InterContinental Shanghai Puxi — Hotel in Shanghai

I stayed at InterContinental Shanghai Jing'An for two nights (August 6, 2021 to August 8, 2021) by two separate bookings. For convenience sake, I will write the reviews for both nights together here.

From a guest's perspective, InterContinental Jing'An is a very standardized luxurious hotel: it looks grand and has polite staff. However, it lacks the classifiable features, or, a wow factor. It is just a very standardized luxurious hotel. It has no characteristics. Therefore, I am not confident that InterContinental Shanghai Jing'An can attract hotel lovers or staycation guests. Its attractiveness is more with business guests and tourists demanding a hotel close to the area around Shanghai railway station.

However, two issues during my stay really shocked me. I have never expected these would happen in any licensed hotel. The first issue is that the housekeeping broke into my room without my consent at midnight. I requested the housekeeping team to help clean my room at midnight. By the time the housekeeping person knocked on my door, I was making a phone call with the front desk so I could not immediately open the door for him. Then, the shocking thing happened: the housekeeping person used his card to open my door and just walked in! How could he just walk into a guest's room at midnight without getting the guest's consent?! How embarrassing it would have turned out if I were a lady and I were naked by the time he abruptly opened my door?! This problem is actually extremely serious, as it is no longer a problem of service quality, it is about guests' safety and privacy, the top priorities for every hotel! It is really shocking that a hotel as high-end as InterContinental Jing'An would neglect such a serious issue.

Then, the second issue comes in. The next morning, I called the front desk to report this issue. However, the front desk did not seem to realize how serious the problem was despite my continuously explaining. They gave me a really funny explanation: "the fact that you called the housekeeping to help already gave him the permission to come in" What?! I never told the housekeeping team to feel free to come in. All I asked for was a service delivery; I NEVER gave any permission to enter my room freely! According to the explanation by the front desk, does it mean that if I ask the housekeeping to give me a toothbrush at midnight, the housekeeping can come straight into my room without my consent and put the toothbrush in the bathroom?! There is no way for any reasonable guest to accept this explanation. How can the front desk not recognize it is an issue when the issue is such damaging?! All I can get from the front desk is that they just want to defend themselves, not to solve any problem, no matter how severe the problem is.

Also worth mentioning is the attitude of the housekeeping person. He was obviously angry when I called him for a service I was entitled to. He expressed it by keeping on bumping my door (imagine how annoying it would be for me and for all other guests on the same floor given that it was already 1 AM!). Another expression of his was to clean my room in an extremely messy manner. For instance, he just randomly relayed the bedsheet and threw a pack of toilet paper right on my desk. So my room got even more disorganized before he came. If InterContinental Jing'An did not want to deliver the service it was supposed to offer, just say its guests; don't mess around the room.

It is an absolutely disappointing experience at InterContinental Jing'An. I hope the hotel management can really look into that and correct that. I really damage my loyalty to the...

Dear Sir/Madam,

How are you?

This email is in concern with what an embarrassing situation which I faced during my last stay with Intercontinental Shanghai Puxi on 15th April 2017. Before my arrival I was given a call by one of the hotel staff asking whether any special arrangements were required during my stay which was something I never expected and I was thinking that surely Intercontinental Shanghai has really pushed there service to an extremely new level.

I had booked myself in the Club Intercontinental Building as that’s where I mostly book my rooms and to my surprise at my arrival there was no bellboy or any concierge service available, I had to bring down my luggage from the Car and even take it personally to my room so I don’t know why this call was made, was it something to mock my arrival. Even 4 star hotels have concierge present all the time and this is not the first time this has happened, the Club Building where guests pay a premium over other rooms they do expect premium services but Intercontinental Shanghai can completely ignore this level of service.

On my last stay last year I was about to miss my train because your staff who was at the Front-Desk was checking out a group of people from the main building in the club building and she took no notice that I was waiting there for more than 15 minutes, despite me informing well in advance for my taxi arrangements so for sure the staff was aware that I had to check-out at a certain time.

For the breakfast since past 5 years I have been requesting for Gluten-Free Breads but till now Shanghai Intercontinental is the only hotel that I know cannot provide this facility and one more thing for the past 5 years I have not noticed a single change in the breakfast. One of your Managers should go to other Hotels and try their breakfast which has something new to offer every single time, every time I go there is no need to request for Gluten-Free Breads it’s always available.

I don’t know if my Email can make any difference because even last time I had made a very strong complaint where I had arrived early in the morning and I was carrying 3 bags by myself from the Car to the Lobby and then to the rooms, imagine a 5-star hotel with no concierge services but you still keep on insisting t maintain this horrible level of service.

I don’t know how this hotel is even considered to be an Intercontinental as it’s a downgrade to many InterContinental Hotels worldwide, even IHG Properties in Suzhou offer exceptional level of service, it’s a chaos to find Taxi outside your hotel and not one of your staff can do anything about it but in Suzhou outside every Intercontinental or Crowne Plaza there are Taxi’s waiting in queue.

I hope a miracle can happen to change things about this property which stands in an...

In the past in 2010 this hotel was very good not now.When I checked in all seemed to be going the right way but that was it. We went to our room and the keys did not work, called from the floor phone and they said they would send someone up, over 10 minutes nobody arrived, called the duty manager and he said he would bring the keys up, at the end it was the bell hop that went to get the keys, this was over 20 minutes wait.

Upon entering the room, its small its supposed to be an upgrade but well when they call special view is just the view to the Holiday Inn, and honestly if you had ever stayed in this hotel there is no view at all in any of the rooms, that’s it, its great location but no views. So entering the room there are stains all over the place, on the wood, carpet and so on, it’s a general feel of dirty, it was dirty as well, the desk had some sticky substance, they just went up to clean it, that’s it. So later when we were going out I asked for bag stand to be sent up since believe or not they don’t have them in this room that is what the Front Desk Manager told he know they don’t have one yet even me asking he did not send one over.

That night we got a bottle of wine on the house which I personally returned since I don’t drink asked for a tea or even better just to send a tea set to my room since I have my own teas, my wife is Chinese and she also explained it took two days to get the tea set delivered.

The staff of the hotel also sleeps in the hallways, I have pictures of it, and this is at 7 am when you go to the gym in the hallway and the grand reception on the 3rd floor there were some 8 people sleeping, they did not even feel me when I stepped over them in order not to disturb them, a manager saw them but did nothing, and I know because one hour later they were still there when I came back from the gym.

Upon check out they saw my poor review and they offered an upgrade to Club next time I come, something I said will never happen, the front desk manager came out to apologize, asked what to do, and I actually said send me to the airport, and here is where it gets better, he cant do that at the moment, but I did get an email saying he would do it on my next time in the hotel.

So in general if you want an Intercontinental experience don’t stay here, the staff is poor to meet needs, the hotel is run down and they don’t care about anything, even if its explained in Chinese. They don’t care to redeem themselves.

I’m Platinum member and this is what you get, so imagine if you just walk off the street.

By far my worst experience in any IHG hotel in China and I’ve stayed in many with many excellent...