Well located between Central and Wan Chai. One of a cluster of hotels (Shangri La, Marriott) built above Pacific Place. Close to Hong Kong Park and The Peak tram station. Convenient too all of Central but slightly removed for a bit more quiet. Large, well maintained and lovely rooms; even those without harbour views have lovely views of the hills and Victoria Peak. Service in the bar was spotty, but that was my only substantive complaint.

Before I provide a detailed review, let me make two disclaimers, because your experience may significantly differ than mine.

* My perception is that this hotel is DEFINITELY focused on serving the solo business traveler. If you are such a traveler, and on expense account, many of the negatives I sight would likely not apply.
* We stayed, as Hilton Honors Diamond members for four nights, using award points for our stay. For at least two of the nights, our stay overlapped with a major convention based in the hotel (the 15th Asia Pacific AirFinance convention). While I do not know how Hilton compensates individual hotels for guests staying on award points, I do believe I can safely and fairly assume three things: 1) The convention was scheduled at the hotel long before I made my reservation (in December 2013 for a November 2014 stay) and yet I had no trouble booking through the Diamond customer service line. Maybe the hotel should have been completely blocked out for the convention delegates. 2) Whatever compensation the hotel received from "corporate" for my stay was likely well less than the room rate charged to convention delegates, so our stay was almost certainly a net revenue loser for the hotel, and 3) some but not all of the staff whose interactions were not consistently positive knew we were staying on award points.

All of that to say, our experience at this hotel was not on the whole positive. I am marking the rating as a "three," as I am basing my assessment on a comparison to service and room layout at comparable hotels. I am by no means implying this is a "three star" location - it is clearly a "five star" location. But the staff can do much better than they did.

The rooms: My perception is that these are designed for solo travelers. Our king bed was wedged between a nightstand on one side and a desk on the other. All lighting controls were on the nightstand. Access to the bed from the desk side was not as free and easy as from the nightstand side, although not impossible or extremely difficult. While there were two sinks in the bathroom, everything else about the room suggested the focus was on the solo traveler. Rooms are sufficiently sized, but not overly large. For a solo traveler who spends most of the day out of the room, the rooms will not be a negative, and are certainly more comfortable than a budget hotel.

The Garden Cafe restaurant: Although we were entitled to / eligible to have breakfast at the Executive Lounge, we had breakfast daily at the Garden Cafe. Selection is wonderful and varied. The bread options were particularly good (we loved the sourdough bread). Tables were set up relatively close to each other, so navigation between the table and serving areas of the buffet was challenging at time (particularly as business colleagues stood beside tables to have conversations). We also patronized the Garden Cafe one evening for dinner buffet. The food selection for all dinner courses was very good, and the buffet is less crowded at dinner than for breakfast. However the cost comes out to $82 US per person plus an obligatory 10% service charge. While the buffet is good, it is not worth that price. Please note that the Garden Cafe is the hotel's "casual" dining option, and there are few casual / mid-priced dining options in the adjacent Pacific Place Mall (the best option is the Met Cafe on the lower ground floor near the underground passageway to the Admiralty MTR station). In my view, the lack of easy access to casual / mid-priced dining options is a major knock against this hotel for the would - be leisure traveler guest.

Executive Lounge: We found the atmosphere stuffy and unwelcoming, and the staff not particularly helpful. After our first evening at the hotel, we spent very little time at the lounge. Hate to say it, but the lounge at this hotel is a detriment to the overall experience. At least that is that is how the whole interaction landed with me. The lounge does offer good harbour views, however.

Staff: There is an old saying that one only has one chance to make a good first impression. During our first 90 minutes of our stay - this after a very tiring travel day from Singapore with a bad connection experience in Bangkok - we had four offputting interactions with staff. It serves no purpose to detail them here, but suffice it to say that, in terms of creating a positive impression of the hotel, they lost us on the first evening. Of particular note, both interactions - on arrival and on departure - with the clerk at the Hilton Honors desk at reception - were offputting. I cannot say that this hotel values the Hilton family of hotels most frequent / loyal customers.

Pre-arrival experience: We had trouble getting a cab at the Hong Kong Airport Express station over to the hotel and the Airport Express free shuttle bus servicing Admiralty and Causeway Bay hotels was suspended. All this had to do with closures that may have already been addressed by the local government or will be by time you read this. When we suggested to (lounge) staff that advance notice of a need to find alternate transport to the hotel would have been appreciated, we got the most unusual / odd non-verbal response (it appears referencing the local situation is taboo amongst local people). Strikes me as not very customer friendly.

In sum, we did not enjoy our stay. As a retiree, should I ever return to Hong Kong, I doubt I would choose this location again, even given my loyalty to the Hilton family of hotel brands. However, if you are a solo business traveler, I expect your results / experience would be much different.

Wonderful hotel, was upgraded to a 61st floor executive suite over looking Hong Kong Harbor for my partners birthday, from the moment we arrived staff where fantastic, check in was fast and hassle free, taken to the room by the front desk staff member. Executive lounge was wonderful and staff very helpful, great choice of breakfast items, afternoon tea with fresh baked scones ( loved them ).

Staff are wonderful, its the little touches that make this hotel an oasis of calm in Hong Kong, can't wait to return
Cant wait to return