As scheduled, the rapid train brought us from Ningbo to Hangzhou East Station (杭州東站) in less than an hour. I have already arranged for limo service to pick us up at the train station. Despite a little bit of traffic jam, we managed to arrive at Grand Hyatt Hangzhou (杭州君悦酒店) in about 30 minutes. I guess that's not too bad on a Saturday.
To my pleasant surprise, the Concierge Team has already arranged with the front desk to have our keys ready (more on the Concierge Team later) so other than settling the payment, we were all set.
I have decided to drop a few more bucks for a lake view room. Let's see if it's worth the extra cash.
Considering the main building is only eight floors high, I couldn’t quite understand why they decided to place the clubhouse between it and the lake. This setup blocks the view from most of the rooms. Yeah, we still got the partial view but it could have been a much clearer view with virtually no obstruction (except the trees of course).
The hotel has been renovated in 2019 and now features contemporary interiors drawing inspiration from the picturesque ‘West Lake’ I was told. Little nugget seems to like it a lot.
The contemporary design obviously extends to the bathroom although it still retains a touch of traditional grandeur.
The shower room is side by side with the toilet, which is pretty standard these days.
Apart from the lake view, of course the main reason for me to pick this hotel was its location right besides beautiful West Lake (西湖). It gets a little busy around the gate at the hotel entrance sometimes.
But as soon as we step away from the busiest area including the pickup point for the hop-on trains, the shore of West Lake is immediately within sight.
It only took us around five minutes to reach Jixianting (集賢亭), a famous pavilion on the picturesque eastern side of the lake. From what I've read, it's best to catch Jixianting at sunset with West Lake as the backdrop.
I don't know what to make of our stay at Grand Hyatt Hangzhou to be honest. On the bright side, I thought its location was perfect. Just a few steps off West Lake and easy to navigate to most of the main attractions. The Concierge Team also helped us out a lot and in Mainland China, that's particularly important especially with restaurant reservations. The team here was relentless when they were tasked with getting us a table at Michelin starred Jiexianglou (解香楼). They even successfully negotiated a deal for us to waive the minimum charge for a private room. Full marks for their dedication and effort there.
But on the down side, a few points worth mentioning. First, I thought the hotel lobby was always very very busy and I'm not sure I like to stay at a hotel with a super busy lobby. Secondly, I expected the Housekeeping team to do a better job making sure that our room was ready to serve. The power to the in-room refrigerator was not functioning properly leaving the soft drinks warm instead of cold. Worse yet, the pastries we placed inside melted within a few hours (before we noticed it was malfunctioning). When I mentioned this during my check-out, the first thing the front desk staff did was to put the blame on us saying that we might have forgotten to close the door to the fridge. That was really disappointing. Last but not least but it's more of a personal feeling, I thought the room, described as around 36 square feet, didn’t seem to have that much space. Typically, a room of that size should accommodate our belongings with ease, but we nearly ran out of space on the second night.
Rating: ❤❤❤❤
Price: ¥¥¥¥
Address: 28 Hu Bin Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
浙江省杭州市湖滨路28号君悦酒店1层
Closest Metro Station: Longxiangqiao (龙翔桥)
Tel: +86 (571) 8779-1234
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