I have never been more disappointed in a luxury hotel than I was at the Portman Ritz-Carlton in Shanghai at a recent stay.

At a silent auction, a friend of mine successfully bid on four nights in an Executive Suite on the club floor at this property. I was a bit concerned after reading the threads here on FT but thought to myself, "It's a Ritz-Carlton; I've never had anything but great experiences at Ritz properties, so I'm sure it will be fine." Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I could not have been more wrong.

Walking in the front door set the tone for the stay. There was an immediate, very strong stale smell of mildew. I truly could not believe it. It never went away.

We were checked in at the Executive Floor lounge, which was the nicest part of the experience (other than the rock tiles, which had been applied to the wall with duct tape, falling off the fireplace wall around me during breakfast one morning). We had requested a suite with two beds, which they could not accommodate, but it was a two-room suite, with a separate living room, so we asked for a rollaway bed instead. They accommodated that request -- for $50 per night.

The suite, in style and furnishings, reminded me of the luxury hotels in the major Chinese cities in the early 1990s. Dated, waaaaaaay too much gold, cheesy-ornate. In reality, the suite was fine. It was large in the bedroom, with a lot of wasted space. The shower in the bathroom had the worst water pressure I've experienced in a hotel, of any level, in many years.

The Ritz Bar was the biggest surprise to me. I expected the clubby, dark, wood finished bar experience I've had at Ritz hotels all of the world. Not so much. Think poor, cheesy rip-off of a swanky W Hotel bar meets erotic dancing locale. Just bizarre in every respect. If I had been dropped into this room without any idea of where I was, not in a million years would I guess that it was the 'signature' bar of a Ritz-Carlton.

The 'spa' was a complete and utter joke. The pool was filled with nothing but screaming kids. Seemed like a Cleveland water park in the middle of summer. There was no attendant. The refrigerator labeled as containing cold towels and towels had neither. And that smell -- while it permeated most of the hotel, it was strongest here. Nauseating.

Even the service at the property was lame. Easily 90+% of the guests we saw were either American or European, virtually all speaking English. At the taxi line, out in the front, we asked for "Three on the Bund." Hard to imagine a more requested address in Shanghai than "X-number on the Bund." The majority of the people in the line were going to that same area. The man had no idea what we were saying. We tried several times. He asked to see it in writing, which we didn't have. (It didn't even occur to us that the person in charge of the taxi line at a Ritz-Carlton would not be able to understand us.) Finally, a bi-lingual lady behind us said it in Chinese for us, so we were in the cab and off. Dumbfounding.

Having come to Shanghai from the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, after two nights at this R-C, we decided we'd had enough. We walked away. I booked us into the Park Hyatt Shanghai and called there to have them send a car for us. That was an interesting experience. Checking out of a paid-for suite at the Ritz two days early, with a Park Hyatt car waiting for us out front. Not surprisingly, no one asked why we were leaving two days early, obviously headed to the Park Hyatt. In spite of the increased cost, we never regretted the move for a second.

There is a new Ritz-Carlton that is nearly complete on the other side of the river, behind the Shangri-La and next to a new W Hotel also under construction. I suspect the chain is milking the remaining days of this property and will turn it into a low-end Marriott, or spin it off into another chain once the new hotel is open. It can't happen fast enough.

Portman Ritz-Carlton: Just say no.