I'm currently sitting in my room at the Pearl Continental in Karachi, and stayed earlier in the week at the Serena in Islamabad.

The Serena was an extremely pleasant surprise. I was booked in here by my Pakistani hosts, and knowing nothing about it, I didn't know what to expect. Major winner though--the hotel is only five years old, the rooms are immense (I stayed in the Executive floor), and the amenities are excellent as is the service. It is a very well thought-out hotel for the business traveler--great desk area, FREE wireless broadband, free breakfast and snacks in the executive lounge, and so on. The bathrooms are very lovely and huge too (this is my real test of a hotel). The Serena is located right next to the diplomatic compound and the security was beyond thorough--every car is stopped at the bottom of the driveway to have engine, trunk, and underside checked, and then you have to run a sort of concrete barrier obstacle course to get up the driveway. Impressive. The only slight letdown was the restaurants, which were only average.

Yesterday I flew down to Karachi, and I must say, after the Serena, I found the PC very much a come-down. The rooms are spacious enough, but pretty shabby. I had been expecting a recently renovated hotel, but what I have is beat-up furniture and fixtures, poor design (no outlets near the desk, a safe that is so small I can't fit my tiny laptop into it, a bizarrely tilted bathroom door threshold that I trip over nine times out of ten...) No broadband of any kind except in the lobby, and the telephone's data port doesn't even work to connect a line. If the Serena is a five-star, the Pearl Continental is barely making four. It's comfortable enough, and the service is good, but the rooms are just adequate. I should have booked the Sheraton, but my employer had security issues and wanted me to stay in a non-American-identified hotel.