Hong Kong and Macau - ICON Hotel reports

Dear all,
I am hoding a booking at the Kowloon Shangri-la at the moment. Recently, I found some very good reports about the newly opened ICON hotel on tripadvisor (could not find anything about the hotel on FT) that make me tending to book there. However, most of the reports are from first posters which in fact makes me feel a bit sceptical.
Does anybody here know the hotel and can compare it (in terms of rooms, service and views) to hotels like the Shangri-la, IC or the Sheraton.
Best,
grischtu

At the moment it appears to be in "soft opening" mode, so I guess there may be some bugs still being ironed out. Be aware also that it is essentially a "teaching hotel" - the practical arm of the Polytechnic University's Hospitality & Hotel Management course (one of the most highly-rated around I believe); my gut feeling is that this is likely to be a good thing overall.

But I'm afraid I haven't heard any reports directly so far.

I have booked a three night stay for mid August at the Icon and will be glad to report back to you. Earlier this year I stayed at the http://www.east-hongkong.com which I liked a lot, location is just not that good. I am always looking for really well designed, 'high-tech' and preferably fairly new hotels. The East was a perfect fit and I think Icon will be just fine as well.

I am booked for early August. Therefore, I will probably report to you ;)

I am booked for early August. Therefore, I will probably report to you ;)

Looking forward to it! I booked a Icon 38 Harbour room, btw. Was considering the Above & Beyond level but couldn't quite make sense of this. Have a good trip!

Thanks mercflight. Booked exactely the same room but with above and beyond Club access. ;)

Well, in that case you certainly have to report back!! Just hopeing this will make me upgrade to above & beyond instead of canceling the whole thing .... Thanks for the pioneer spirit, grischtu.

I can't wait for your reports as I am thinking to book a stay in November. I am also hoping they will have another promo by then as the 3 for 2 offer is very attractive...

I'm going to stay there for 4 nights (3 nights for 2 + book early 1 night) at the end of this month.

Hopefully I'll be able to post a glowing review of the ICON soon. :cool:

Booked here for three nights (taking advantage of their 3-for-2 promo) at the beginning of August in a 38 Harbour room. Will report back! ^

I just checked in today. So far it's good. Really good.

The room is very smartly designed, the shower is fantastic - rain shower and a good wall-mounted and detachable shower head. There's a deep bath as well. The minibar has free soft drinks in it, there is tea and coffee making facilities (nice tea, too!), the wifi works just fine and lets multiple devices connect (unlike the last hotel I stayed in!). Frankly the best hotel shower, and possibly the best shower, I've ever used.

The view, for a "harbour view" room, is very good - panoramic view over the harbour into central HK. The staff were very intent on giving good service but seemed a bit new to the job, though they did everything well and were very nice about it, just not entirely polished - no problems or complaints. Our bags were brought to our room about 5 minutes after we left the front desk having finished checking in.

I'll report more once I've used more of it.

I specifically emailed them before booking to check that the pool, spa, etc, were fully open. As far as I know they've finished the "soft opening" (i.e. "not finished yet") period.

Dear flatlander,
Many thanks for these first insights! It assures me having made a good decision to book there and I can not wait to visit next week. One question: Do you have a Club Room and how are the Club Room offerings and services.
Please let us know more!
Best,
grischtu

I need some help in deciding if I should opt for an Above and Beyond (Club) room or not. I'll be in Hong Kong for 2 full days but I'm not sure if a Club room is worth it since you can usually find (a lot) better food in restaurants than in hotel Clubs. Any opinion regarding my dilemma?

Dear flatlander,
One question: Do you have a Club Room and how are the Club Room offerings and services.


I did not book a club room, I booked a king room with a harbour view, but I think I am in a club room because it has TV in the bath (behind a mirror, with a waterproofed remote control). I haven't tried any Club Room additional offerings.

By the way, this is the first time I ever paid for a hotel room view and I think it's completely worth it, particularly impressive at night (I'm on the 21st floor). The only comparable hotel view I ever had was from the Yokohama Intercontental Grand (the fantastic Ferris Wheel that shows a clock, and so on) and that wasn't quite as good.

The bed is very comfortable, and the aircon is unobtrusive and almost silent, so no problems maintaining a comfortable temperature and sleeping well. There do not seem to be rooms against the elevator shaft and overall it's pretty quiet.

The entrance atrium is spacious and well-decorated, with an interesting vertical garden on the wall. Overall the standard of fittings and decor in the hotel is very high.

The second floor restaurant "Market" does a breakfast buffet and a lunch buffet, I didn't eat in the hotel in the evening. The lunch buffet is very comprehensive, of the things I can remember there was: sushi and sashami to order, pizza, various Indonesian such as beef rendang, various Chinese like fried rice, various Indian like tandoori chicken, local desserts like milk custard, a selection of small cakes and pastries, a salad bar, good selection of breads, etc - all very good, for about HK$220.

The breakfast buffet was also comprehensive, though also priced at about HK$200 so not particularly cheap. It's a good option if you want to fill up before going about your day or don't have time to hunt down other food.

The business centre is on the 28th floor and has a couple of PCs. Unfortunately printing anything costs HK$5 per sheet, a cost I find unfeasibly high. The hotel wifi was generally good but occasionally slightly flaky, such as some web pages failing to load yet loading fine a few seconds later, or email programs reporting the mail server to be unreachable for a few seconds. The wifi is free.

There is a competent bar in the ground floor atrium area. There is also a bar upstairs on the 28th floor but I discovered this too late to use it.

It's a little away from the main areas with things to go, the station is Hung Hom or (more of a walk) Tsim Sha Tsui. Hung Hom is a 2-seat ride from most things. Opposite the hotel by the exit from the overhead pedestrian walkway (which we immediately called the habitrail) are two 7-11s and a Circle-K (both convenience stores), several restaurants, a drugstore, etc. A minute or two on in that direction is HSBC bank, another bank, many mobile phone shops, Fortress (general electronics), restaurants, etc.

Out the hotel, right, then right at the end of the road, is a street with the waterfront hotels (Intercontinental, etc) on one side and tower blocks of retail and restaurant the other. There's a whole area of steak houses down there, if that's what you want. We ate at a satay (though it does general Malay/Indonesian/etc) place in the tower block at number 63, first floor, which was good. Like many restaurants it had annex rooms, where they had taken over another business unit in the block but served two or three rooms from one kitchen, but they had also overflowed tables into the hallway. Clearly business is booming.

Taxi drivers don't always know where it is, but the address is printed (in English and Chinese) on the back of the room key. The hotel is new enough it is not on all maps either. It seems to be quite easy to get a taxi. It is on the route of the AIrport Express shuttle bus which runs every 12 minutes, going to Kowloon station which has checkin counters for the major airlines at the station (remarkably civilised - the eager bellhops insisted on hefting our luggage onto the bus, which arrived at the Airport Express counters and we walked in and checked in immediately, so didn't have to carry any bags down to the train or into the airport).

I've checked out now and moved on, but if there are any other questions about it I'll try to answer them.

Because of the early excellent review of the Icon Hotel, the rates for Sept to Dec period have gone up by at least 45% in the last week or 2. I'm not sure it is still good value at those inflated rates. :confused:

Flatlander has already filled out most of what I wanted to say. So I'll just try to add little bits.

I stayed at 17th floor, 36 Harbour King and the view was stunning. The pool on 9th floor 'balcony' was not very big but was not really crowded even on Saturday afternoon. Spa also seemed to be operational. (I didn't indulge myself though)

Getting to places from Hotel ICON was quite easy, as long as you're willing to walk a little bit. 5 mins walk to Hung Hom & Tsim Sha Tsui East MTR stations, Airport Rail Shuttle to Kowloon MTR station every 15 minutes, and Hotel ICON's own shuttle to Tsim Sha Tsui (Wing On Plaza, Sogo TST, Harbour City, and iSquare. ICON shuttle times are: every 30 mins from 07:30 to 14:30, then 45 mins to 19:00, from the hotel.

Wifi was decent and I had no problem using multiple devices myself. But from time to time (once a day I guess) I had to validate the connection with my name and room no.

It'd be a good idea to ask for a shuttle route/timetable printout and carry it with you if only to show hotel locations to taxi drivers. I got lucky with my room keycard with the hotel's address though.

Staffs were very friendly and eager to help. I could feel their young enthusiasm flowing over. :D Which might explain a little bit of rough edges here and there. :p One thing that bothered me was that every morning (around 9) there was someone at the door ringing and asking if I have laundry to do. Some might find that helpful but I found it slightly annoying.

I have managed to take some pictures and will share with you as soon as I'm done making heads and tails of hundreds of pictures I've took. :rolleyes:

Because of the early excellent review of the Icon Hotel, the rates for Sept to Dec period have gone up by at least 45% in the last week or 2. I'm not sure it is still good value at those inflated rates. :confused:

you are so right.... The price is so much higher that it is no longer a good value. :mad:

Pictures (http://miniroom.tistory.com/21) of Hotel ICON, as promised. :D

The site is in Korean, but I have written the page itself in English.

Not to much more to comment from my last weekend stay at the hotel that philpys or flatlander have not mentioned yet (once again thanks to them!).
To sum it up: We had a brilliant stay; staff really goes beyond the horizon! A pro-pos beyond: Stayed at an Above and beyond Club Suite 60 on the 27th floor, very spacious and great amenities (including fruit plate, chocolates, daily newspaper at your door etc.) and wonderful tech gimmicks such as printer and TV in bath room, that allows you to follow movies lying in the bath. View is stunning and wonderful, especially at night.
Above and beyond club benefits are numerous and the lounge on the 28th floor is very nice, cozy and not many people there. You can have breakfast (semi buffet at the lounge or full breakfast buffet at the market), afternoon tea and evening cocktails there. The offerings for tea time and cocktails are not extensive but fine; for instance there were (only) two hot items in the evening. However, they serve great cocktails - try their Singapore Sling, very well! You also get a 100 HK$ credit per person and day for laundry which is a very nice touch.
All in all I would highly recommend the hotel to anybody!
Best,
Grischtu

flatlander have not mentioned yet (once again thanks to them!).
To sum it up: We had a brilliant stay; staff really goes beyond the horizon! A pro-pos beyond: Stayed at an Above and beyond Club Suite 60 on the 27th floor, very spacious and great amenities (including fruit plate, chocolates, daily newspaper at your door etc.) and wonderful tech gimmicks such as printer and TV in bath room, that allows you to follow movies lying in the bath.

You're welcome.

So they had a printer in the "Above and Beyond" room? Good, given the excessively high cost of printing anything in the business centre!

Just checked out a few days ago, all was pretty much as expected, we had a Harbour 38 room on 22nd floor which apparently is the highest non-above & beyond. High tech room, printer, DVD etc., great bath area, not really a bathroom since it opens up to the rest of the room. King size bed directly facing a huge panorama window overlooking harbor and HK island. Above and Beyond is probably great if you intend to spend some time at the hotel and for my next stay I will book it anyway. We didn't even find the time to check out the restaurants except for Green which was surprisingly good. Area not so great but manageable. Would stay there again even without promotion unless most of what I need or want to do is on HK island.

Thinking about this one, has the highest average reviews on booking.com, it appears.

Icon 36 City view rooms are about 9600 HKD all-in while the Harbour View is about 10,480 HKD, for 5 nights in November. THese are non-refundable rates.

Good to hear about the shuttle, might make it a bit more viable. Otherwise was considering something like the Panorama, because of price and location and reviews compared to similarly-priced hotels.

Thinking about this one, has the highest average reviews on booking.com, it appears.

Icon 36 City view rooms are about 9600 HKD all-in while the Harbour View is about 10,480 HKD, for 5 nights in November. THese are non-refundable rates.

I think it merits the high review scores.

I also think the view's worth it, especially if you haven't been to HK before. I spent a lot of time enjoying the view so I felt it was worthwhile - there's nothing taller than the hotel between it and HK Central.

Location is what makes me hesitate.

Seems like a long walk to the TST MTR to get to the island, even longer to get to the Star Ferry terminal.

We stayed at the ICON for three nights in early August. It was worth the around $750 US we paid after upgrading to a Club deal with breakfast, tea and happy hour included as well as a great HK lightshow view. This was on the three for two deal. I did the upgrade on arrival. It also included 200 HK $ in laundry each day which was nice. Breakfast in the downstairs restaurant had better choices than the penthouse clubroom, but, of course, no view.

As to the shuttle, we were able to take the airport shuttle bus several times from the subway station in Kowloon to the hotel and vice versa (as well as the ICON's own shuttle), no one seems to care if you are coming from the airport or not.

I assume the three for two deal was some kind of opening special no longer available?

None other than the 14+ day advance booking for 20% off. I took advantage of it, got the Club 80 Suite, and will report back. Pretty excited.

I'm typing this from a regular ICON 36 Harbour View room (18th). My stay has been great so far. The staff are all very friendly and helpful with directions.
I have one complaint about the shower. There's no door and the water sprays all over the bathroom floor! I tried switching from the ceiling shower head to the hand held shower head and it doesn't help. Did anyone else run into this problem?

A couple more points- The TST East and TST MTR stations are connected by an underground passage. You can walk from the hotel to the TST MTR in 10-15 minutes.

If you arrive in HKG late night/early morning, a taxi from the airport should be around $240 HKD. I had a print out of the Chinese address from the hotel's website. The driver seemed happy to see the Chinese address and knew where to go.

Im thinking of booking this hotel, having seen all the good reviews on Trip Advisor and now here.

I was thinking about the ICON 38 Harbour room as opposed to the 36, does anyone know the difference? My main criteria for the hotel/ room is the view, so it would be good to know if the 38s are on high floors etc, or indeed only on lower ones! There is little price difference between the 36 and 38s so Im a bit sceptical as to what exactly I'd get