bhrubin

RC doesn't include any guarantee of Club access for Plat elites. Period. Any upgrade is completely at the discretion of the hotel. Almost always, you need to pay for the Club access upgrade. RC Clubs aren't considered regular lounges for Plat elite access because they are far more premium and generous in their offerings.

SHLTP

Jw has a great club lounge and is guaranteed. RC portman's lounge is nice as well... However not guaranteed and I doubt you will get upgraded. JWs had nice views too while RC doesn't.

I find portman old. It is also a nightmare to get a taxi. Absolute nightmare. I try never to go to Portman for meetings because of zoo atmosphere (they also barely have parking because it was built before people had cars) so one had to park at Plats 66 and will over. Very inconvenient.

JW is convenient and great lounge. Rooms a little amall but overall a fabulous property. I might even prefer their lounge breakfast to main breakfast

moondog

Sure it's old, and doesn't have views of the Bund, but it's in Jing'an, which is much nicer than People's Square.

SP03

escape4

Fully agreed, and in the same line of thought, Sheraton Waigaoqiao felt like between a Westin and a Luxury Collection.

SHLTP

Probably the nicest properties for Starwiod I have ever been have been in China or the select special ones overseas

Royal Begonia Sanya and Westin Qingdao were stunning. Always go new in China

racefaith

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lost_in_translation

Three stays at Marriott properties in Shanghai in the last week so thoughts below:

Portman RC - I'm somewhat unclear why this place is still flagged as a Ritz-Carlton, it needs a massive amount of investment and there are standard Marriotts in Asia (FS Marriotts, not JW!) that I would probably rather stay at. Lobby is very pretty and up to RC standards, but the minute you get upstairs it's clear this place in stuck in a complete time warp. Checked in with two colleagues at about 1am for a quick overnight stay following a late flight from Hong Kong, the welcome we received is probably best described as cold and formal. We were fortunately all upgraded one category to a Shanghai View room (no mention of this at check in but was clear when we got to the rooms). Despite all three rooms being booked through my Marriott account and my colleague having zero status I was given the tiniest room on the floor whilst he got one that was probably 50% bigger. I asked if I could have a late check out and was told the latest I could have was 2pm, this was useless as I wouldn't be finished with meetings by then. It felt a bit like I wasn't going to get anywhere arguing so I let the fact that I was technically guaranteed a 4pm check out drop to ensure I got at least a couple of hours of sleep. I note this is also the only booking of the three that has not posted to my Marriott account yet despite being the first stay! Ordered room service on getting to the room which was a burger that looked very nice but with literally zero flavour and that took quite some time to arrive. Rooms are even more dated than the photos make them appear online, the shower had little water pressure and wouldn't stay in place, there is no iron in the room (surely this is a basic requirement for a business hotel?) and the bed was pretty lumpy and not hugely comfortable. Checked out at about 8am and won't be going back. The location is nice if you're looking to do some overpriced shopping, I suppose.

omghaxcode

Thanks for the updated feedback. What were the other Shanghai stays and how do they compare?

lost_in_translation

St. Regis Jingan - A nice hotel albeit with a few bits of questionable interior design. Booked a Premier Deluxe Room and given a one category upgrade to a rather large Executive Deluxe Room (the staff member on checking in noted that this room is actually bigger than their entry level suite). Quality of finish is very high in the room, welcome fruit plate was a very generous size and the room had a great view on a high floor overlooking Shanghai. Very good quality large towels and bed linen. Find it strange that there is no Bluetooth connection or music system of any kind in a brand new high end hotel. Some bits of the interior design are really very nice (the bar, the lobby) others are a weird pastiche of random European architectural styles that really don't belong together (the pool, the bathrooms). Asked about the club lounge on check in and was told the hotel doesn't have one but there is a happy hour in the bar downstairs from 6.30pm-8pm. The signs for the club lounge are still up in the lifts and I could see the reception of the club was manned from my floor (the Executive Deluxe rooms are on floors above the club lounge with an open interior lobby in the centre looking down on the club floor) but I didn't see anyone go in. Not sure what's going on with that, my card key wouldn't work for the 55th floor where the club is so wonder if it's become a facility for the residential floors above instead.

Service was mixed, mostly very good but a few smaller issues. Turn down service never materialized in the evening, I think because I didn't leave my room until around 6.15pm and had the DND light on, but I would have expected a hotel of this caliber to either put a note under the door or to try again later in the evening. Breakfast was decent but very much catered towards Chinese guests with a limited Western selection (the other guests were 95%+ Chinese so this makes perfect sense and is not a criticism). Had an excellent meal in the hotel's Japanese restaurant. All in all this is a good hotel and I would stay again, but Shanghai has so many excellent new 5 star hotels now I'm not sure if I'll get the chance.

lost_in_translation

Shanghai EDITION - last stay of the three and also the best, this has replaced the W as my favourite hotel in Shanghai. Upgraded to a Bund View Room on a high floor. Physically this hotel is great (see the photos I've posted in the separate thread) and service was possibly the best I've had in Mainland China, a couple of examples:

• I left the room to go for a quick walk down the Bund and someone obviously registered this and turned down my room in the 45 minutes I was out, Aman-style
• Within about 10 seconds of sitting down by the pool the attendant came over with a glass of Evian and kept it topped up throughout

Breakfast is a small but high quality buffet together with two made to order items from a quite extensive menu. The tomato and olive soup I had from room service was possibly the nicest bowl of soup I've ever had. The rooftop bar has incredible views but this is very much the cool place to be seen in Shanghai at the moment (along with the Bulgari Hotel) so don't expect to walk up and get a table without booking. I managed to book a very good table a few hours before Saturday evening as a hotel guest, not sure if status played in to this. It should be noted that the best tables with sofas also have a RMB 5,000 minimum spend! There was someone filming outside at the bar when I went up in the afternoon. The Japanese restaurant was totally booked out for the Saturday night (although they offered to call me if a table opened up and I got a call about 2 hours before my preferred time offering me a table).

Small criticisms would be that the gym equipment is limited (e.g. there is no rowing machine) and the pool is quite shallow for swimming, but taking account of the low number of rooms this hotel has both are more than adequate. Between this and the W, Marriott probably has the two best millennial-focused luxury hotel choices in Shanghai now.