Curt 常鹰
17 Februari 2025
Stayed here for one night as a birthday gift for my partner.
First things first, this is a luxury hotel & it packs a decent luxury punch for it's price, around 1200rmb per night.
Even before you arrive, you're met by the eye catching building on your walk from Tianjin railway station - around 15 to 20 minutes. That it features on various silhouettes of the Tianjin skyline on posters and advertisements throughout the city is testament to how highly thought of the building is in the city. Perhaps not the most important factor, but it does add to the excitement if you're not a regular luxury hotel booker.
The lobby can be entered from the main road or riverfront & is spacious & well designed, opulent yet modern and even somewhat cozy of an evening. Unfortunately, upon check in there were no rooms available however, & we had to wait. Not ideal.
Once the room *was* available, we were walked there by our incredibly friendly butler who returned shortly afterwards with some excellent coffee & biscuits that were some of the best I've eaten in China.
The room is spacious, with huge windows offering an unbeatable view of the river, which lights up at night as the buildings reflect from it's surface. The bed is comfortable, and bathroom clean, but the temperature was stifilingly hot. Perhaps there was a way to control this & it was user error on our part, but in such a luxury hotel with everything planned to apparent perfection, I'd have assumed they would have made this quite simple. It was 10c outside, which doesn't require the heating turned up so high that it makes you sweat. But nor is it so hot that one should have to turn on the A/C in mid February.
The room comes stocked with everything you would need & more. Plenty of water, tea, coffee, & 24h contact with a butler. What it lacked was towels. Again, maybe there were some more hidden, but I shouldn't have to search. & I'm sure the butler would have brought some more had I asked, but I shouldn't need to for over 1000rmb per night. This hasn't been an issue in far cheaper hotels.
I did like that the bathroom toiletries were eco friendly, even down to the toothpaste 'tube'. I worried at the time that the toothpaste in a sachet was too small & would dry up overnight, but this didn't end up being the case. The shower itself was just fine, but a little disappointing for a pricey hotel. It seemed to lack a bit of pressure, & I've had far better in hotels at far more than half the price.
The only other issue I'd take is the cleanliness of the windows and frames. They're the highlight of the room & should be celebrated, so it's a little disappointing that they show some dirt and staines. Again, in a cheaper hotel I'd barely notice this, but a 1000rmb+ one must be held to a higher standard.
One thing I have absolutely no complaints about is the food. The breakfast offering had a great blend of Chinese & Western food, and plenty of it. Staff, as was the case throughout the stay, were friendly & beyond helpful & we both left very full only wishing we could try even more. Lovely view across the frozen river as we ate, too. A really nice way to start the day & a great way to leave a lasting memory as we checked out.
All in all, it really was a wonderful stay, and I'm only being sometimes critical because I hold expensive hotels to a high standard & I know that this hotel in particular *can* reach that standard. I've given cleanliness a 5 because Trip doesn't offer half stars & 4 brought the overall rating down lower than I think seems fair, given I did genuinely have a very nice time.
With a few little improvements this would easily be a 5/5 across the board.
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