Shanghai InterContinental Wonderland — Hotel in Shanghai

This InterContinental hotel is often hailed as an architectural marvel, and it truly is a diamond among five-star hotels. Particularly notable this time was the upgrade to an underwater sea-view suite using a suite voucher, allowing us to watch fish right from our room. This unique experience was incredibly satisfying and was the main reason for our stay. My wife particularly enjoys watching fish, so we arrived full of anticipation. Honestly, it was truly great. Watching the fish from our room was both enjoyable and relaxing! Additionally, the light show at 8:30 PM was spectacular, culminating with a projection of Van Gogh's paintings, which instantly elevated the experience to a new level of sophistication! Overall, it was excellent, and I hope these features are maintained so we might return for another stay when we have the chance.

However, there are many areas that need improvement, summarized as: great gimmicks but virtually zero service, not at all befitting of a hotel of this supposed caliber. Specific areas for improvement include:

The underwater suite's shower and toilet are only separated by a sliding door without a handle, making it difficult and unsafe to operate. There’s about a 5 cm gap between the door and partition, allowing shower water to flow into the toilet area. I nearly slipped and only avoided falling by grabbing onto the door frame, which resulted in a minor cut on my right pinky finger (not severe, but painful and slightly swollen). After calling the duty manager to have the water cleaned up, they arrived without a mop and used several bath towels to soak up the water and placed a few mats/towels down. Although the manager apologized verbally, there was no tangible action taken.

The next morning at 7 AM, as my wife was about to leave for the airport, she was dragging a small suitcase to breakfast when a female staff member at the entrance refused to allow her in with it, nor to leave it at the entrance. She insisted we leave it at the front desk or beside a sofa about 30 meters from the restaurant entrance. Despite our time constraints and request to leave the suitcase nearby as we were in a hurry, she was unaccommodating. Frustrated, I left the suitcase by a column near the entrance and hurriedly went in for breakfast. This lack of professionalism and unhelpfulness was unacceptable.

Upon our arrival around 11 AM, I had called to inquire when our suite would be ready and mentioned we might arrive early in the afternoon. As a Diamond card member, I requested if it was possible to arrange for the larger suite for us (I later found out that suite 1529 had a larger aquarium and more space than 1519). The male staff member who answered seemed dismissive and noted that the previous night’s guests, who were also Ambassador members, might check out late at 4 PM. He promised to call if the room became available sooner but never did. I called back at 5:30 PM only to find out that 1529 had been occupied and we were assigned to 1519. When I inquired at check-in why the larger room was not reserved for us, the front desk was evasive and provided no explanation. It was only at check-out the next afternoon that I was told the previous guests had extended their stay.

During check-out, the front desk asked about the near fall incident from the day before, offering verbal apologies but no other compensation. I was exhausted and sweating, carrying heavy luggage, and no one offered to help carry it to the door, which was...

Aside from the fact that the Wonderland is an engineering marvel there is not much else to inspire as visit. ||For our 20th anniversary we booked the "Underwater View Suite" for approximately 14,000RMB. Considering the price of the room our expectations were very high.||The check-in went fine and the staff was very friendly and accommodating. I was a little surprised they had no valet parking, but the walk to the parking lot in 100degC was too difficult.||After check-in we were escorted to our suite on the 15th floor below the water level of the lake. We all noticed the distinct mildew smell permeating the hallway to the suite. The room was nice, but not really over-the-top regarding amenities and as previous reviewers stated the room was rather small. Now the big draw for us was the underwater feature of the room. However it was not what I expected. It turned out that the underwater view was just a glass panel of a large aquarium tank. We thought the saltwater tropical fish were lovely and it did make for a special ambiance however it was not a view into the abyss of the 30 meter deep quarry. The staff did their best to make us feel special. They brought treats to the room and a cake for our anniversary. ||We had heard good things from friends about the buffet so we chose that option for dinner. For the most part the food was good but not exceptional. The local folks seemed to appreciate the abundance of hairy crabs and crawfish. ||The light show was interesting for about the first five minutes but the visual impact soon lost its appeal and imagery became redundant if not annoying. ||The next day I went to the gym which had basic equipment, was quite small but on the plus side was spotless. ||We enjoyed the breakfast buffet that in some ways I liked more than the dinner. We had some trouble when we returned to the room and tried to take a shower. The drains in the shower could not handle the water flow and soon flooded the entire bathroom. As you can imagine using the bathroom soon became very inconvenient. We called the front desk and about 30 minutes later a maintenance worker showed up at the door with a screw driver yet no mop, no bucket nothing to clean up the mess. Anyhow to sum it up; do not set your expectations too high if you visit Wonderland. Personally, I feel the underwater suites are a waste of money. If I were to visit again, (not sure why I would) I would stay in one of the quarry-view suites that has a balcony. Not to be all negative: the staff try their best for the guests to have a...

We checked in early (12:00pm) to take advantage of the hotel facilities and explore the Wonderland theme park. Highlight of the visit is the glass walkway which huddles the western perimeter of the quarry. The theme park itself had few attractions (very basic) but is otherwise toddler/kid friendly. As IHG members we were provided with VIP entry tickets which was unexpected and saved us over 200RMB. Returning to the hotel we took in some sam-deem-sam and complimentary drinks (again courtesy of the IHG club). We stayed on the 6th floor (B6/619) which is quite central in relation to the quarry. Check-in was relatively straight forward and efficient. All staff were friendly and courteous at all times. This is a newly opened hotel (Nov 18) and it does show - some junior staff would benefit from additional training to become more familiar with the requirements and nuances of western guests. At the time of our visit, the hotel guests were predominately chinese (new money types). We were looking forward to the light show and water display, and having read recent reviews from other guests Mr Fisher restaurant was the place to be for the 7:30pm extravaganza. Unfortunately to my wife and daughters' disappointment we couldn't make a reservation as the entire restaurant was booked out for an internal event. As this was a special occasion for my wife i was persistent and after a couple of failed attempts with front desk staff i tried e-mailing the Concierge. This was now about 5:00pm and we had all but given up on finding a good spot to watch the show. Shortly after 5:00pm i was woken up (briefly nodded off on comfortable emperor size bed) by a call from the front desk. Apparently my e-mail had made the rounds and all the hotel staff were keen to find a solution for us. It was Danny (Food & Beverages Mgr) who eventually came up with a plan. We had previously bumped into Danny in the elevator following check-in and discovered this was only his third day in the job. Danny offered us private dining in The Quarry at the time we wanted and with a great table location to watch the show. The food was awesome, lightly smoked salmon followed by beef tender loin. Wife had an extra surprise birthday dessert which rounded off a very pleasant day. Daniel and his team were fantastic. We would highly recommend the IHG Wonderland and are looking forward to a return visit next year. Almost forgot about the light show - 15 minutes of true amazement, 3D animated projections on water mist/spray rising some 50ft...