Nice hotel, nice location, not much to do at night.
I’m a frequent visitor to the wonderful city that is Hong Kong, but this is my first time staying at the JW Marriot.
First up, the hotel location. The hotel itself is located right above the Pacific Place mall, which, along with housing the usual boutique clothing shops, doubles up as the entrance to Admirality MTR station. The Mall also houses entrances to the other two hotels in the area: The Conrad and The Shangri-La, and has a decent enough selection of restaurants on the bottom floor along with a pharmacy for getting any toiletries and what have you.
Outside of the Mall and around the hotel, there isn’t really much else in the immediate area. Don’t get me wrong, the area as a whole is bang in the middle of Hong Kong, but you are unlikely to be really wandering around the immediate vicinity of the hotel to find a bar or a hidden restaurant or what have you.
As with most places in Hong Kong, the hotel is a breeze to get to from the airport. You can book a hotel car, but it is frustrating because it’s about the only hotel in the world which doesn’t send you a link to do so in the confirmation email, nor does there seem to be any way to book the car directly through the website, so you are going to need to call. The hotel car is about 950HKD, with an Uber Black being about 750HKD, a regular Uber being about 450HKD, and a Red Metered Taxi being about 280HKD. A car ride from the airport to the hotel will take you about 30 minutes or so in normal traffic. You can, of course, choose to take the Airport Express train into Central station and then from there, go one stop on the MTR to Admirality, or walk it in about 20 minutes.
Checking in to the hotel was quick. They did this in our room due to booking a hotel car, but I didn’t see queues at the usual check-in desks. They also upgraded our room, which was very nice of them. I do like the hotel design, very traditional with a huge lobby and chandeliers and what have you — the way a hotel should be.
The rooms (at least ours on the 26th floor) were decently sized for Hong Kong. We had a nice sized bathroom with a bathtub. The shower was incredibly powerful and hot, which is what I need in the morning. Back to the room, the beds were soft and comfy with the pillows being a little too soft for my liking, but there is a choice of other style pillows if you wish it. The windows to the rooms are NOT reflective on the outside, so if you like to walk around naked with the curtains open, then you are going to get seen by people in the other buildings across the way — whatever floats your boat.
The hotel pool area is on the 7th floor and kind of juts out from the side of the building. The area is nice with a decent-sized pool and a Jacuzzi off to the side. The pool bar area is also very nice, with big comfy sofas and a fish bar-restaurant that seems to seat about 50 people. Two big complaints about the pool bar are:
- It closes at 10 pm, which I will never understand from an international hotel
- The service is really slow. There is often only 1 or 2 staff from the pool bar wandering around, and it can be a hassle trying to get their attention.
The other slight issue is bar food. They seem to have weird hours where you can order food from the Fish Bar, or you have to order very simple snacks from the bar menu. Let’s say you want a cheese and ham sandwich at 3 pm, well that isn’t happening. I didn’t personally eat at the Fish Bar, but my friends did and they said the food was good. Also, try the Wagyu Burger.
The other restaurants in the hotel are a Chinese Restaurant that we didn’t try, a Steak House that was booked for a private party, and also the standard-hotel-affair evening buffet. We ate at the buffet on two occasions and I’ve got to say that it is expensive. Look, I know I am staying at a 5-star hotel in the middle of Hong Kong, but 850HKD per person for the quite limited selection that the buffet offers isn’t really worth it, in my opinion. On top of that, I ate two lonely looking scallops that had probably seen better days and ended up throwing up all the next morning, so maybe that soured my view of the buffet?
The hotel lobby bar is right next to the buffet area, so you can go in there after eating if you wish. It is quite a quaint little lounge bar with a band off to the side that provides almost any drink you could think of. However, you better not be a night owl because the bar is open until 12 midnight and then that is your lot, which was quite the dismay to most of the tables as the lights went up and people realised there was nowhere else in the hotel to get a drink. Again, an international hotel closing the bar at midnight just boggles my mind.
Anyway, if you do want to drink a little later, then you can run through the lower floor of the now-closed mall and get over to the Conrad, who keeps their bar open until a slightly more reasonable 1 am. Or of course, head to Lan Kwai Fong in a taxi in about 10 minutes, which is the famous drinking area in Hong Kong, but not really a place to relax with a cocktail.
If you are sight-seeing, then honestly, it doesn’t much matter where you stay on the island. Everything is easy enough to get to either through the MTR, Uber, or metered taxi.
Check-out was quick. I booked an Uber Black back to the airport which came in about 10 minutes, so no issues there.
All in all, I think the JW Marriot is a nice hotel. I like the layout, I like the pool area, and despite the slow service around the pool, the rest of the hotel service is impeccable. My only gripes are the expensive and limited evening buffet, and that there is nothing in the area to do once the mall is closed, and then closing the pool bar at 10 pm and the lounge bar at 12 midnight doesn’t help this at all.