Cathay Boy

just realized they are not the same owner, that St. Regis guy sure stick it on Sheraton, LOL. I really want to cancel the rest of my stay here at Sheraton to move over to St. Regis... urgh... next time I guess....

Fly Me To The Moon

Domestic flight arrived Chengdu on time at 20:00, and was in the hotel by 20:45. Luckily, I got a driver who knew exactly where the hotel was, and traffic was a breeze at this time of night.

To sum it up, in the few hours that I have been here, I love the hotel. The staff, from door boy, to check in staff (there were three people attending to me to check in), to concierge, to the butler all aimed to please. They were very enthusiastic about this great hotel which just opened, and felt so proud to be working here and also working as part of the St. Regis brand. The butler even asked me "have you ever stayed at other great St. Regis hotels around the world?" He was genuinely proud to be a part of the St. Regis brand and team; I could feel it.

As Platinum, got upgraded to a Lafayette Suite. The layout is similar to the Astor Suite of the St. Regis Singapore. Enter from the main door into a foyer. There is a small powder room on the right-hand side, and straight ahead is the living room. If you turn left, will enter a walk-in closet/foyer area for the bed- and bathroom. Facing you is the bathroom and the bedroom further to the right.

The design and furnishings speak sophistication. The hotel has chosen good-quality furnitures, linens, marbles, woods, etc.

To answer my own question in a post above, the brand of tea in the rooms is JING. Yes, just as I had hoped. This brand, although quite unknown in the retail world, is an up-and-coming brand for food service. Now being offered in more and more five-star hotels in China (also in over 70 other countries worldwide), and also some hotels and restaurants in Hong Kong. Their teas are just exquisite. Needless to say, I will be emptying the tea amenities in the room each day....

My room rate of CNY 1,400 includes breakfast (for two). Looking forward to scoping out the buffet tomorrow. Breakfast can be taken in Decanter or in Social.

Platinum members are also invited to join happy hour for free drinks at Decanter every evening from about 17:00.

Cathay Boy

And they are running a special of only $1400 RMB per night, I will back in Chengdu in March, looking forward to it! NO MORE OLD SHERATON!

Fly Me To The Moon

Had breakfast at Social this morning. It was buffet-style. Decanter, just next door, supposedly offers breakfast served at the table. Will try that tomorrow.

Social was about 3/4 full when I was there, from 9:15 - 10:30 on the Saturday morning. About 5-6 tables had guests wearing their hotel slippers to come down to breakfast. What was shocking, however, were that there were two tables' at which the guests not only wore the slippers, but also their pyjamas! Yes, these were obviously pyjamas. I don't know why the hotel does not stop this because I think this is going a bit too far to be so casual.

Breakfast buffet was good. What I can remember: pancake and waffle station, eggs station, noodle station, hot western and chinese foods, congee station, fresh-cut fruits, a small yogurt fridge, ice cream freezer, salads and pastas, selection of 8 fruit juices (chilled, not freshly squeezed). The staff were all very good and attentive, and whisked up empty plates from the tables with good speed. The Executive Chef was roaming around the restaurant for about half the time I was there, but he just kept checking the buffet spread. If I were him, I would try to interact with some of the guests.

Came back to my room to vegetate. I looked through the iPad mini controller in the room, which stores a wealth of info about the hotel and room, as well as controlling everything in the room itself (lights, curtains, temperatures, DND, etc.). In fact, one could even order room service from the iPad, but I did not try. I looked through the menu, and most choices were accompanied by photos of the dish...nice touch.

Went down to Decanter at 5:30pm for the happy hour (complimentary for Platinums). They have a special menu for this and I could order hot or cold drinks, plus complimentary alcoholic beverages during the happy hour. There was also a food menu of three each of cold appetizers, hot dishes, and desserts. I tried the (1) asparagus and sundried tomato soup with mozzarella croutons; (2) sous vide stuffed chicken with spinach; (3) baked cheese cake; and (4) lavender chocolate cream. All were very good. In fact, I had seen most of these dishes in the in-room dining menu before, and I think the happy-hour selections were just miniaturised versions of the normal dish.

Then went to Yan Ting for a Chinese dinner. The restaurant menu is VERY extensive, and all choices looked good. I had (1) hot and sour seafood soup (not sour enough, in my opinion); (2) fried prawns with salty egg yolk and broccoli (very good); and (3) roast duck and foie gras fried rice in a stone pot (also very good). Also ordered Jasmine tea. The entire dinner came to around CNY 250 all in. This was inclusive of a 20% discount for all hotel guests dining in the restaurants (discount not applicable to in-room dining).

Hotel turndown service has been impeccable. I would say that they did not once miss anything. Butler service, which I used for pressing (three pieces complimentary) and shoe shine, was handled with great efficiency.

Chengdu is a great city to be in, but I loved the hotel so much that I just chose to vegetate and relax in the suite for the day. Next time I am in the city, I will try to go out to explore more. Leaving tomorrow after breakfast, and already longing to come back to the St. Regis Chengdu.

A wonderful hotel, and as one poster said above, this hotel and the staff 100% "gets it".

XMS91

I completely agree. Especially after I just spent time at two SPG properties that really don't get it. I'm looking forward to a return to Chengdu for more panda time and more StR time

lcpteck

Maybe they should use this property as part of a promotion for Kungfu Panda 3 movie. Deck the whole hotel with Kungfu Panda stuff.... Convert a few rooms to Kungfu Panda theme? Organize a tour to Panda research base?

Just some crazy thoughts....

Cathay Boy

Urgh, please don't cheapen class with kids stuff. I really hate that. If I want a bunch of animations I'll go stay at Disneyland hotels, not St. Regis.

lcpteck

Fly Me To The Moon

Actually, for turndown each evening that I was there, the hotel did leave a little panda ornament (a cute little thing made of clay or ceramic). The first night, I got a blue "boy" panda named "July" and the second night, I got a yellow "girl" panda named "Aug".

lcpteck

Be a VIP at the Grand Opening of The St. Regis Chengdu

The St. Regis Chengdu Grand Opening package includes:

• A three-day (3-day), two-night (2-night) stay in a Deluxe Room at The St. Regis Chengdu, checking in on December 17 and checking out on December 19, 2014
• Breakfast buffet at The St. Regis each morning of your stay
• Admission for two (2) to the Grand Opening festivities on December 18, including:

1. Ribbon-cutting ceremony
2. International lunch buffet
3. Wine reception
4. Gala event
5. Photo opportunity with Li Bingbing

lcpteck

Sold for: 21,000 Starpoints

newshound

I just had a stay at this property and thought I would share some thoughts...

Overall this was a good stay however i found the lack of English by some key staff to be a bit of a challenge and was the only thing that let the place down.

I had arranged an airport transfer and despite arriving in the early hours of the morning due to a significant delay the driver was there with my name on a board. I was a bit surprised that we had to trek quite a distance and over to the car park but I assume this was due to the late arrival.

Check in was efficient and I received an upgrade to a St Regis suite which was great as I had booked the cheapest room. The suite was impressive with high ceilings and all of the technology mentioned in previous reviews.

I had breakfast at decanter which was reasonable but didn't blow me away, it was a little below the size/quality of St Regis Bangkok. For some reason i was seated in the family area which meant kids running around and screaming, which is what kids do, but not particularly relaxing for a weekend morning.

I wanted to arrange a trip out to the panda reserve but with the concierge's poor English and my lack of Chinese I couldn't figure out if I would have time given my schedule so I had to skip. Similarly I found check-out to be a bit of a language challenge, having to point to a list to detail my minibar consumption.

So whilst the hard product is really nice I guess I am a little neutral about the overall experience. It should be really nice but, other than the room, it didn't have the wow factor you might expect from a St Regis in Asia.

Cathay Boy

I concur, the lack of English is horrific for the best brand in SPG. Even Sheraton next door most of the major staffs speak decent to good English. What's going on here?

Doppy

Just completed a nice four night stay here. The property is very nice and the staff tries really hard, but is rather inexperienced and the English level is surprisingly low for many of them. Speaking a little Chinese myself, I get that it's not easy to go between these two languages, but the St. Regis should either hire more experienced staff or invest in training. The whole point of a luxury hotel is that there aren't excuses for systematic lapses in service.

As a SPG Gold, I don't expect upgrades, and the St. Regis didn't disappoint. I asked at check-in about an upgrade (having booked the cheapest room) and was told I was assigned a higher floor as a Gold. This was still in the same room category, however, not an upgrade to one of the top floors' Grand Deluxe rooms. The hotel didn't seem particularly full.

I was having trouble with my ATM card (and both the nearby Citibank branch and Citigold customer service were totally unhelpful, btw, unless you consider them advising me to return to the United States to get cash as helpful advice) and asked for any suggestions from the check-in agents, but after conferring in Chinese, they basically just chuckled at me.

One morning I called the concierge to ask for a taxi to the panda research center. The agent's English wasn't great, but we were able to reach an understanding. However, I was rather surprised when he didn't know offhand how much I should expect to pay - this has to be the most popular tourist attraction in Chengdu.

I noticed every time I called and asked for something people asked me for my room number. Most nice hotels greet you by name and know what room you're in, but that didn't appear to be the case, despite the "high tech" feel of the place. Given that dealing with numbers in foreign languages can be hard, it's rather clumsy to have to keep giving and confirming a room number every time you ask for a taxi or whatever.

The room itself, especially for being the lowest category, was a really good size and nicely appointed. The bathroom was also very good, though it took me quite some time to figure out how to turn the shower on. There's a termostat of sorts on the wall in the bathroom - seems to start at 40 degrees celcius when you turn it on - but I couldn't figure out what it did. I asked the butler and he didn't know either, but then later suggested that maybe there's heated floors in the winter.

Every time you enter the room the TV pops up outside of a cabinet next to the desk. This is neat the first time and annoying every time after that. I don't tend to watch a lot of TV, and the TV is in the way if you're not using it (and it turns on and plays music and a welcome message), so every time I entered the room I would have to fumble with the "smart" remote to shut the system down.

No irons in the room - I get there's butler service, but would prefer to just have an iron for some stuff.

The room is very "high tech" with electronic everything and an ipad to control it. This is a nice feature, but I don't think it's a substitute for actual buttons. For example, when leaving the room, there are no light switches by the door. If you want to turn out the lights, you have to go back to the desk for the ipad or use the buttons by the bed, then, if it's night, fumble your way out of a dark room. The light switches by the bed and for the bathroom and closet lights were not very responsive - you have to press them multiple times on occassion to get a response.

As my mother used to say whenever I wanted to buy a gadget, the more things something does, the more there is to go wrong. My first night I couldn't get the lights in the bathroom to turn off - not with the switch, not with the ipad. By the time I discovered this it was rather late and I didn't want to deal with a parade of maintenance people at all hours, so I just closed the frosted glass doors (which did nothing) and slept with the lights on. This didn't bother me much, but for those who like to sleep in blackout conditions, it would have been a real problem.

My rate included breakfast, which was served at Social on the fourth floor. Very nice spread of Western and Asian options, though I would have preferred if they limited the Asian options to Chinese and just focused on doing that well.

Gym was nice and the pool looked good.

On departure, the bellhop took me out to the taxi. The driver then started to tell him that there was a Y7 toll that I would have to pay on top of the meter. Unfortunatley this was translated to Y70 when it was told to me. That didn't sound right, so I spent several minutes trying to clarify, whether it was an additional Y70, or the total price would be Y70, or what was going on. They were speaking the local dialect and I couldn't understand with my limited Mandarin. I was pretty sure I had read there would be an extra toll of a negligible amount, but in an attempt to end the trip with as few RMB as possible, I had only kept about Y100 on me for the taxi ride to the airport, and thus it made a big difference if the Y60 ride I was expecting was actually going to be Y130+. Eventually the bellhop grew tired of me trying to figure out what the real story was, so he basically just put me in the cab and sent me on my way. Back to the issue with the taxi to the panda center - staff should really know how much a taxi should cost to the top could destinations. Not a great note to end the stay on. (The taxi was Y53 + a Y7 toll.)

Overall, though I focused on a lot of (small) negatives above, I think it's a great property and well located. I would definitely return.

banzani

Just completed a 2 night stay here as part of a small event which we organized.

Have to say this was among the best Plat recognitions ever, not sure how much of it was due to organizing an event. Attention from staff, including Management level, was incredible, with entire 'comittees' of people around for welcome, farewell, including all sorts of offers for assistance and best wishes.

The GM came down to exchange a few words, he's actually from Austria and seems to have his team under great control.

I was upgraded from entry level room to (I think Lafayette) suite. Very generous room, nicely appointed. Overall the hard product is outstanding, as can be expected from a new St Regis in Asia.

As others have said, some of the prices are surprisingly resonable, perhaps helped by the current weakness of the RMB. Cocktail in the bar is $8, main dish in Chinese restaurant around $15. Yes, not all staff are fluent in English, but what can one realistically expect. They were all friendly and eager to please.

Some oddities and areas for small improvements:
- brekfast selection overall good, but a little short of, say, BKK. limited selection of fresh fruit and juices
- every time you enter the room, the TV goes on, needs some fiddling around to turn it off again
- you can't use the sauna/steam room in the spa (unless booking a treatment), only in the pool changing area. However, you need to tell them to turn it on approximately 30 minutes in advance. Also, you need a swimming cap if you want to use the pool (just like in Japan).

Overall great experience and would definitely come back.