Continuing my series of reviews of my pre-Covid Asian favorites. This one remains solid, although it has slipped a little bit.

Nothing has changed in terms of procedures or physical appearance of the hotel. Arrive at in the underground garage by taxi, take elevator to the lobby, ask someone to buzz you up to the club lounge, where you are greeted by familiar and friendly faces. Now, I've spent dozens of nights here and have to give them credit -- they always remembered my preferences (high floor xx08 room, alternatively xx23, no suites). They managed to deliver this 90% of the time pre-Covid, and I was pleased that the computer had remembered my preferences and I was assigned my desired room. Nothing has changed, and the rooms can appear a bit worn, although this was nothing like the godawful run down room I had at Sheraton Macau a few days earlier. Note that a number of new buildings went up over the last couple years, and the view is getting more obstructed, especially from the xx23 side of the building). Still, this remains one of my favorite hotel views in the world.





The club lounge, I am saddened to report, has slipped significantly. I spent a lot of time here during the 2019 protests, and with super low occupancy, it's possible that they upped their game temporarily over and above what they delivered over the years. What I remember is delicious salads and tasty hot items, a decent spread of nibbles, excellent desserts. Now, the hot items are a farce (soup and a bowl of rice with a tiny piece of salmon or chicken), salads are mediocre, and the mainstay seems to be cheap sushi with surimi or tamago. Very limited variation, they had (what felt like) the same salads and sushi out four days in a row. It was quite sad. Now, can you make this into a dinner? Sure, if you're not very picky and don't have much of an appetite. Breakfast is only available at the lounge now (somebody mentioned Hugo's above), and is middling (hot and cold items off the buffet, order eggs and one daily hot dish), also limited variation.

There were severe issues with the air-conditioning. Hallways, some elevators, and even the club lounge on one night were HOT. My rooms were fine, although I can't vouch that this would be the case for all rooms. Note that HK is still somewhat in Covid recovery mode, and enjoyable conveniences are not operating yet, most notably in-town check-in (on the Kowloon side, limited at Central), and the Airport Express shuttle buses.

In sum, I'll be happy to return here, even though for my dates the HR inexplicably ran close to HK$2000 while the GH would have been available at HK$2300. Gonna review the GH soon, but for now I'll say, for view and ease of getting around via public transportation, the HR is the clear winner.