Just completed a five night stay and found it good value overall. The Diamond Suite Upgrade was honoured and I was assigned a suite on the 13th floor overlooking Tolo Harbour.

Check-in was reasonably smooth though I found it strange that the front desk clerk suggested that I use a Suite Upgrade before they expired as I already had it confirmed via Gold Passport Concierge. They did take me up to the Regency Club lounge to complete the formalities and then escort me to my room.

The following morning I went up to the Regency Club for breakfast and was told by the lounge staff that my rate didn't include breakfast but I could go downstairs to the main buffet restaurant. When I told her that breakfast is included for Diamond Gold Passport members she asked me for my membership number. I'm not sure how many people either memorise theirs or bring their card to breakfast but I'm not one of them.

Eventually she realises she misheard my room number and I was allowed in for breakfast. Thankfully that only happened once and I didn't have any issues getting breakfast or evening drinks for the remainder of the stay.

The HKD2,200 Welcome Credit can only be used for services provided by the hotel so things like Internet access and airport transfers were excluded. We used ours on a nice dinner at Sha Tin 18 (where the Peking duck is excellent), a treatment at Melo Spa and a few pieces of laundry/dry cleaning.

I'm used to staying either on Hong Kong Island or TST so it's quite a bit further out but with the MTR it wasn't too difficult to move around. It certainly takes longer than half an hour to get to Central as we had lunch at Caprice and the trip took close to an hour.

Overall the hotel is good value for money but only recommended if an hour commute each way to Central/TST isn't an issue. The couple of small service lapses indicate that the staff aren't quite the finished product yet but it was a pleasant stay.