hotel has occupied for about 30 years. Located along Victoria Harbour, it is in the Kowloon business and shopping district, near the ferry terminal and Mass Transit Railway (MTR.)

The 782 guest rooms and suites are sleek and airy despite their mage. Obviously, there is regular refurbishment because the rooms look modern and smart. Many offer a postcard view of Victoria Harbour. Sheraton Towers features a private reception on Level 16, exclusive Towers Lounge, and Towers concierge.
All rooms have a radio, satellite television, dual-line telephone, voicemail, data port, coffee and tea maker, refrigerator with minibar, electronic safe, hairdryer and iron and ironing board. You receive 24-hour room service, bathrobes and slippers and a daily newspaper. Bathrooms have a telephone, massage showerheads and make-up/shaving mirror.

The Deluxe Harbour View rooms offer much more space and an upgraded bath compared to the standard (Deluxe) rooms. There are 89 of these rooms in the main building and 15 more in the towers. The rooms feature a plush armchair with reading lamp. In the bathroom, you’ll find a double-basin vanity, bathtub, and separate walk-in shower with dual showerheads. The glass wall in front of the vanity lets you enjoy the spectacular view of Victoria Harbour.

The hotel has long been known for its eating and drinking choices. You can savour traditional Osaka cuisine and a superior sake collection at Unkai Japanese restaurant. Serene and tranquil, Unkai is a small oasis in the midst of Hong Kong’s hustle and bustle. Fine Chinese cuisine is found at the Celestial Court. Located on the second level, it is an idyllic setting for dim sum lunch, an elegant dinner or a grand banquet gathering. For something more relaxed, The Café offers international cuisine with a focus on Chinese, Indian, and Western dishes. The ambience is casual and contemporary, with a convenient self-service buffet at breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner.

There are several other areas worth exploring. You can enjoy fresh oysters, seafood, and wine as you look out on Victoria Harbour and the Hong Kong skyline at the Oyster & Wine Bar. For something different, La Casa del Habano Cigar Lounge offers a cozy place to relax and have a drink and some snacks while enjoying a Cuban cigar. Step back in time to a world where relaxation is elevated to an art form. The welcoming Lobby Lounge features a piano bar and a selection of snacks. The Sky Lounge is the perfect place to enjoy Victoria Harbour’s spectacular sunsets along with fine wine, cocktails, refreshments, or afternoon tea. The dramatic interior is divided into four distinct areas to suit a variety of moods.

The Link@Sheraton is a lounge offering you a place to work, relax and remain connected to family and friends while you travel. It is located at the lobby level providing guests online services, including free 24/7 Wi-Fi connectivity and internet-enabled computer stations, allowing access to email and other services.

The Health Club, situated on the top floor offers a breathtaking view of Hong Kong and a wide array of spa and fitness choices while the full-service business center offers High Speed Internet Access (fees apply), courier service, equipment rental, secretarial services, mobile phone rental and Sim Card purchase, printing and photocopying, and translation/interpretation services.

The Four Seasons is on the Hong Kong Island waterfront overlooking Victoria Harbour and the financial district. The hotel adds considerably to the luxury and excellence in a city renowned for exceptional accommodations. As part of the prestigious International Finance Centre, it offers unrivalled links to Hong Kong Station, with the famed Star Ferry steps away.

It is difficult for me to say just how good the hotel is but the hotel likes to quote Prestige Magazine which concluded, "Opened in 2005, the Four Seasons set out to raise the bar – and it certainly succeeded. The establishment is the epitome of high-end luxury, evident down to the smallest of details."

Its 399 guest rooms, including 54 suites, each reflect signature Four Seasons comfort and luxury. Wall-to-wall windows offer captivating vistas of the city, Victoria Harbour, Kowloon and the Peak.

Contemporary room décor includes wood- and silk-panelled walls and marble-floored entry foyers, while guests desiring a more traditional Chinese experience can choose from rooms featuring sculpted furnishings and authentic ink paintings. Every guest room is equipped with up-to-the-minute technology, including a 42-inch plasma screen satellite television. For a nominal fee, all guests can enjoy enhanced privileges at the Executive Club Lounge.

Caprice is the hotel’s French restaurant. Its design integrates guest seating into the open kitchen, allowing diners to watch the chefs at work while delicious aromas accompany the dining experience. The menus of authentic French contemporary cuisine bring together culinary influences from regions all over France. This is one of only seven restaurants in Hong Kong to receive two prestigious Michelin stars. The 100-seat restaurant also includes an adjoining bar and lounge area for cocktails and three private dining rooms with seating for up to 16 guests.

Of course there are swimming pools. Enjoy a leisurely swim in the free-form infinity-edge pool, exercise in the lap pool, then take a cool dip in the plunge pool – or simply take in the magnificent harbour views from the whirlpool. The infinity-edge pool and lap pool are equipped with speakers so swimmers can enjoy music underwater. In winter, the infinity-edged pool is also heated. The harbour-view, open-air Pool Terrace provides light meals and snacks for guests.

The 24-hour Fitness Centre overlooks spectacular Victoria Harbour from floor-to-ceiling windows. It offers the latest in cardiovascular equipment – with each machine featuring an individual LCD touch-screen television and headphones – as well as an extensive selection of weight-training machines and free weights. Tai chi, yoga and Pilates classes are also available.

The Spa at Four Seasons is a bright, contemporary environment with traditional Four Seasons service. This luxurious urban sanctuary comprises 16 treatment rooms, including two lavish spa suites, Aqua and Crystal. Each spa suite features a vitality pool for two, a daybed, an LCD television and a private bar. A private bathroom and rain shower are available in the spa suites and most of the treatment rooms. Upon arrival, you can retreat to your individual spa room or choose from a unique blend of aquatic experiences in the Vitality Lounge, including a Finnish sauna, steam and floatation tank in the men's area, a soft sauna, crystal steam and rhassoul chamber in the women's area, or an indoor vitality pool.

It seems only yesterday but about 15 years ago I walked through the shell of this building wearing a hardhat. The 42 storey building was rising above the Wanchai waterfront atop the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. This is not quite in the same category as most of the other hotels in this journal but it is a superior first-class hotel in a unique location.

For anyone attending a conference or exhibition in Hong Kong, this hotel is excellently placed. It is next to the Wanchai Star Ferry terminal and you can walk to the Wanchai mass transit railway station along areal walkways. Wanchai is not a well-known shopping area although there are some local facilities but Central and Causeway Bay are nearby and Kowloon is just a 5-minute ferry ride away.

The hotel’s 860 rooms have lively colour schemes and modern facilities. All rooms have granite en-suite bathroom, television with local and international channels, broadband connectivity, fax machine, safe, voice mail, on-screen messages and the latest flight information, radio, clock, tea and coffee maker and hairdryer. The club level serves breakfast, afternoon tea and cocktails and there is a boardroom available for guests.

Compared to some of the other hotels there are fewer dining outlets but the Dynasty is a classic Cantonese restaurant with a spectacular outlook and the Scala is an elegant hideaway serving a range of contemporary European cuisine. The coffee shop is a less expensive venue with international fare. The Lobby Lounge is a spot to linger over afternoon tea or drinks and music at night.

One of the highlights of the hotel is the 11th-floor landscaped podium garden. Here you find the swimming pool, a golf driving range, two tennis courts, a jogging trail and a fitness centre. The pool is surrounded by palm trees and if you close your eyes, you can imagine you are at ground level on a Pacific island – almost! The Business centre with its latest audio-visual equipment, laptop computers, Dictaphones, pagers and mobile telephones brings you back to work reality.

While the Peninsula represents the traditional luxury, the Intercontinental is modern luxury. I had the pleasure of staying here some years ago when the hotel first opened as was branded as the Regent. It was outstanding and totally blew me away and the hotel has maintained that tradition ever since. Recent innovations have brought an even more dramatic edge to this acclaimed hotel. The absolute waterfront location is just wonderful and the architects have taken full advantage of it in spectacular fashion.

Rooms at the Intercontinental are modern and luxurious. The majority of the guest rooms and all of the suites have mesmerizing views of the dramatic Hong Kong Island skyline and bustling harbour. Rooms have LCD televisions, Bose DVD/CD entertainment systems, iPod docking stations and wireless broadband access. Rooms have 24-hour butler and room service. Plazaview rooms start at HK$4700 while harbourside rooms start at HK$5700. Junior suites start at HK$7800 and go upwards to the HK$78,000 Presidential suite. This is claimed to be the largest in Hong Kong and comes complete with a private swimming pool and Jacuzzi overlooking Victoria Harbour.

In some ways the Intercontinental is a business hotel. Club Intercontinental is the heart of these facilities. The Club has an exclusive lounge that provides a private retreat for conducting business or simply relaxing. Here you can enjoy a breakfast buffet, afternoon tea and evening cocktails. There are personalized business and concierge services and free local telephone calls. You add HK$900 for these facilities.

The hotel has some dramatic dining options many with spectacular views. As you enter the hotel you immediately see the Lobby Lounge, a cool, contemporary space with impressive floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s a great place for a coffee or cocktail. Downstairs is the Harbourside restaurant with equally spectacular views. This has elaborate international buffets with Asian and Western specialities. Then there is SPOON which has been voted one of the ‘World’s Top 100 Restaurants’. The views are matched by the contemporary cuisine inspired by world-renowned chef Alain Ducasse.

I haven’t eaten at any of the other three options. There is Yan Toh Heen, a Chinese restaurant featuring Cantonese cuisine and dim sum. Then there is the dramatic Steak House which is a winebar and grill. Prime cuts are seared on Hong Kong’s only charcoal grill and the wine list has over 300 selections. NOBU is also dramatic and it specialises in the innovative new-style Japanese cuisine of chef Nobu Matsuhisa.

Elsewhere the hotel has a spacious 24-hour fitness centre, a large outdoor swimming pool (with underwater music) and an expansive pool terrace. I-spa is claimed to be based on the Feng Shui principles of inner and outer harmony. I don’t really know much about that but you will enjoy the opportunity to take a dip in the three-temperature infinity spa pools.

We might as well start at the top. The Peninsula has long been hailed as one of the finest hotels in the world. Since opening in 1928, the hotel has brought the best of Eastern and Western hospitality together in an atmosphere of timeless grandeur and elegance.

Over the years the original hotel has expanded to 300 rooms and suites. A Peninsula room is spacious and luxurious; a suite, more space and more luxury. All have marble bathrooms with a TV, flat-screen television with satellite channels and in-room movies, CD andDVD players with a DVD library, dual line telephones with voicemail, wired and wireless broadband, in-room fax machine, work desk, lounge chair and safe. Superior rooms start at HK$4200 while deluxe rooms begin at $4400. Suites start at HK$6800 and go right up to a nose-bleeding $68000 for the one bedroom Peninsula Suite.

Apart from luxurious rooms, Peninsula guests can enjoy 24-hour room service, 24-hour valet, same-day laundry and dry cleaning, a great fitness centre with indoor pool and landscaped sun terrace, and a state-of-the-art business centre. For travel from the airport, you can use one of the 14 chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce extended wheelbase Phantoms for HK$1200 one way or a helicopter to the hotel’s heliport for HK$12000 one way.

Now the restaurants and bars! Gaddi’s is renowned as the finest French restaurant in the East. The food is spectacular and there is live music and dancing in the evenings. Don’t think that the Peninsula is staid and old-worldly. Felix, the spacious rooftop restaurant and bar has a spectacular interior designed by Philippe Starck and the contemporary cuisine is outstanding. In contrast Spring Moon has authentic Cantonese cuisine and selected Chinese teas served in a serene Art Deco setting. The options don’t stop there. Chesa has Swiss dining, Imasa has Japanese gourmet dining in a contemporary ambience and the brand-new Salon de Ning is a "Shanghai Deco" lounge serving Asian-inspired light fare.

I have left the best till last. The Lobby at the Peninsula has been a legendary meeting place that has welcomed travellers for 80 years. I enjoy the traditional afternoon tea whenever I can, even when not staying at the hotel. It is an ideal spot to watch the world go by while listening to live music. Light meals and drinks are available all day. I agree the cost for afternoon tea is high (why wouldn’t it be when you often have to wait 30 minutes before you get a table) but it is a great experience.

The other highlight of the Peninsula is the shopping arcade. It is a place I totally avoid. The best luxury brands are all here including haute couture, jewellery and fine tailoring. Frankly I can’t afford to buy anything here and window shopping is not my scene. Others will be in paradise.