We stayed for eight nights in late November 2007, and had an amazing time. This report is quite detailed, so for those who don’t want to read it all, let me say that the Langham Place is a superb hotel, in an exciting, vibrant location, and we would recommend it to anyone who wanted the very best quality at an excellent price (for Hong Kong).
After a long flight from Heathrow we had booked the hotel’s limousine service to take us directly to the hotel. It was well worth the money considering the comfort, service and convenience.
We had booked a suite deal for eight nights through the hotel’s own web site. It turned out to be very good value. I recommend keeping an eye on their web site, since different offers and deals come up from time to time. We changed our booking with them twice, each time going for something even better. All changes and any questions were all done by email, and everything was handled so efficiently and professionally.
The suite deal included the buffet breakfast and club facilities, so on arrival we were escorted directly to the ‘Club L’ on the 36th Floor to check in. We were presented with a hot towel and a small cup of tea, and after dealing with the paperwork we were shown to our room.
THE ROOM
Room 3707 (ask for it directly if you like the sound of it) was even bigger than we had booked. It had everything we had expected – a lounge, kitchen area, separate bedroom and bathroom - and even more besides such as a further washroom/toilet, a walk-in wardrobe room, and even a separate study. In all, there were six telephones throughout the suite!
The kitchen had a long bar that you could sit at, and included a fridge/freezer, cooker, microwave, glasses, cutlery, plates, etc, and a great coffee maker. There were drinks and snacks in the mini bar for purchase, but we were provided with two or three bottles of water free each day, and there were plenty of complimentary hot drink sachets.
On arrival, the room had a welcome fruit bowl and chocolate dipped biscuit straws.
The lounge area had a sofa, armchair, a table with four chairs, side tables, and a leather padded seat at the window so you could sit and look out at the amazing view from 37 storeys up. It was fascinating to see, day and night, and looked over towards the east of Kowloon to the harbour in the distance. The hotel had provided lots of magazines and books in the room for guests to read.
Both the lounge and bedroom had a large LCD television that included numerous English language channels - mainly American but there was BBC World for any Brits missing news from home!
The bedroom was a good size, and included a huge, very comfortable, bed. The view was even slightly better than the lounge, since the window curved round more to the south, affording a view down to Hong Kong island in the distance. Again, a leather seat at the window allowed you to sit right up close. There were lots of pillows, and even more can be ordered from a ‘pillow menu’. The room also included an iPod docking station, two telephones and plenty of plug sockets. The heavy curtains kept the sun out very well in the morning.
Off the bedroom was the surprise study, with desk, chair, bookshelves, lamp, stationery items, etc, and even though we didn’t use this room for anything it was pleasant to find.
The bathroom was spotless, and did not include the ‘glass wall’ between the bath and the bedroom that most rooms in the hotel are reported to have. Whilst some people like this feature, those wanting more privacy may like to know that the bathroom walls in this suite were all solid! It had a huge walk-in shower, a separate bath tub, glass sink, and was well stocked with towelling and many nice toiletries. An extra bonus from this room was the walk-in wardrobe area that included plenty of hangars, an ironing board, iron, two umbrellas, a safe, and lots of drawers and shelf space. The bathroom also included shaving socket and hair dryer.
The additional washroom, found as you immediately entered the suite, even had a washer/dryer machine.
The air conditioning could be precisely controlled, and was a blessing, even though it was late November.
THE CLUB
‘Club L’ turned out to be a relatively quiet haven on the 36th floor, which was included as part of our suite deal. The club has three adjoining rooms, all with sofas, arm chairs and some tables. There are also two massage chairs which give you quite a severe prodding and pulling! The club is open 24 hours, and provides constant free drinks (hot, soft drinks, beers, wines). You can choose to have breakfast here, too, but it is a smaller selection to that on offer downstairs in The Place, so we went there every day instead.
Afternoon Tea in the club is from 3pm to 5.30pm. Evening cocktails (which apparently included some hot food as well) was from 6pm to 8pm. Sweet Treats (desserts, chocolates, cookies, cheese) was from 8pm to 10pm each night. We only tended to arrive up there around 9pm each night, but found it a lovely way of ending the day with a couple of drinks, some desserts, and generally spent a short time on one of the three computers with Internet access (free) that were in a separate little ‘den’.
THE POOL
The Spa is on the top floors of the hotel. The gymnasium looked excellent (as we walked hastily past it) with stunning views across the city. You change in the well maintained changing rooms (complete with showers, hot tub, sauna, steam room and free lockers), then walk up one flight to the pool area. It’s a great pool, with around 20 loungers around it and a couple of hot tubs, plus a bar and seating area. There are glass walls all the way around, giving you tremendous views. The ceiling is open, however, so it sometimes felt a little chilly as you left the lovely warm pool, before you wrapped yourself in some of the plentiful towels that were provided.
THE BREAKFAST
The breakfast buffet in The Place restaurant was excellent, offering a wide range of hot and cold foods. The cold included cereals, yoghurts, continental-style meats and cheeses, numerous fruit juices, fresh fruit, croissants and other pastries. The hot foods included omelettes and eggs made while you wait, bacon, different kinds of sausage, hash browns, beans, toast, etc. Plus there was a selection of Indian and Japanese dishes, and a small selection of dim sum, noodles, congee, etc. Tea and coffee was brought to your table.
We thought the buffet was superb value, even if you have to pay for it separately, and really set us up for each day ahead.
HOTEL/AREA
The hotel stands next to the Langham Place shopping mall, and the adjoining office tower (which soars even higher than the hotel). Everything seemed new, and the whole place was spotlessly clean. There are bits of artwork all around, which add to the overall feeling of class. There was even a pleasant, calming smell that permeated the corridors.
The staff couldn’t be friendlier. We never passed one who didn’t smile and acknowledge us. The doormen on the ground always pulled open the doors every time we wandered through, and there are delightful ‘pink ladies’ on the ground and lobby floors who rush to call the lifts for you, and make pleasant small talk with you as you’re waiting.
We spent some of our time in the immediate area in the shopping mall, which had a great variety of shops over many floors. It also had a number of restaurants at the top, and a complete floor of ‘faster’ food outlets on the same level as the hotel lobby.
On staying at Langham Place you will want to catch the MTR many times – we seemed to be catching it two, or three, times each day! Whilst you can reach the MTR by crossing into the shopping centre from the hotel’s lobby and following many escalators down, this does take a fair amount of time, but is all under cover. However, we soon found that the quickest way is to exit via the ground floor of the hotel, and simply walk round the outskirts of the shopping centre round to the nearest MTR entrance.
There were many, many restaurants in the Mong Kok area, but to be honest these looked like they served locals rather more than tourists, and we didn’t want to embarrass ourselves by requesting an English language menu or finding that nothing on the menu really suited our limited tastes.
We did eat once in the hotel in the evening, but found the buffet to be quite expensive due to the amount of quality food on offer (seafoods, sushi, etc). We therefore ordered something off the normal menu.
A couple of other times we ate in the restaurants towards the top of the shopping mall (a Chinese restaurant and a Steakhouse), but often we would catch the MTR down to Tsim Sha Tsui where there were many more options better suited to unadventurous tourists like us!
THOSE LITTLE TOUCHES
On checking out the freezer I found three tubs of Haagen Dazs ice cream with a little sign that read “You’ve found me, now I’m yours for free”. A lovely surprise - and what’s more, they were stocked up again, free, every day of our stay.
On another occasion, we found the housekeeping staff had slipped complimentary bookmarks into both of our books at the side of the bed.
We wanted some ice one day, so phoned the ‘smart centre’ to ask where the ice machines were. I’m not sure whether the hotel has any machines or not, but within five minutes a staff member had arrived to collect our ice bucket, and three minutes later was back with it full.
The hotel does a complimentary tour of the local markets area, which takes about half an hour, each evening. This was a nice way to familiarise ourselves with the immediate area, and included free maps showing where everything was.
We were asked to complete a short questionnaire towards the end of our stay, which included the usual space for ‘any comments’. I was really impressed to see that, on my return, I already had an email from customer services. They had clearly read through everything carefully, and had answered each point that I had raised. Even after I’d returned home, this made me feel that the hotel really does know how to provide great customer service.
IN SUMMARY
We paid HK$1999 plus tax for the suite deal (approx £145/$300) per night – a super price for such an incredible room, plus buffet breakfast each, plus club facilities. I think this price is no longer available, and has increased to around KH$2299-2500. However, since the hotel offers only a limited number of suites at this price, I’d really recommend you grab one if you can!
We couldn’t find a better deal on offer with any other web sites, so I suggest you book directly with the hotel either by web or telephone.
We cannot recommend the Langham Place highly enough, and it well deserves to be Number One in these TripAdvisor rankings for a long time to come. We would love to go back to Hong Kong again one day, and would most definitely want to stay here again.
