blueline7

May have to go on business...Will need a good luxury hotel...Done some research but any recommendations from personal experience would be appreciated.

yonex737

Where do you need to be in SZ? Bigger city than you night think. If in Futian by the Mrt, or the convention center, then I would recommend the Ritz Carlton or the Shangri-La. ritz is smaller, better service, but Shangri-La has more facilities, restaurant options. Ritz is closer to convention center. definitely spring for club floor in either one, gives so much value in free breakfast and meeting rooms.

Good luck!

yonex737

BKKROP

I have stayed at the Shangri La and the Hyatt, both in different parts of the city, both I found excellent whilst the Hyatt rooms on the club floor were unbelieveable and that food kitchen bonanza on the top floor was awesome

transparent

Currently staying at the Westin Nanshan (Futian).

Again, depending on where you need to be, this SPG property is top notch. It is attached to a high end shopping mall and across from the Window of the World amusement park. (世界之窗)

The food options and service in the executive club are good.

It is about 20-30 minutes by cab to downtown (Luohu) business district however, though it's right off the number one subway line with a stop adjacent.

blueline7

Many thanks for your suggestions so far!

Looks like I will be visiting Bantian, Longgang District, if that can help you narrow down my best options...

ainternational

I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the Grand Hyatt Shenzen. It was pretty much on par with the Park Hyatt Shanghai and Park Hyatt Tokyo, two of my favorite hotels worldwide. The club level rooms are truly amazing. The bathrooms are actually in the center of the room if you can believe this, and feature a glass which can become clear or opaque electronically. I had a great corner room with spectacular views on a high floor.

The buffet breakfast was better than the PH Shanghai and PH Vendome, which says a lot, at least in my book. While no Hyatt has the service of an Aman, the GH Shenzen did go well above and beyond my expectations in all categories.

blueline7

Very interesting. Many thanks for this. If I were to choose at this moment, I would have a hard time choosing between the GH Shenzhen and the brand new St. Regis, based upon the comments thus far, and my own off-FT research...

blueline7

Having something more than a mere passing interest in food, I must ask you exactly what you mean by "food kitchen bonanza"... Certainly has piqued my curiosity!

moondog

The Crowne Plaza near Windows of the World is actually one of my favorite hotels in all of China. When I'm there, I simply don't want to leave. But, I just checked, and it appears to no longer be a CP. New name is "Venice Hotel".

ainternational

It's an accurate depiction. The morning breakfast buffet is like an international food festival. It goes on, quite literally, forever. There must be 20 chefs cooking in open kitchens where they serve up everything from Chinese to Japanese to European to American to ... name the country's food.

Spectacular. But like most things in China, it *looks* great. e.g. it looks better than it actually is. But this is completely normal IMHO in this country.

ajca

Looking at luxury options in Shenzhen for next few days and couldn't find a more recent thread than this (apologies if there is one and I missed it)

Does anyone have any more up to date views on the best options here?

I am at the RC club lounge now and overall the property seems excellent but I have flexibility next week to check out somewhere else.

moondog

If you like shekou, just do the Hilton.

chinmoylad

I also enjoyed my stay at the Marriott in Nanshan.

ajca

So I realise that Shenzhen is probably not at the top of anyone's luxury travel list but after spending the past week there I thought I would share some notes for anything who is visiting from work (or a side trip from HK)

Those considering a side trip from HK now have another option in the very high speed train from West Kowloon station which in theory takes only 14 minutes to get you to Futian station in Shenzhen (near the luxury hotels). However buying a ticket and going through immigration can take an hour or two. If they fix the totally inefficient ticket buying system then this will be an excellent option, until then, perhaps taking a hotel car is less hassle.

Shenzhen itself is interesting from both a historical and contemporary perspective. It is where Deng changed the course of history in 1992 by visiting what we then a sleepy fishing town and planted a tree and proclaiming "To be rich is glorious", this beginning the economic journey what we have seen in China in over the past three decades. To see the sleepy fishing town today from Futian it feels like a hypersonic futuristic Singapore, and to see it from the 96th floor at the St Regis is just looks vast, absolutely vast.

Ok, the good stuff, luxury hotels:

Ritz Carlton - overall design is less contemporary high-tech than FS and St Regis but I love it. Even the lead-in category room layout is fantastic. Service across the board is warm and efficient and quite polished. Most importantly, they seem to have "Hong Kong internet", ie no firewall so you can access Gmail etc without a VPN - a big advantage from my perspective. Club lounge and my room had a fantastic view of the modern skyline of Futian. This would definitely be my recommendation

Four Seasons - only about 200m from the RC. The design feels like a brand new Novotel with more expensive artwork. The club lounge and the room I was assigned faced the much less attractive older skyline (basically opposite to the RC) which I didn't like. The club lounge floor had been taken over with some business event so felt like a zoo. There was construction work happening in the club lounge. While the RC club lounge felt like a warm enclave to hang out in all day if you want to, the FS definitely was not

St Regis - about 5km away from RC and FS in an area next to a nice park, The St Regis's advantage is being in the top 20 floors of a 100 story building. There are few tall buildings nearby so the views are incredible. The public spaces are beautifully designed but relatively small so they have to work pretty hard to keep gawking tourists out. The room layout for an upgraded category ("Good Fortune View" or something like that, it was on the very auspicious 88th floor) The service on arrival and departure was a bit all over the place and the checkin desks were literally a mess. Overall I felt the service at the hotel was mechanistic and kind of sterile but it's hard to tell how much was just language barrier

Food at both RC and St Regis was fantastic (I didn't stay at the FS for long enough to try it). I am glad that I left when I did as I was concerned that I would actually turn into a dumpling myself if I ate any more dumplings at breakfast

From Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons you can walk to and through a vast network of shopping malls where I think you could buy anything you could possibly want (Western or Chinese).


View from my room at the St Regis

View from my room at Ritz Carlton

moondog

I used to live in SZ, but don't go there so much any more because the airport sucks, HK is better, and Shekou is in the midst of a decline.

That having been said, Shekou is where it all started, and the Pen pool is my favourite in China. Shekou is better than Futian, and is semi relaxed.