Park Hyatt Shenzhen
Aug 1, 2019, 5:07 am
As the most expensive Hyatt last night across Asia ex Japan ($440 inclusive) - no new hotel excuse can cover up the incompetence and disappointment of this property.
I might have reservations giving this a high pass as an HR, let alone a PH for sure...
Let me figure out how to post pictures from my phone and come back with a full review (I actually took the effort to post to TA...haven't done so in many years LOL)
Quick facts
171 rooms and 24 suites
Location: Futian - Southern tower of Ping An Financial Centre, ground floor, 5th, 8th and 33rd-48th
Owner: Ping An Insurance
Designer: Yabu Pushelberg
5 restaurants (1 Chinese, 1 Western, Living Room, Bar and pool bar/restaurant)
GM seems to be ex W HK - he was nowhere to be seen. No managers in fact
Aug 1, 2019, 5:17 am
As the most expensive Hyatt last night across Asia ex Japan ($440 inclusive) - no new hotel excuse can cover up the incompetence and disappointment of this property.
I might have reservations giving this a high pass as an HR, let alone a PH for sure...
Let me figure out how to post pictures from my phone and come back with a full review (I actually took the effort to post to TA...haven't done so in many years LOL)
Quick facts
171 rooms and 24 suites
Location: Futian - Southern tower of Ping An Financial Centre, ground floor, 5th, 8th and 33rd-48th
Owner: Ping An Insurance
Designer: Yabu Pushelberg
5 restaurants (1 Chinese, 1 Western, Living Room, Bar and pool bar/restaurant)
GM seems to be ex W HK - he was nowhere to be seen. No managers in fact
Aug 1, 2019, 5:33 am
All suites are designated as premium suites for now - but they won't have any ready until September.
GLOBs get free full breakfast and (I believe) some sort of afternoon tea / happy hour thing in the Living Room. Explorists get nothing.
Aug 1, 2019, 7:53 am
Park Hyatt Shenzhen
5023 Yi Tian Road Futian District Shenzhen, CN 518033
Not a proper PH, avoid at all costs (10 Photos)
Park Hyatt Shenzhen
As mentioned this hotel got me disappointed enough to post to TA so don't be surprised if you find a very similar review over there. (Of course more content here :) )
Check In
From the moment we arrived we felt very unwelcome and were offered very little assistance with our bags until stepping into the hotel. There is also no direct access to the Futian train station which means we were soaked in the rain upon arrival (and still ignored).
The check in agent was curt and lacked friendliness, and the check in experience was clearly below Park Hyatt standard. (Tiny and no chairs / space to put your bags etc) Worse, she lied blatantly regarding room upgrade availability despite multiple higher categories available for sale well into the evening. Clearly they do not care about an elite member that has already put his head on Hyatt beds for 50 nights just halfway through the year. Even more puzzlingly it was their second day of operation, but contrarily I felt that they were just asking for further negative publicity.
Room
We were allocated a Skyline View room, a 1 category 'view upgrade'. The room is small to begin with at 48m2 (doesn't feel that big even at all), given a combination of factors including China, PH/luxury and skyscraper hotel.
The room design screams cheapness and again is way below other Park Hyatts both in China and overseas. For example, the minibar and the two (tiny) closets were portable and movable, and so were the bed and the carpet on the floor. It means that this room can easily be emptied and the clinical generic furniture forms no part of its (non-existent) design. It is to my understanding that the owner, designer and contractor ran into disputes over the hotel’s design but I as a paying customer cannot expect Hyatt to sacrifice brand standards regardless of circumstances. It must have involved great agony for Y-P to have signed off this final design product.
The bathroom is clearly below par for a luxury hotel and especially at this price point and location. The tub was extremely narrow with no countertop space. The floor area was so minimal there was no room for a floor mat for the tub. The vanity countertop was similarly narrow and there was not enough room to store personal amenities. The shower lacked both water pressure and spaciousness. There were no TVs or stereo systems in the bathroom which was another grave disappointment.
The minibar was poorly stocked and the room decoration overall is plain awful for a Park Hyatt. As mentioned the room was not fitted out with any cupboards, tables, etc. So it resembles more of a cookie cutter conference hotel than a top notch luxury hotel which is what a Park Hyatt is supposed to be.
Service
Here comes the worst bit. The worst part is we did not know that the bulk of hotel facilities (including Spa, Gym, Pool and Bar) were all not yet open, until we saw a letter placed in the room informing us. We were NOT AWARE NOR NOTIFIED about this in the entire booking and check in process, so it was very dishonest of the hotel to have sold rooms at full and expensive prices only to FAIL to deliver what are some basic facilities that one expects from a luxury city hotel. On the next day, there was radio silence from them regarding updates on available facilities as well (seems like something opened - i think it may have been the gym - which I would have certainly appreciated and used.)
The most unacceptable part lies in how despite there are issues that the hotel management cannot easily alter (such as poorly designed rooms and facilities still under construction), they did not take any initiative to rectify or alleviate the situation at all for their guests’ well being. ZERO. For example, they could have offered free breakfast or happy hour etc. Instead, when we checked out, they did not even bother to ask the standard question of how our stay went. Our receipt was just printed, our card charged and that was it. At no point did we see any managers present to listen to customer feedback which is highly unbelievable for a luxury property second day into its operation. Again let me reiterate that this was for last night the most expensive Hyatt property in non-Japan Asia.
Dining
We had dinner at Garden Pavilion, the Chinese restaurant and breakfast at Glasshouse on the penthouse floor of the hotel.
Dinner at Garden Pavilion - food was good albeit pricey. And dicey as well - the English menu had different prices than the Chinese one. Seems to be mostly Cantonese food with some Sichuanese touches here and there. The service was a complete mess. Our food orders took forever to come and at the wrong pace. I overheard complaints from other tables related to all sorts of issues. It seems that half of the items on the already limited menu were unavailable. Tea was 116 CNY + 15% for two people which is insanely steep. However, credit is given to the team here as they were the only ones that proactively did some sort of service recovery. We were offered two desserts on the house and they were as good as the rest of the food we ordered.
Breakfast (Note: does not accrue WOH points) was at Glasshouse - a greenhouse like space on the second highest floor of the hotel, bright and airy although water was leaking and towels were placed underneath almost every single window panel in the restaurant. Buffet selections were limited and uninspiring (again, more an HR than a PH), for example no fresh juices, very limited hot items. However, the saving grace is there is a quite extensive a la carte menu of standard staple items (eggs, egg dishes, pancakes and waffles, noodles, dim sum) and there is no limit to what you want to order. Service was extremely attentive and outstanding also.
So I will give (partial) credit to the hotel's F&B and hopefully the rest of the options are at least as good as those that I went to.
Location
Located in the South tower of the Ping An Financial Centre complex in Futian, Shenzhen - a 14 minute high speed rail ride away from HK. However, although the hotel claims it is directly connected to the station, we were unable to find our way despite with full GPS/data navigation and our command of Chinese. Hence why we were soaked upon arrival.
My understanding is the so called connection relies on the opening of the PAFC mall within the complex of the hotel, which hasn't materialized yet.
The views from the South tower definitely cannot compare with the main tower but you do get some nice views of Shenzhen Bay, Qianhai CBD, as well as the Northern suburbs of Hong Kong in the distance. Nothing too special tho.
Overall
Call me a DYKWIA or whatever, but I am somewhat amused to not have gotten an actual upgrade, nor any interaction with any kind of management throughout my stay at the hotel.
I would've thought nights count mattered (read: many Globalists in China are fast tracked etc) plus I doubt the hotel was SO elite heavy and nor was it booked full. In fact as a luxury hotel (/wannnabe) management should be actively seeking feedback from any type of guest in opening stages, but it wasn't the case here.
I will see what channels I can voice my feedback, because as mentioned there wasn't even the customary 'how was your stay' at check out.
Conclusion - this is not a proper Park Hyatt. I hesitate to even put the 'yet' in at the end of the above statement. Forget about personalized luxury; there was almost no service at all, definitely nothing proactive. $440 USD nightly rate for a below average room and bottom of the barrel experience. Save your bucks and stay elsewhere. (Even the certs and points - I find it hard to stomach this as a cat 4.)
Aug 1, 2019, 10:12 pm
Aug 14, 2019, 1:54 am
Give it 6-12 months after opening before ever staying in a new build hotel, especially in China—at least if you expect to have any semblance of what the brand is supposed to offer.
Sep 8, 2019, 12:35 pm
The GM has informed me that all the facilities are now open and operational. Perhaps I may check it out again sometime later in the Fall.
Oct 7, 2019, 6:09 am
Redeemed my certificate here for a long weekend holiday in China. This new hotel has good hardware and is somewhat beautifully designed. Service generally seem well intentioned however glitchy.
Upon arrival, doormen was proactive in getting the taxi door and my luggage and escorted me to the lobby. Check-in was smooth
Assigned a corner room which had separate shower/tub and WC space, very odd but common in newer hotels and some grand hyatts (Park Hyatt bangkok has it too). Love the view from the shower room! Water pressure was adequate and steady water temperature.
However the room’s AC was weak and unable to cool the room adequately during day time and it took a while to reach 22 degrees at night. There is no vent in the bedroom corner of the room (a L-shape) which meant that air flow at the bed was weak and took even longer to reach a comfortable temperature at night.
Turn down service was offered unfortunately way too late, as it came after i was done with dinner in the hotel and toured all public spaces in the hotel. Other luxury hotels and other Park Hyatts, as Park Hyatt SZX claims to be, would notice when a guest is out of the room and try to refresh/turndown the room during that time. Having dined at the hotel’s restaurant, I was surprised they couldnt communicate between departments to achieve it.
Dinner at Glasshouse restaurant was decent and well priced for a hotel restaurant. The outlet manager and his team provided the only hint of 5-star service during my stay. Breakfast at the same restaurant had a wholesome buffet spread and a menu to order off, it did get busy but the staff handled it well.
Room service delivery was promised within 30 mins however in actual fact took 3 calls of which various illogical excuses (waiting for the lift etc) were offered, it eventually arrived an hour after ordering and lukewarm. The requested chilli sauce did not arrive either and took another call. Manager condescendingly offered to waive the charge, even before trying to provide a decent apology and explanation. Told her to check the quality of the food and obvious she did not.
At check out, was offered the same excuse by a supervisor of why room service was late - waiter forgot the pepper shaker (really? That caused the extra 30 mins delay and having to eat almost room temperature wonton noodles?).
For a new Park Hyatt opening, there is strangely few managers to be seen around public spaces managing customer experience, especially so given how visible the GM here was when he was GM of W HK and how well run that hotel was.
Maybe it just requires a bit more time however, it is undeserving of the Park Hyatt name for now, and generally not worth the price premium it charges compared to other 5-star brands in the area. It has a long way to achieving the Park Hyatt service standards
Dec 17, 2019, 10:00 pm
I arrived yesterday for my first stay here (stayed at the GH before).
Car pickup at SZX worked smoothly. The pickup escorted me up to the lobby on the 33rd floor where my checkin was ready, all they had to do is scan my passport and hand me my keys.
Being Explorist, I got a nice room on the 43rd floor with bay view.
I’m pleased with the overall hard product as well as the room, and the bed is very comfortable.
The only thing as usual in the beginning the light controls are a bit confusing. But well, at least there’s a “master” switch next to the bed that actually works. No need for hunting elsewhere to switch off all the lights.
Just had lunch at Glasshouse on the 47th floor with a nice view of the PingAn tower. They do European food (I needed a change from all the Chinese) in a mix of buffet and order-style for lunch and I the food was quite enjoyable. The only downside was that the staff was maybe even a bit too attentive, somebody was at my table every three minutes to fill up the glass, take away stuff, ask me if everything is fine, etc. Not a big issue but they need to find the right balance.
But overall I can recommend this property and will be coming back.
Oct 23, 2021, 6:25 am