My hotel strategy on this trip was to use free nights and sleep on the plane so that I could splurge on a few choice nights at Aman resorts in Bali. Accordingly, I used 10,000 SPG points for a free night at the W. This also worked out well since I would be leaving the next morning at 11:20 am for Singapore on CX in F. This is the one daily flight on CX to Singapore that offers an F cabin, so I planned around this in order to take advantage of this flight. My BA points ticket included Toronto-Hong Kong-Singapore, all in First Class, all on one one-way ticket.

I would have preferred to try out the Peninsula, Mandarin or even stay again at the Intercontinental Hong Kong which is fabulous, but given the ease of the transfer to the W and the free night, it just made sense to stay at the W. I was however, delighted with the W. Upon checking in, I was thanked as an SPG Gold and even upgraded to a corner room. This was kind of special considering that in other cases, being SPG Gold counted for F-all. The W Hotel was very cooly designed as expected and the room was spacious, very comfortable, had a great view, and a very nice bathroom with an especially good shower.






The highlight of this hotel however, was certainly the pool, which was located on the 76 floor, with an expansive view of Hong Kong harbour, and was as beautiful at night as during the day. It was incredible to wake up and go for a leisurely swim there the next morning!








The hotel gym was also well equipped with an incredible view.



The W Hotel Hong Kong is a superlative hotel for an easy transit, however for touring, particularly for first time visitors, I would certainly want to stay at the Intercontinental or Peninsula in Tsim Sha Shui. Nevertheless, don't completely rule out this hotel as it has free shuttles to various convenient locations and the accommodations, pool, and service, are all excellent. And for a points stay, this was truly great value, since a paid night would cost perhaps US $350.

I reserved dinner at Kitchen, the W Hotel buffet restaurant for 8:45 pm and got there right on time after checking-in and setting myself up in my room. Kitchen was not that busy at this time on a Saturday night, but the buffet did close at 10:00 pm, so I had to get right down to business.





The Buffet had a reasonably good selection and was very nicely presented, but it certainly was not as comprehensive as other buffets such as the Intercontinental, nor did it include show-stopper cooking stations and dishes like Cafe Too.










I did nevertheless get several very good plates of some very nice and tasty dishes.







The quality of the food was all excellent and it was all nicely presented. It was fairly expensive at around $70 if I recall - $80 after two diet cokes...., plus a 10% service charge....I think that I would say that this is not a "destination buffet", in the same way as Intercontinental or Cafe Too is; i.e. it is worth going if you are already at the W Hotel, but I would certainly not go out of the way for it. The seafood selection in particular was rather disappointing, as in Hong Kong one can expect much more in terms of selection and also quality. On the whole, I would rate this buffet 7.5 out of 10 (Burj al Arab is a 10, just so you can reference the scale, and Intercontinental is a 9 out of 10).