Description: The Westin Bund Center is one of a number of luxury hotels in Shanghai. Given the high standards that Luxury hotels try o maintain, and generally succeeded at, it is difficult to pick among them, and that is where the Westin’s location wins the day. The Westin is located within easy walking distance of most of Shanghai’s major sights– Yuyuan Garden and Bazaar, the Bund, and Nanjing Road. No other luxury hotel, perhaps no other hotel of any level, is so well located.
Before leaving for China, I emailed the Westin Bund Center requesting their name and address in Chinese, which was promptly provided. I printed several copies, and when we arrived at the Pudong Airport, I handed a copy to the taxi driver who took us more or less straight to the hotel (we carried other copies around with us in Shanghai in case of getting lost, we could use them to get help or a taxi ride to return to the hotel).
Check in was swiftly done by the English speaking staff. All the hotel staff that interacts with the public wore name tags with English names. The concierge desk, the door man, and the reception were most helpful during our visit. Changing money was a breeze. Apparently the Bank of China regulates exchange rates and the rate is the same wherever you change money. There were no forms to fill out. We handed the staff some dollars, they put it the computer and handed us the yuan equivalent and a receipt showing the transaction and exchange rate.
To work the elevator, you have to insert and remove your room key from a slot located above the buttons you push for the floor you want. The elevators were very fast and so smooth it seemed like we were not moving.
We stayed at the Westin Bund Center for three nights, first a two night stay in a standard room, and then one night two weeks later when they upgraded us to a deluxe room or mini-suite about twice as large as the standard room. The beds were the same in both rooms. Westin takes justifiable pride in their beds, the most comfortable hotel beds we have ever experienced, although not by much. The pillows were outstanding. There were two standard pillows and two firm pillows on the bed, the first time we have both been pleased with the pillows offered in a hotel.
Room amenities included: Free Wireless High Speed Internet Access; an Iron and Ironing Board; 29" Satellite TV with Remote Control; mini bar; International Direct Dialing; Bathroom Telephone; Two Line Telephone; Hair dryer; Coffee and Tea Maker; Radio/Alarm Clock; Fax Machine; 24-Hour Butler Service; Turndown Service; Voice mail; Separate Bath, Toilette, and Shower rooms
Free Daily Local Newspaper; 24-Hour Room Service; Cordless Telephone; DVD/CD Player; and Bathrobes & Slippers(in the closet). The TV had English some language channels– BBC, CNN, and sports.
A nice touch was the little silver box on the night stand beside the bed with three buttons that controlled all the room lights. If you need to go to the bathroom at night, leave the bathroom lights on when you go to bed and turn them off with the box. Turn them on from the box for a trip to bathroom, and you can see where you are going in the light that filters out into the room from the bathroom lights. The bathroom had two different sets of lights, one on a dimmer switch so we could dial it down to a level of light that won’t be blinding for a night time visit.
The bathroom was a three room suite, the largest room held the sink and tub. The shower stall and toilet were in two smaller rooms on one side of the bathroom complex. The shower was impressive.
The bathrooms were identical in the two rooms in which we stayed. The rooms were very different in the amount of space provided. The standard room was surprisingly small, especailly compared to the space taken up by the bathroom. There was a closet, a desk, a desk chair, and a small arm chair jammed into one corner of the room near the bed. Lighting in both rooms was adequate everywhere, once we figured out how some of the lights worked. The floor lamp was the biggest puzzle, requiring several switches to get on fully light. There is a foot switch on the floor and one or two switches on the lamp in different places.
The second room, the mini-suite, had much more space, a larger arm chair, and a chaise lounge at the foot of the bed.
The widow curtains were excellent in both rooms. Both rooms were very quiet, with almost no traffic noise from the very noisy streets outside– blowing horns are continuous racket in China because the law provides harsher punishments to a driver who hits another car or a pedestrian or a bicyclist without sounding first sounding his horn than if the driver blew the horn before the wreck. The taxi we took to Westin Bund Center from the airport almost contiguously blew its horn, tooting every time we overtook another vehicle. Neither of our two rooms faced Henan Road, a main street in front of the hotel.
One of the few noises from outside that we could hear in the room was the Jingle Bells bus, a city bus that went down the street at the far end of tthe hotel’s block every morning at 7:00 am playing Jingle Bells over a speaker on top of the bus, something like neighborhood ice cream trucks use in the summer.
The Westin Bund Center has large pool and a hot tub, but the web site does not tell you that pool users must wear a bathing cap. You can rent or buy one at the pool desk (outside the pool area) for $3 or $7. Also, to get to the pool or back to the hotel, you have to walk through a foot bath. This makes your feet wet, but there is no place to sit down to dry your feet when leaving the pool area.
Depending on the time of the year, figure rooms will cost $200-400 a night at 6.6 yuan to the dollar, which isn’t too bad for a downtown luxury hotel. Room prices include an excellent breakfast buffet with both American/continental style and Chinese breakfasts provided. The Chinese buffet offered conge, roast duck, roast chicken, and very fatty roast pork belly every day and three rotating hot dishes. Crystal shrimp was out standing. In another room of the restaurant, the standard breakfast buffet offered eggs cooked to order, several types of cold cuts, a variety of yogurts and creams– a yogurt like dish flavored with fresh fruit– fresh fruit, bacon, water melon, a wide variety of breads, hot sticky cinnamon buns, Coffee, juices, and several types of tea.
The Bund Center is a city block sized complex containing an office building and the Westin Hotel which is on the side furthest from the Bund and the river. The Office building is on the side of the block closest to the Bund and river. The office building is a Shanghai landmark, with a gold Lotus leaf topping the tall office tower– it looks somewhat like a crown. At night, the crown is illuminated searchlights play the sky from the top of the structure, easy to see in the air pollution.
The taxi we took to and from the airport took different routes. The one from the airport cost 195 yuan ($30). The cab from the line in front of the Westin Bund Center back to the airport was 165 yuan ($25). The first trip might have been a ripoff, something all the guide books warn about for China taxis.
The best way to spend free time at Westin Bund Center is to go out the front door, turn left on Henan Road (all street signs are in both Chinese characters and Roman alphabet), then left on Fuyu Lu and visit Yuyuan Garden (10 yuan entrance fee) and the Bazaar, great shopping area next to Yuyuan Garden in ersatz ancient Chinese buildings built about 100 years ago. The tea house in the center of the Bazaar is a famous landmark.
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