Originally Posted by
ftrichard
Good. I've stayed here a couple of times over the years (once when visiting HK and once last summer for a staycation) and the lobby and rooms have always reminded me of an Aloft not a Le Meridien. It's completely unrepresentative of other Le Meridiens around Asia (Bangkok, KL, Saigon etc.) and I always felt it was branded Le Meridien because they felt they could charge more than if they branded it Aloft. It would be nice if they put in a proper lounge and upped the Platinum offering in the evening now that the Marriott Ocean Park has gone to the dogs. Last summer I was very underwhelmed by the wine they served in the restaurant as the Platinum happy hour. Filthy stuff it was that made me yearn for the Courtyard HK's lounge.
This hotel was signed, designed and built at that awkward time in Le Méridien's history in the early 2000s when the brand was being passed between different financial services groups and went through several different leaders with different visions for the brand [gone was longtime veteran Bernard Lambert, replaced by Juergen Bartels and Robert Riley]. Le Méridien went from being a near-luxury group with well-designed hotels with elements of France integrated into their designs [i.e. La Brasserie being a staple restaurant, a subtle but present emphasis on breads, cheeses and wines] since its inception, to one that started losing its way under Forte in the early 90s when they tried making the hotels grey and somber to be "contemporary" and "chic", to one that tried pioneering "modern" luxury with their white elephant Art+Tech project in the early 2000s. The basic tenets of Art+Tech were, as the name implies, to marry art and technology in rooms that were predominantly paneled in light wood, featured backlit art, plasma screen TVs, etched glass headboards and frosted glass bathrooms, and the first hotels that were supposed to roll out this new theme were what was to be Le Méridien Marble Arch [The Cumberland London, which was eventually fully renovated in that style but has now made way for the Hard Rock Hotel], Le Méridien Vienna [which still features the basic designs of the project in the rooms, even after the soft renovation it recently underwent], the former Le Royal Méridien Hamburg [now Le Méridien Hamburg], the former Le Méridien Minneapolis [now Loews Minneapolis; this was the first full Art+Tech hotel in the world], the former Le Méridien Tower Kuwait [now Le Royal Tower Kuwait; this was the first Art+Tech Le Méridien in the Middle East and was supposed to be joined by Le Méridien Mubarakiya which never opened] and Le Méridien Cyberport. The Cyberport hotel design was slightly toned down and it opened in 2004 as a regular Le Méridien as Art+Tech was aborted, and Le Méridien then went to Starwood the following year.
The design still incorporated some bits of Art+Tech through the minimalist aesthetic, etched headboards, flat-screen TVs and the glass bathrooms, but I will agree that it didn't age very well and firmly looks "early 2000s tech chic" that is more inline with the current Aloft design rather than the now-established mid-century modern theme synonymous with the Le Méridien of today. I wish they took the rooms design a little bit further [i.e. a more imaginative drafting chair, a headboard design that isn't just another map of the world] but this is a good step to modernize the hotel. The restaurant looks really good, and I do hope they incorporate a dedicated club lounge or, at the very least, offer a good lounge alternative. Who knows, however, between Marriott and COVID, if they'll kill it off entirely.
We'll see soon enough. Bring on the renovation!
khabah