Jumeirah Living Guangzhou - Residences

“Its ladies and gentlemen define hostmanship”

My visit to Jumeirah Living was purely incidental. As my earlier posts have revealed, I had already stayed at Jumeirah Guangzhou (the hotel), where I had an absolutely amazing experience; amazing to the extent that I even needed to think whether I should continue to tell my friends Mandarin Orienta… more

My visit to Jumeirah Living was purely incidental. As my earlier posts have revealed, I had already stayed at Jumeirah Guangzhou (the hotel), where I had an absolutely amazing experience; amazing to the extent that I even needed to think whether I should continue to tell my friends Mandarin Oriental was the best in Guangzhou. Therefore, I initially did not have any plan to visit Jumeirah Living. I thought, ultimately, how much difference can there be between Jumeirah Living and Jumeirah? Therefore, what I initially planned to experience was actually W Hotel, which is right next to Jumeirah. Unfortunately, the people at W Hotel did a series of disgusting racially discriminative things, which I would abstain from recalling here since I am sure I will be get crazy again when thinking about how unacceptable things were there. All I can say is that the things at W Hotel were entirely over my range of tolerance, that I chose to leave the hotel right after checking-in as a gesture of protest. It was a rainy summer day in Guangzhou and my mood to appreciate a hotel was already entirely spoiled by that W Hotel. Because of that, instead of choosing a new hotel I had never experienced before, I chose Jumeirah Living – hoping to experience something slightly new but which I could still be certain about the quality (I could not afford encountering two disgusting hotels within the same afternoon!). Therefore, I chose Jumeirah Living, because I knew it could not be bad given how good its sister property Jumeirah (the hotel) was. My experience later prove that my initial thought was wrong: Jumeirah Living was not “not bad”; it was crazily exceptional! I said it was crazily exceptional not because it is way better than W Hotel – which hotel cannot beat W Guangzhou? It is crazily exceptional because it is, surprisingly, comparably astonishing as its sister Jumeirah hotel as well as MO Guangzhou. However, it is not similar to Jumeirah hotel; both of them are of the very first-class but in two very different ways. I would begin with its hardware. To be very honest, its lobby is decent but gets nothing particularly refined. It is just like the entrance lobby of a very high-end skyscraper residential tower one can find in Manhattan and Chicago – modern, well-lit, simple, and sharp. This makes absolute sense since this is precisely how Jumeirah Living positions itself – a service apartment. It might instead be weird if Jumeirah Living had made its lobby fancy like a conventional hotel lobby. Therefore, for the lobby, Jumeirah Living has clearly done its job. There are two styles of suite/apartment in Jumeirah Living. One classic, one contemporary. Due to some technical issues in my original suite, I got the chance to experience both styles. The classic suite adopts a design that is similar to the rooms in Jumeirah hotel, which celebrates Arabic-style luxuriousness. However, the differences are also apparent. While Jumeirah hotel has a wonderful balance between classy and modern luxuriousness, Jumeirah Living can seem to tip too much toward the classy end. It heavily utilizes sharp colors like yellow, gold, and dark purple. The interior also slightly lacks the sense of emptiness. Consequently, the apartment seems to be overly full and heavy. Of course, it is still far away from vulgar. Still, I would personally prefer the room design at Jumeirah hotel more, which perfectly blends together richness and emptiness, classiness and modernity, as well as luxuriousness and simplicity. However, I need to say that the room design at Jumeirah Living is still amazing. I said it may seem a bit over simply when comparing it with Jumeirah hotel. It is like comparing an A pupil with an A+ pupil – both are excellent, just a matter of which is better. Even with the tiny elements abovementioned which I personally do not know how to appreciate, I can still confidently say that the classic suites in Jumeirah Living Guangzhou have one of the most refined design in town. For the contemporary apartments, I have been thinking for a while how I should describe it, and I have eventually come up with a suitable metaphor. Have you ever seen those demonstration apartments in those new high-end residential towers? That is very much how Jumeirah Living’s contemporary suites are like. I would even say that they truly inherit the vibe of the lobby downstairs. They are spacious, well-light, clean and sharp, and simple. The contemporary suites are very much the opposite of its classic brother. While I said the classic suites are too heavily and luxuriously decorated to the extent that they seem to lack a bit of air, the contemporary suites seem to be overly spacious and simple so they are a bit too airy. Therefore, I would say the two types of apartments at Jumeirah Living really head toward two extremes: the classic celebrate exceptional classy luxuriousness, and go all the way to the very end of that extreme; the contemporary celebrate simplicity, and also go all the way toward the end of that extreme. Some people may appreciate that, but it would not be me. However, still, one cannot deny both types of suites are of truly high quality – I am just being overly demanding here so all of us can know how the interior of Jumeirah Living are really like. If I describe the hardware of Jumeirah Living as a pupil getting 99 out of 100 in an exam, then I will be in big trouble when commenting its software – 100 out of 100 is just not enough to describe how wonderful the ladies and gentlemen at Jumeirah Living are! The hardware at Jumeirah Living may be amazing but still has something for me to be picky with. However, I guess even the most demanding people will find it a struggle to think of a word to be picky with Jumeirah Living’s people. Maybe I can put my conclusion here first: among all the hotels I have experienced in Guangzhou, Mandarin Oriental, Jumeirah, and Jumeirah Living have the most amazing people. While MO and Jumeirah hotel should be proud of their accomplishment, this is a particularly huge achievement for Jumeirah Living – any service apartment should be really proud of itself if its service is comparable to the finest hotels. It is just like a water polo athlete winning a professional swimmer in swimming. The fact that a water polo player can overperform a professional swimmer in swimming, which the former only practices as a supplement to her/his main training in water polo, proves how hardworking that water polo athlete is. I cannot respect this hard work more! Even though I would put MO, Jumeirah, and Jumeirah Living as the top three of Guangzhou, they are wonderful in very different ways. MO is like a well-educated Confucius scholar; Jumeirah hotel is like a royal butler polishing every service to the finest possible extent; for Jumeirah Living, my apologies, I need more than one sentence to make the metaphor. When we began college, the school would usually assign each of us a student mentor, who may be one year or two above us. These student mentors are usually exceptionally energetic and caring (to the extent they would worry if we knew where to eat pizza on campus!). However, their care is different from those from parents and teachers. They are much more easy-going and someone we can feel at ease to be with; someone we can laugh and hang out together. This is precisely how the ladies and gentlemen are like at Jumeirah Living! The most important thing is I do not think my encounter with these amazing people is incidental – I believe the culture of Jumeirah Living is like that. This is because I have encountered at least three people at Jumeirah Living (Abel, Vivian, and Winson) as easy-going, friendly, and helpful as the student mentor described above! I used to describe some hotel people as giving me a feeling of a friend, but all these experiences are just incomparable in front of Jumeirah Living. In Jumeirah Living, I could genuinely feel the warmth from friends! All I can say is I am speechlessly astonished. I really like one motto of the Urban Resort Concepts: while some call it service, we call it hostmanship. The ladies and gentlemen at Jumeirah Living really live out the spirit of what hostmanship means! Their hostmanship is something I have never ever experienced before and I doubt whether it is any property other than Jumeirah Living which has such hostmanship. It is more than a role model of quality service. I sincerely hope such an adorable culture at Jumeirah Living Guangzhou can continue to thrive. Additionally, I want to thank one more lady in particular. Thanks a lot, Winnie! We did not have the chance to talk much but I was really touched when I saw you immediately standing up and saying hello to me once you spotted me walking into the lobby, even when it was already 2AM! I am so touched by how demanding you are with yourself. You demonstrate to me a philosophy: a professional is professional all the time, day and night! Overall, the hardware at Jumeirah Living is a first-class one, though it can still have some tiny elements I do not appreciate. However, the people there are just lovely to the extent I cannot come up with a word strong enough to capture. I would strongly recommend Jumeirah Living to all my friends, especially the young ones, as nothing can be better than staying at a place with the care of a bunch of true friends when travelling!

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