Himalayas Hotel Shanghai

“Great room, great food, great service”

Came to Shanghai for the fair at SNIEC (justa across the street from the hotel). Perfect location for it, also there is commerce nearby, a mall, restaurants, 24/7 mini markets… and the hotel itself is great also. Clean rooms, nice cuisine, polite staff, everything was great. Had a very good experie… more

Came to Shanghai for the fair at SNIEC (justa across the street from the hotel). Perfect location for it, also there is commerce nearby, a mall, restaurants, 24/7 mini markets… and the hotel itself is great also. Clean rooms, nice cuisine, polite staff, everything was great. Had a very good experience!!!

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“That spa feeling...”

Due to my work and my passion for travelling I have stayed in over two hundred 5 stars hotels. I can say that Jumeirah Himalayas is over the media for luxury. You feel welcome from the moment you step on the thick carpets and your feet are giving a soft hug. The design of the rooms is impressive, … more

Due to my work and my passion for travelling I have stayed in over two hundred 5 stars hotels. I can say that Jumeirah Himalayas is over the media for luxury. You feel welcome from the moment you step on the thick carpets and your feet are giving a soft hug. The design of the rooms is impressive, smart, modern and comfortable. The beds seem to be made of apiece of cloud. My favorite part of the hotel is the spa. It has circuit of pools at different temperatures which are so relaxing. You feel truly pampered at this hotel.

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“Difficult time recognizing it as a Jumeirah property”

Jumeirah Shanghai has a heavy burden on its shoulder – it bears the title of being a member of the worldwide respected Jumeirah Group and a Forbes hotel. Unfortunately, I found these burdens too overwhelming to this hotel, to the extent that they have drowned it. When I try to recall my first impr… more

Jumeirah Shanghai has a heavy burden on its shoulder – it bears the title of being a member of the worldwide respected Jumeirah Group and a Forbes hotel. Unfortunately, I found these burdens too overwhelming to this hotel, to the extent that they have drowned it. When I try to recall my first impression of this hotel, I cannot control myself but come up with the word "shocking". When one heads toward a high-end hotel in China via ground transportation, it is usually not difficult to know that she/he is approaching – the grand façade of the architecture, often illuminating, oftentimes already sends a strong signal to the guest about the very existence of the property even before the guest seeing the front gate of the hotel. However, when my taxi driver told me that I had already arrived, I was honestly caught in shock. I pulled out my bags from the back, stood in front of the hotel, and looked up. "Has the driver dropped me at the wrong spot?" I thought from the bottom of my heart. The surrounding was so dark that I would not have doubted it if someone had told me that I was in the middle of a newly developed but yet finished new town in some second-tier Chinese cities (or villages?). I could not quite convince myself that I was in front of a Jumeirah hotel even when I looked up at the hotel exterior – how came there were just a few rooms lit up across this enormous façade, I thought. I could only convince myself that it was the right location when I saw the label "Jumeirah" somewhat hidden around the front door. Even after I passed through the front gate, I was still inside a cloud of puzzles – why was there no bell team? Why was the entire lobby so empty? I even thought about the possibility that the hotel was under certain types of massive renovations and was only partially operating. Otherwise, how could the entire atmosphere be so dilapidated and empty, as if I were walking into a Hilton Garden Inn? Of course, it would not even be a Hotel Garden Inn in Shanghai – I suppose their lobbies would at least have a sense of human being existence or, at the very least, not cause me to doubt if the hotel was actually operating at all. There is no better word to describe the arrival experience than "desolation". The check-in experience was fair. However, it was only just fair. I always believe that the check-in process is vital in shaping how a guest views a hotel. It is, indeed, the golden minute in defining a hotel's quality of service. The lady who helped me with my check-in was polite and efficient. However, the entire process was overly mechanical, dry, and rushed through. As a result, I struggled to feel welcomed, not to mention being warmly welcomed. For sure, Jumeirah Shanghai successfully finished all the paperwork for the check-in, very quickly even. However, as a Jumeirah hotel, I do not believe the two to three minutes of check-in should merely be about paperwork but also about welcoming. If I need to mention one thing I saw during my trip that earned this hotel four Forbes stars, it would be its room. Its room adopts a contemporary Chinese style. It is not the antique Chinese style that fills the Chinese Aman and Park Hyatt (most of) hotels with the good-old-day, romantic, and calming air. Instead, it is the Chinese style that one would encounter in those grand hotels that opened by the turn of the century – the style that widely uses golden and muddy yellow colors and wooden furniture and hangs a few pieces of ancient Chinese art pieces. This vibe is, of course, not as strong in Jumeirah Shanghai as those hotels which really opened in that era, but it is clearly the vibe that Jumeirah Shanghai adopts. I personally did not and do not find this style appealing – it gives me a feeling of going back to the post-1978 period when everything in China went crazy, big, and vulgar but lost the beauty of subtleness that the Chinese elegantly celebrated generation by generation. However, to be fair, the room is big. It is big to the extent that the hotel can put a little round desk at the center of the room while still leaving plenty of space. Still, it is a bit regretting that the hotel fails to make use of such an abundance of space. They abstain from using the extensive room to play around with arts and design but leave it quite empty. Consequently, the room, unfortunately, shares a bit of the vibe prevalent in the lobby of the hotel – a bit of desolation, though not as strong as the lobby. Despite so, I want to highlight the little round table I mentioned earlier in this paragraph. The hotel really has guts here, and I really mean it. The hotel places the round table and the two accompanying little round chairs to occupy the visual center point of the room. This set of round table and chairs truly caught my eyes, as they are precisely what the seniors played Chinese chess on in China. It is truly astonishing to see the hotel positions this genuinely Chinese furniture to the very center of the room, leaving its surroundings empty, as if celebrating the chair set as an art piece. This design indeed enlightens the entire room. It gives the room a soul. Of course, the hotel could have used a soul that I personally appreciate even more. Still, at least the room now has a character and is much less empty than it otherwise would be without this character. Despite seeing a reason from the room why this hotel could earn four Forbes stars, I still struggle to see how it can bear up to the title of a Jumeirah hotel. The room of Jumeirah Shanghai may be able to reach the standard of Forbes four stars, but it is still far away from the profound cultivation and outrageous lavishness typical of a Jumeirah property. The room is empty without much decoration. Even those limited decorations are plain instead of Jumeirah-ly carefully crafted. It is hard to imagine it is a sister of Jumeirah Guangzhou, not to mention those exceptional Jumeirahs in Dubai. Lastly, as a funny little note, this Forbes-four-star does not (or, did not, at least) offer turndown services. I approached the front desk when I went out for dinner to request a turndown service. And, to my surprise, and perhaps also to their surprise when hearing my request, they said, "ah? Turndown service? What do you mean?" Not a big deal, but very interesting to encounter a Forbes-four-star without turndown service, particularly in China, where the hotel industry has developed a high standard. I would say Jumeirah Shanghai is an unfortunate one. To be honest, both its software and hardware are fair. It is a tidy, clean, and pretty place to sleep. It would undoubtedly be a fine hotel if it were a Hilton or Sheraton. Unfortunately, it bears the name of Jumeirah and is armed with four Forbes stars, which can inflate everyone's expectation of it, to which this property can hardly live up.

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