January 17, 2005
Marco Polo Hong Kong (formerly The HongKong Hotel) Review
This is a review of the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel (formerly the Hongkong Hotel)
Here is Trip Advisor’s review.
I stayed at this 4* hotel between 12/22/2004 through 1/1/2005. For my 10 night stay, I prepaid for a final rate of around $1000 - basically $100 a night. A fantastic deal! I got it through a travel agent in NYC.
The location of this hotel is absolutely fantastic. Situated on Canton Road, in Kowloon, it is literally right next door to the famous Star Ferry, and is connected to the giant mall known as Harbour City. This isn’t the most ‘authentic’ place in the world, but let’s face it - you’re in Hong Kong and since the national pastime seems to be going shopping, this is a best location. In all seriousness though - it is right next to a number of museums, Nathan Road (TOURIST TRAP, think Broadway in Manhattan), the MTR (subway/underground).
Here is a picture of the Canton Road entrance:
The elevators were fairly quick and efficient. The rooms were clean, the hallways were clean, and there were free copies of local newspapers such as the Southern China Morning Post on each floor.
Strangely enough, the keys were regular metal keys, as opposed to card keys. This meant that they could only give me one key. Fortunately, the plethora of key copying stores in the neighborhood solved the problem for less than $1.
Here is a picture of the room I had on the 16th floor (out of 18). This is Room 1633:
There were two beds, but they were normally pushed together to be a queen sized bed. Pretty comfortable and clean. The TV was pretty darn nice, and the air conditioning was great. Unfortunately, I was there on a record cold day - there didn’t seemed to be heating. I don’t fault them for that - especially considering that Hong Kong keeps getting warmer due to pollution.
You’ll note that I have a PowerBook connected - they have Ethernet for Internet and I seem to recall it was ~$15 a day ($120HKD). Local telephone calls were less than $1 ($5HKD).
While the room generally seemed to be in good condition, one minor glitch was that the edge of the wallpaper in my room was peeling off:
Well, no big deal.
The bathroom was kept quite clean, and had strong water pressure. It was a bit cozy though and I ended up knocking my contacts into the toilet - oops. But compared to a NYC bathroom, this was huge. The tub was a bit high off the ground, so if you are of limited mobility, this could be a problem:
The room had a pantry (closet) with a hot water boiler (sweet!), very over priced Evian ($55HKD!!), a safe, and a minifridge:
The view from room 1633 isn’t much to rave about - but at that price point, I don’t really care:
An important secret about the Marco Polo Hong Kong, however, is that if you exit the 6th floor, and go to the parking lot (carpark), you will find the absolute best view of the harbor! It’s astounding!
Hello Hong Kong Island!
This is one of my favorite pictures - it’s of the Hotel’s ‘American’ restaurant (smelled fantastic, didn’t have a chance to try it.) I love the contrast:
Another small complaint I have is about the photo on the hotel’s website. It shows this beautiful drive up entrance… but as I pointed out, the entrance is on Canton Road. So where is this beautiful drive up entrance?
Well, it’s on the 6th floor at the parking lot!
All in all, I would definitely stay at the Marco Polo Hong Kong again. Fantastic location, good, clean rooms, broadband, felt safe, connected to a mall - all great. Now if I could only get that rate again some day in the future!
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