Maelstrom

Location The hotel is very well located. It is 100 meters away from the Dapuqiao metro station on Line 9. The metro station sits underneath a shopping mall, with Tianzifang on the other side of it. The only issue with the Dapuqiao station is that it is not a transfer station, which means two interchanges are often required when traveling between the hotel and destination. Check In Check in at the executive lounge was efficient. The members of staff spoke good English and the manager on duty offered us refreshments while we waited. We received a drink voucher (good for two people in event of dual occupancy) and were informed we had received an upgrade from a Deluxe Room to a Junior Suite. We were informed that it was not a high floor room, which is what I requested, but had recently had new carpet and wallpaper put into the rooms as part of a soft facelift of the hotel taking place. Room The rooms are dated, and I was glad that we had been given a room with new carpet and wallpaper. The furnishings are still in decent condition, but it is obvious that it has been a while since a hard refurbishment. For example, the TV was a pretty old plasma with no accessible HDMI or USB ports.I believe that our room had not been vacuumed after the last guests vacated, as I found a toothpick and a large toenail on the carpet in the living area, which was pretty disgusting. There is no lighting above the working desk, though it does have a desk lamp. The curtains are very effective at blocking out light. A capsule coffee machine is provided, with four varieties of capsules. The bed was comfortable and the blanket provided was quite thin, much thinner compared to the Sofitel MyBed, for example. Personally, this is great for me, because I run quite hot when I sleep, but this could be a concern for other guests who need a thicker blanket. The beds do have “bedside” power points, but they are located around the corner of the room in a little enclave. One of the outlets on the bedside needed fixing as it was loose. There is a night light switch on each side of the bed, but it is not labelled. It turns on a bedside night light on both sides of the bed, but there is no corresponding night light in the bathroom, which was a bit annoying (see next paragraph). There is no pillow menu at this hotel, which was disappointing as we found a single pillow too low but two pillows too high. The bathroom has a sliding door with an opaque window. This results in a bright light shining onto the bed when someone goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night. If there was a night light in the bathroom, this would reduce this issue. The toilet is one of those Asian ones with little force on the flush. The bench was very large, which meant my girlfriend’s skin care products did not intrude upon my space – very good! There is a bath, but no bath products are available for use or purchase (like at many Sofitels). The shower was a good size but did not have a ceiling-mounted rain shower. I could not adjust the height of the showerhead, as the locking mechanism was very tightly locked. Amenities are CO Bigelow. A large basket is provided for dirty towels, which is a much better system than the usual ‘throw it on the floor or in the bath’ system. The closet had a good number of hangers and comes with ironing board and iron and umbrella. It only has the single drawer, which is quite shallow. The welcome gift was delivered to our room about fifteen minutes after we arrived. Only two bottles of water are provided in the room, and they are a tiny 330ml bottle. This is an issue for me, fortunately housekeeping were not shy about providing extra waters during turn down service and subsequent room refreshes. The Lounge The lounge is located on the 52nd floor of the hotel. I believe it is inside what used to be a presidential suite. Most members of staff speak a high level of English. You can see the list of lounge benefits below, which was given to us on check in. Breakfast was decent, but nothing to write home about. There was an egg station, where the F&B staff (not kitchen staff) cooked to-order eggs. This was the only ‘to order’ food available (no menus as in other similar properties). A selection of six hot foods, some of which were the same each day (bacon, duck sausage, cooked beans) and some were different (frittatas or hash browns, cherry tomatoes or baked beans), pastries and breads, dim sum, cereal, cheese and cold cuts. Standard fruit juice (apple, pineapple, orange and grapefruit) was available, as well an ‘anti-ageing’ juice that was not very good. Bag and loose-leaf tea was available, and coffee, of course. We only attended the Happy Hour event one of the two nights we were in house. We found the spread good enough to be our dinner. I particularly enjoyed the ‘build your own taco’ station and the Peking duck station, with a chef on hand to carve the duck to order. There was a selection of four hot foods, sushi and sashimi, salad, cheese, cold cuts, breads, desserts and fruit. There was the usual selection of soft drinks, house pour spirits, two whites (sauvignon blanc and chardonnay) and two reds (both cabernet sauvignon, one from Chile and one from France). There was no sparkling wine that I could find.The make your own taco station was the highlight Service Service in the lounge was very good. I had an unfortunate situation in the bar when using our welcome drink voucher.As mentioned earlier, we received one drink voucher when we checked in, and I confirmed that we could have two drinks with the single drink voucher. About nine hours after we checked in, a staff member dropped off a welcome letter to our room, which contained an extra drink voucher. I assumed this drink voucher was a ‘gift’ (perhaps for our loyalty status) and, as such, we could get two drinks per voucher for a total of four drinks.When we arrived at the bar, we presented our first drink voucher and received two drinks. There is a drinks list for silver members and a separate list for gold and platinum members. Each list contains soft drink, four beers, four cocktails/mocktails, two wines and tea and coffee (the beers, cocktails/mockatils and wine are different between the lists). We asked for one of the cocktails to be made without alcohol, as my girlfriend does not drink. The bar manager told us that without alcohol, this drink would be ‘boring’ and that we should ‘just order a juice’. I’m sorry, Mr. Bar Manager, but if we wanted to order a juice, we would order a juice. We then saw that the silver drinks menu had a mojito listed (my girlfriend likes virgin mojitos), which was not on the gold/plat list. The bar manager said that we could only order from the gold/plat menu and not from the silver menu. I can understand not permitting silver members to order from the gold/plat menu, but I am perplexed as to why the gold/plat members cannot order from the silver menu, which presumably has lower food costs for the hotel. Anyway, so we ordered two drinks from the gold/plat menu and they were delicious (both the alcoholic and the ‘boring’ non-alcoholic one).We then attempted to use the second drink voucher for two takeaway soft drinks to the room. The same bar manager, rather rudely and presumably assuming we were trying to cheat the system, told us that we had already received two drinks and that we must have been given the two drink vouchers on arrival, intended to be used for just two welcome drinks. When I tried to explain that the second voucher had been given to us nine hours after we had arrived, so I thought it was a ‘gift’ that we could use for two drinks, we were rather rudely told that we could have ‘one’ soft drink with the voucher.This instance with the bar manager was the only poor interaction we had with any member of staff at the hotel, so I am not letting it affect my ‘review score’ too much. I went back to the bar later that evening to explain what I was trying to do with the vouchers, however I am not sure if he fully understood what I was trying to say, as I was expressing myself in English and not Chinese. However, there was no hard feelings between us.I would recommend to the hotel that simply having a ‘one voucher = one drink’ policy would be much simpler, taking the guesswork and confusion out of the ‘one voucher = one or two drinks, depending on occupancy’ policy. Check Out Check out at the lounge was slow because there was an issue with the points that I had used to partially prepay for my booking. Presumably, this deposit amount was in another window in my booking on the system and staff member doing my checkout started to charge my credit card. When I noticed what was happening, the charge had already gone through and the staff member had to call a manager downstairs and be instructed on how to process the credit card refund over the phone. The staff member was a trainee and very polite and apologetic, so I had no issues with waiting. Fortunately, I was not in a rush to leave. No complaints about the check out experience. Overall The hotel is in a fantastic location and the lounge is a very pleasant experience. One of the better lounges I have had the privilege to visit so far. The rooms are a bit dated and I would recommend asking for one with the new carpet and wallpaper as they definitely look better than the ones without the new work done. I would happily return to this property, though I hope a hard refurbishment is coming soon.