Editing my review from July to provide more details.
This hotel sells rooms on trip.com for 800 CNY with a 1 day cancellation policy while they charge ~1400 CNY with 14 day cancellation on the official Hilton website. I usually have no complaints if OTAs are 10 - 20% cheaper but this is simply unacceptable. They are truly fleecing loyal Hilton members.
Check-in staff: 1/5
Particularly unfriendly and dismissive. The staff was unbelievably rude, lied about potential room upgrade availability, and didn’t even explain basic things like breakfast and executive lounge hours. Of course, a room upgrade is subject to availability, but I expect a base suite if it is available since this hotel charges Hilton members an extra 500 CNY++ a night when booking direct compared to OTAs. They were unwilling to provide this upgrade despite being sold out of all rooms besides base suites.
Exec lounge staff: 2/5
Out of the 4+ staff members here, only Mia was helpful and provided good service. Others were cold, rude, and ignored half of the guests. In particular, the older women who appears to be an executive lounge lead (maybe Maggie? Not sure) was hostile and unfriendly towards me and most other guests. She only provide service and smiles to 1 - 2 guests per day while completely ignoring others. Clearly the rest of us are not important enough for her to provide any service, a basic greeting, or even a non hostile expression.
Room: 3/5
The room was actually quite good for its age. however, there was a weird smell in the room and the AC is weak. Additionally, they put “Hydrogen water” for sale on the night stand. This is such a penny-pinching move and I was shocked to see this at a Conrad. This small detail underlines the hotel’s entire approach and lack of hospitality
Location: 2/5
There is a sea view, but the room I was assigned looked out at cargo ships and not towards the canals / ocean plaza. It is in the business district, close to the east harbor plaza and canals but far from everything else.
Restaurant / $100 Credit: 2/5
The $100 Hilton for luxury credit is another example of this stingy property trying their hardest to deny benefits. This credit is not valid in the Chinese restaurant - only valid in the Japanese restaurant or the buffet. The Japanese restaurant itself was very very overpriced, although the food was okay. They also claimed that the credit does not cover the 15% service fee added to all orders, which is again the first time I’ve seen that after staying at 20+ similar hotels in the past few years. They also don’t let you stack the credit with the 25% diamond discount, which I suppose is not too outrageous. However, every other property I’ve stayed at has always applied the member discount if available.
Price Discrimination against Hilton Members: -5/5. This is simply unacceptable
Ultimately, I think I wasn’t the right type of guest for this hotel. This hotel clearly profiles guests in advance and unfortunately I was not selected to receive any hospitality or good service as a Diamond member on a cash Hilton for Luxury rate booked through Hilton. I can’t even imagine how they would treated guests who book via points. I do not plan on returning and do not recommend this property for any guest.
AI Summary
