Conrad Hong Kong

Hotel Stay Details 
Hotel: Conrad Hong Kong 
Dates: March 8-10, 2014 
Rate Paid: 2 Weekend Night Certificates 
Regular Room Rate: $433/night 
Total $ Benefit: $866 
Point Redemption Value: N/A

After our first two nights at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, we packed up our belongings and took a short taxi ride over to the Conrad.

While a normal entry level room at the Conrad costs about $394 USD plus 10% taxes ($433 total), my mother had some Free Weekend Night certificates from her Citi Hilton Reserve credit card she applied for several months earlier. If we wanted to use Hilton HHonor points, it would have been a whopping 80,000 points/night. Pretty expensive either way, so we considered ourselves lucky we were able to get two nights to enjoy ourselves here.

The Conrad is located slightly closer to the downtown business district than the Grand Hyatt and is set further back away from Victoria Harbour. The other main structural difference is that the Conrad is connected to the large Pacific Place shopping center. We pulled up to the front entrance and were immediately greeted by the welcoming Conrad staff. Our luggage was taken from the trunk, tagged and placed along the side of the door as we were escorted inside.

Visually, the lobby is not quite as impressive as the massive open air space of the Grand Hyatt. The oval floorplan didn't lend itself well aesthetically, but they did an amazing job decorating the lobby with fine art and stunning flower arrangements.

The Front Desk is actually located along the long side of the wall, and not in the open space when you enter the building. A little counter-intuitive, but we eventually found where to check in. It was 12PM, so we were in line behind several guests who were checking out. Fortunately, my father had called ahead asking if we could check in a bit earlier than the normal 3PM, and they accommodated.

We were pleasantly surprised to hear that we had been upgraded to a Harbour View room on the 53rd floor! I'm sure part of it was because my mother had Hilton Gold status, but also because my father emailed the hotel in advance to tell them it was my parents' 5th anniversary trip. In addition to the wonderful room upgrade and the welcome tea and chocolate truffles, the Conrad further surprised us with a complimentary bottle of sparkling white wine on ice and some nice fruit waiting for us when we entered the room.

We were in love with the style and decor of the room. While perhaps you couldn't tell you were in Hong Kong, we found the room to be much more luxurious than the Grand Hyatt, especially since the Conrad Hong Kong was known to be more of a business hotel. And then when we opened the window shades to unveil the amazing view...

After gawking for a few minutes at the stunning height of our bird's eye view of Kowloon, we started to look around the room and found more pleasant surprises, especially for me! In addition to having a real wooden crib (not a folding pack-n-play) with quality Winnie the Pooh bedding, they had a nice package of infant bath amenities as well as a diaper bin.

Then my mother and I went into the bathroom to see what that set up was like. It was much simpler than the black marble and gold accents of our prior hotel, but still done very nicely. We had a separate room for the toilet, which my father used pretty frequently after getting mild food poisoning, and a separate bathtub and stand up shower. The adult bath amenities weren't familiar to us, but served their purpose.

The wireless internet in the room was free for Hilton Gold status members, as was breakfast each morning in the Executive Lounge on the 59th Floor. My father initially asked at check in if we could take our breakfast in the lobby restaurant, but they just reconfirmed it would be offered in the Executive Lounge.

However, my father had read that Conrad also allows members to have their complimentary breakfasts in the hotel restaurant, The Garden Cafe, if you asked nicely. The Garden Cafe is a proper sit down restaurant with a much larger spread of breakfast options than the Executive Lounge, where breakfast was more functional than an experience. So we called back down to the Front Desk to ask again, and they agreed. All we had to do was to provide our names and room number to the Garden Cafe hostess and we'd get the breakfast buffet with no charge whatsoever. And we definitely made the right choice! Here are some photos of our breakfast at The Garden Cafe.

  

 And here are some photos of the breakfast offering in the Executive Lounge.

  

 

In terms of service, we had a great experience with the staff at the Conrad, but didn't really interact with them too often besides check-in and check-out. We asked the Concierge how to walk from the Conrad to the closest MTA metro station (about a 10 minute walk through the Pacific Place shopping center) and to walk to Central (20 minute walk through Hong Kong Park and a maze of office building complexes).

Overall, we loved our time at the Conrad and would definitely come back if the price were right. In terms of relative value, the Conrad was a better experience for mid-level hotel status holders (room upgrade, free breakfast) and at a lower price point than the Grand Hyatt. But since I'm just 2.5 years old, I don't care about all that. IMHO, I thought the Conrad had a much better stuffed teddy bear and tastier scrambled eggs. So it was a no brainer for me!