Base yourself at City Garden for a great holiday (City Garden Hotel)

Member Name: englishrose

Product:	City Garden Hotel
Date:	31/05/09 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A fine place to stay at a great price

Disadvantages: Misleading advertising

I have just spent 2 weeks at the City Garden Hotel in Hong Kong, in May 2009, and I am straight onto dooyoo to recommend it!

I believe the rooms cost around the £50 per night mark, however I stayed there as part of a package with Virgin holidays, so I am not aware of the individual prices. However, these are available on their website

http://www.sino-hotels.com/City_Garden_Hotel/en/d efault.aspx

The hotel is marked as three star, however three star in Hong Kong signifies a higher standard than three star anywhere else, in my experience: I stayed in a 'Deluxe' room on the 22nd floor, and found it to be of a very high standard.

On arrival, I only had a short wait at reception before I could check in. The front of house staff all speak some English (those who didn't will refer you to someone who does).

When I arrived, it was at the height of the concern about swine flu, and another hotel just down the road from City Garden had been actually sealed off the previous week due to this disease: Taking this threat seriously, the staff were all wearing face masks.

The hotel was also being kept extremely clean because of the swine flu problem: for example, the lift buttons were covered with a plastic sheet and a notice that stated "sterilised every hour". There was also a large notice erected in the lobby, giving guests the full rundown of precautions being taken by the hotel.

My room was large and comfortable, with ensuite bathroom/shower, minibar, kettle, television and hairdryer. It had plenty of wardrobe space, a desk/dressing table and chair, plus another armchair. It was decorated in a tasteful, neutral style and was clean and fresh.

The rooms were cleaned every day, and the bed made for me: If you wanted the bedding changing, there was a plastic token which you place on the pillow.

Towels were changed daily, and toiletry miniatures were topped up too. The room is constantly air-conditioned and you can set the temperature yourself.

Television programmes available were mainly local channels, with a few international news channels. Movies were available at an extra cost of around £3.00 each.

I was expecting my room to have internet access as standard, as this is how I had read the literature, however when I asked about this, I was told that they would bring me a modem for an extra charge of around £5 per time, which I think makes the advertising slightly misleading.

Internet access is available to guests in the hotel's business centre, at around £4.50 per hour - I used this a couple of times, and found it to be an excellent service, if expensive.

Room service is available, however I didn't try this myself so I cannot comment. I'm afraid this also goes for the hotel's swimming pool and gym: I did intend to use them, but just didn't have the time. (Oh well..... plenty of time for exercise now that I am back home!). I did overhear another guest in the lobby saying that they close the pool anytime it rains, as it's an outdoor pool.

The hotel also offers a laundry service, the prices of which blew me away: for example, to have one bra laundered would have cost around £2.00! My top tip : In front of the hotel, go across City Garden Square to the Sunshine Laundry. A big mixed bag of laundry cost me around £3.00 to drop off, come back later and it was all washed, dried and folded :)

Ditto the mini-bar: Everything in there is available at the Wellcome supermarket across the square, literally a one minute walk.

My room, although on the 22nd floor, had no nice view of the city, facing instead to a block of flats opposite - however I could see the water through a crack between the buildings!

This was fine for me, as I wasn't expecting a view, and was out most of the time getting my city and harbour views from elsewhere, but it's something to bear in mind if you do expect something scenic to look at from your room!

The hotel contains several restaurants, including a pub-like Admiral's Bar, a Chinese restaurant, the more casual Garden Cafe, or the satay restaurant The Satay Inn. To be honest , the only one of these that I tried was the Garden Cafe, and although it describes itself as casual, it was still very, very nice - prices were reasonable for a hotel cafe, and their was a good choice of asian or western casual dishes on the menu.

But truly, if staying in Hong Kong, I would recommend eating at your hotel as little as possible - get out there and find fantastic meals on your doorstep for tiny amounts of money!

The hotel runs a shuttle bus service , which is free to guests. However, I was informed before I booked that the shuttle runs to both Central (the main downtown area) and Causeway Bay (the adjoining area) but when I asked about this on arrival I was told that the bus only runs to Causeway Bay, and there is no service to Central. Again, a little bit misleading on the advertising I feel.

However, transport is not a problem at all: Taxis are constantly available in front of the hotel, and you are only a five minute walk from the main thoroughfare of King's Road, where you can hop onto a frequently passing bus, tram or MTR for next to nothing. Make sure you get an Octopus card, which is the HK equivalent of the London Oyster card, and your travelling will be even easier.

I firmly believe Hong Kong to have the best public transport in the world, so, although the City Garden is slightly further out of town than some other (more expensive) hotels, this is definitely not an issue.

The nearest MTR station is Fortress Hill, and the bus stops are just outside this station, making it very easy to travel to just about anywhere from there.

King's Road also contains hundreds of shops and cafes, all very close to the hotel.

When it came to the time for me to check out (sob!), this again was all done efficiently and in a friendly way. I was held up slightly because I tried to check out at the same time as a group of Japanese tourists were checking in, and each of them was having their temperature taken by the reception staff - again, measures against the swine flu. A bizarre sight indeed :)

Overall: I would definitely stay here again, despite feeling that some of the advertising is slightly misleading. I chose it due to budget constraints - it was the cheapest hotel available to me through Virgin Worldwide - yet it did not feel 'cheap' and I am very happy with my stay. I would recommend it to anyone. I would give it five stars, but for the misleading advertising that I have mentioned above. However, it's five stars for everything else: service, location, cleanliness, price, and facilities.

Summary: Recommended overall