Conrad Shanghai — Hotel in Shanghai

I will preface this review by saying this is essentially a good business hotel, no doubt about it. However the difference between good and great lies in the finer details of hospitality...... allow me to explain...

As an SPG Platinum member it would have been nice to be upgraded to a bigger room, but hey, solo business traveller, no big deal. Interestingly a colleague of mine who is only SPG Gold did get an upgrade who was staying at the same time. Oh well.

Rooms: Yes modern with a touch of hip chic, but the room layout is strange. The bathroom has a rain shower in the middle of the room, kind of cool but not practical - water everywhere especially for the fact that the shower door opens straight into the middle of the bedroom. The bathroom basin is situated in the bedroom itself, its one of the first things you see upon entering the room. The luggage rack is on a roll-away draw, nice and neat however access to your case is awkward and if you have the wardrobe door open with the luggage draw out it prevents access to the room door. Not uncomfortable but odd and impractical layout.

Restaurant: Vast selection of typical buffet food. Breakfast on a busy day is nuts!! Staff are so busy clearing plates that getting that second coffee requires lots of waving of arms and imploring looks.

Location: Very good, very good position.

Service: Ahh, this is where is all comes undone. Put simply, if you look like the cashed-up businessman, you'll have staff and management crawling over themselves to meet your needs. But if you choose to change out of that suit and tie expect to be overlooked and largely ignored. Example, I head into the Club Floor lounge for 5:30 - 8:00 happy hour, its 5:10 so I go to where the beverages are and look for a Heiniken but am told that drinks are on at 5:30pm, so I take my seat and settle in. Imagine my surprise to see not 2 minutes later a group of suited businessmen come in and suddenly all the executive lounge girls rushing over to seat them, ask for the orders, laughing and chatting. They get a round of beers taken to their tables! Okay so drinks and snacks are on ??? I head back towards the snacks and drinks but alas, not so fast, I'm promptly informed by staff that 5:30 is the time in which the drinks and food starts - do not pass go do not collect that sushi and Peking Duck Roll. I stand there puzzled having just seen the business men's every need dutifully catered for. Okay so I play by the rules and take my seat somewhat puzzled as to why there are two sets of rules?! So I sit back and watch suited up businessmen enter one after the other, greeted, waited on chatted to and generally looked after. Over the next two hours not one staff member came to see if I needed anything, not one greeted me and surprisingly not one asked my room number or name to see if I was even entitled to be there in the first place. Oh but, I did have an interaction with staff, when I had to flag someone down to collect my empty plates.

Here's the tip - wear a suit! Staff will crawl over themselves to help you out! I saw it, those guys got amazing service here!

On check out I'm rushing off to the airport, SPG Elite desk is busy with a customer (I can clearly see his card is for SPG Preferred Guest (its purple in colour), so I wait. I eventually get my bill and I'm almost ready to just sign it and leave as I am now running late for my flight. How lucky am I that I do check as there is a 2200 RMB CASH ADVANCE on my bill!! I tell them that I didn't get a cash advance, over the next five minutes staff say that I did. I insist to see some proof. The supervisor arrives and together with the front desk staff the paperwork is revealed. It has my name, room number and address on a cash advance receipt for 2000 + 200 RMB!!!! I realise I'm about to get stitched up for a cash advance I didn't request! I explain that I have worked all day at the time the advance was given so it couldn't have been me. I can tell they dont believe me. After several requests to see a manager, the Guest relations Manager arrives, I explain the problem. They cannot find a mistake. I then request to see the documents for this cash advance that I'm about to be stuck with and demonstrate that the signature on the receipt is infinitely different to mine and produce three credit cards and drivers license to prove this.

Lucky for me the charge was taken off - thing is that it shouldn't have happened in the first place if proper cash handling systems existed! I mean someone in the hotel was about to have a 2200RMB windfall at the expense of a loyal SPG member.

Not to leave off on a sour note [I still have two nights to go!] the cookies in the room on my...

I had a couple of stays and multiple rooms at this hotel last year, and I have to say that of all the starwood hotels I've stayed with in Asia of this caliber, the SPG recognition was the worst I've seen. The first experience was so bad that I booked a second stay later thinking that the first was just a fluke.. but after reading other reviews and my own experience I can say it really wasn't. First off they never upgrade you even when suites are plentiful and available. They say you're upgraded but all it means is a higher floor, the room is identical and very small and even when I commented that online many suites I could still book and why I wasn't being upgraded to a real suite or better room considering how many times and rooms I've booked plus being an SPG platinum 75, the staff looked at me with a blank stare... like they could care less.

We also had a significant delay of getting our rooms ready when first arriving which was before the regular check in time. True we did arrive earlier than expected so not a big deal, and they gave us a drink coupon for the lobby. 2 coupons for 4 people for a juice only. Anything else we had to pay for it and wait many hours until the room was ready. As an SPG guest I asked if we could go up to the executive lounge and relax there as we'd just had a very long flight from overseas and my family was very tired and I was told no, until our rooms were formally assigned in the system we couldn't. I said this is ridiculous and I'm sure not the hotel policy, and later the staff said this was their mistake, but why didn't someone just look into it when we arrived and I questioned this?

The other problem is when you get the standard room (unless you pay for it you'll never get anything else) it's very small. Tiny in fact compared to the other Starwood hotels in Shanghai, and particularly if you get upgraded elsewhere. If you are in Shanghai for business frequently like I am, I recommend the Westin Bund or Sheraton Hongkou, both have much larger rooms and treat their starwood guests very well. Really exceptionally well, that's what made this hotel stand out so much, as it's rare to get bad service at tier 4 and above or even some tier 3 in China.

Another big problem is the staff in the executive lounge. The food options for Happy Hour and breakfasts are below what is offered in other similar hotels. The service...well it doesn't exist. When you go to the executive lounge, I tested how long it took before anyone would even acknowledge you. On average it took over 2 hours, before any one asked you if you wanted a drink during their "happy hour" on the days someone actually did ask. 2 days no one ever asked at all or even spoke to me other than to rush me to a table that was terrible and they clearly showed they could care less. Yet staff had plenty of time for standing around using their cell phones in plain view to message and play games with others on QQ, wechat, etc. many I saw online shopping on taobao, or gossiping with other staff. Yet ignored guests for the entire time and there was a half dozen staff just standing around doing nothing for hours until the Happy Hour ended.

I was really shocked by how poor the recognition was in this hotel, and service in general so then went to talk to the SPG manager in the hotel when I was checking out, and brought to her attention just how poor the SPG guest treatment was in this hotel and her only response was "sorry, we have a lot of new staff". That's it, no compensation, no thanks for bringing all these issues to our attention, no explanation why SPG Platinum guests are never upgraded and treated so poorly. If that's how the person put in charge of SPG guests reacts, nothing will change here.

The one good factor of this hotel is the location, it's very convenient to some great areas in Shanghai and some fantastic restaurants that we really enjoyed. However cabs and public transportation are plentiful in Shanghai, the subway is convenient and easy to learn, and you'll get much better service out of other starwood hotels of the same tier in the area so I don't recommend staying here if you care about SPG...

I am writing this review when I am still staying at this hotel since I am very disappointed with your hotel. I am a returning customer as the office in Shanghai is within 10 minutes walking distance. This stay, your hotel has failed me miserably.

The booking was made by my office thru our corporate travel agent, so I did not actually check the detail, assuming that all should be done fine considering that this is not the first time I stayed here.

Upon arrival, the FO staff has no recognition at all on SPG membership and she requested me to give her full SPG number. I asked her to looked up the database as this is not the first time staying and i had never given any after the first stay. She finally found it and told me I was upgraded to higher level (which later on eventually is not at all an upgrade as that was what written in confirmation letter)

Put my bag then left for meeting in the office and only back almost 10 pm. Upon returned, I approached the front desk to ask detail on room rate inclusion as I was bit in rush to leave while checking in.

Your FO staff, Edward was very RUDE in responding to my inquiry on whether my room rate incl bf for two or not, and after some arguments when he eventually changed it as if he did a great deed for me and reprimanded me for next time to talk with my company and BOOK the RIGHT room rate!

Guess what, as soon as I am back to my room and check online the reservation, not only the reservation included breakfast for two but also it includes club room benefit.

As 6109, the room where I got allocated stink with unbearable smoke smell when I came in the evening, I asked to change the room to the one with non smoke smell room. It took me two calls to get it organised, as they promised to call me back but never did. Went down, took the card and at the same time showed the other FO staff (as really I dont want to deal with this Edward again, ever!) my confirmation letter live from the spg website. He then called his duty manager, both insisted that it was not included. This guy is slightly better as he tried to explain to his manager, the manager asked me to email the confirmation letter (which he could also access thru spg.com) to gsm.shanghai@lemeridien.com. I asked to speak with the duty manager, first time, he didn't think I worth to talk with, so didn't talk with him. Asked again for the second time, "his royal highness" duty manager finally willing to speak with me and despite I said you could have seen the reservation from the web plus I have shown his FO staff, he arrogantly insisted that he need to review it and I personally need to send it thru email.

Unbelievable of hospitality your staff have here!

After waiting and waiting, they finally agreed to "grant" me and honour the written confirmation. The next surprise is, despite in confirmation letter written guarantee level 44th and above, non smoking room - they can only downgrade me to 25th floor. Although room hardware is the same, be well aware that the room amenities (shower gel, no of mineral water supplied, turn down service) are different, but no - the staff do not even care or show any empathy.

Being a member of various chain and spend not less than 60 nights on business travels annually - I have never ever received such hospitality from any other hotel chains. When things go wrong, the hotel try to compensate and make the stay pleasant as possible. But dont think this is the...