I was a bit disappointed when I had read reviews online that said the hotel is centrally located. Centrally located to me means being able to walk outside and within 5 minutes be in the center of a shopping area, metro stop, or restaurants. Hengsheng was not near everything except a Starbucks across the street. Even walking to the Bund took a good 20 minutes as you can't walk over the main bridge but have to go out of the way to get to a side bridge and then circumnavigate your way back to the river. This is only a good place to stay if you want to take cabs everywhere. But even the cab drivers get upset if you want to go short distances (like to Nanjing Road East shopping area). It's not a long walk (20 minutes) but if you're in a hurry or not in the mood to walk, you have to deal with a grumpy cab driver.
The room was nice but small and the carpet was subpar considering they call themselves a 4 star hotel. The staff were friendly enough but for a 4 star hotel you would expect them to have some sort of travel service in their hotel to help book train tickets (a nightmare process in China if you don't know Chinese) or airline tickets. Instead they told us that we had to go to a different hotel down the street. They also charge $7 a day for internet usage which is fine except the internet is slow.
We changed hotels after 2 nights and ended up at the East Asia hotel on Nanjing Road East. Although it's only a 2 star hotel, the carpet was cleaner and the furniture a little simpler but the staff helped us book train tickets and the location was very central and only a 5 minute walk from the metro and 15 minutes to the Shanghai Museum. Plus the internet was free. Slow, but free.
