Our Favorite “Home Base” for Hong Kong Exploration

This is one of our favorite hotels in Hong Kong, primarily due to its location.

You’re sitting right on top of K11 Art Mall, which has a ton of shops (like Pop Mart in the basement!)

You also have direct access to both the Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) and East TST MTR stations.

Nearby, Kowloon Park, Star Ferry, and the promenade (best view of Victoria Harbor) are a 10-minute walk.

All of this, plus the 24-hour dining, late-night retail, and just hustle-and-bustle of the area — but the relative calm of the hotel — makes this a perfect home base for our trips.

Check-in can definitely be better. Even though we have Globalist status — and can check-in at the Club Lounge — there’s not really any practical way to get up there by yourself, even if you know the hotel already.

This means that you’re waiting in the standard elite member line, and you only get offered to go upstairs when you can talk to someone.

They’re also not the greatest about parsing Hyatt elite members vs. standard guests, so even with Globalist, you might be in line for a while.

Check-in upstairs is a stark contrast and a great experience. They take your information and welcome you to enjoy the lounge, where you can grab a drink. Given that we’re usually a hot mess and sweety, with our giant luggage, a cold Diet Coke is perfect.

TLDR: Could be more efficient downstairs, but friendly and good otherwise!

This hotel is interesting. Even with Globalist, they generally don’t like to upgrade elite members to suites. Talking to their team, it makes sense, since they get a lot of last-minute guests and want to have those available to sell.

The one benefit of this is that it makes it a LOT easier to use Suite Upgrade Awards (SUA) to clear, even for longer stays (i.e., 5 nights in our case!).

Regency Club here is decent. Super-friendly staff and not a bad option if you have a workcation day.

Food is just passable. Even though there’s a hot breakfast, afternoon tea, and a generous evening canapes — I don’t think you’re necessarily missing out by skipping it.

We mostly used it to satiate Sebby’s Diet Coke addiction (which turns into Coke Plus in Asia).

We’ve stayed at this hotel in both standard rooms and now the suite, so I think we can speak to the differences pretty well.

The standard room is fine and passable; a bit dated, but it works for a “location hotel” pick.

The standard suite is amazing and is a breath of fresh air, especially in Hong Kong, where rooms are typically tiny.

For the price range and hotel level, I think the suite here hits above its weight class and makes it easy to sprawl out and enjoy yourselves on workcation days, without feeling claustrophobic.

Depending on your budget (and the prices at the time), it might be worth booking into a suite or using a SUA.

The property is quite nice, but it can give conference or wedding venue vibes (and I think that’s actually the primary use case!).

I like the dark wood tones throughout, and it feels premium.

The outdoor pool is shared with the tower residences, and it’s surprisingly big. It’s also closed between noon and 1 PM for maintenance (which Sebby was a bit annoyed with). Otherwise, the pool was great, and he loved that it was in the shade and not in the scorching sun like other pools.

The 24/7 gym is surprisingly nice. The room gets a lot of nice light (as opposed to some other hotels where it's in a dark and dingy room), you get great views, and the machines are clean and new.

The caveat is that there are not as many machines. Luckily, we never ran into anyone else during our workouts. I think most people are hitting 20,000 steps while staying here, so less focused on the gym.

There’s some seating in the lobby, but it definitely feels like “sitting and waiting for someone so we can leave” vibes vs. lounging around and relaxing.

The hotel features several restaurants, and if you have Globalist status, you can enjoy the breakfast buffet at the Cafe.

Variety is great, and the staff is friendly, but the food is just okay. We skipped it for a bunch of days and didn’t really feel like we missed out. YMMV, but Hong Kong has a ton of good food, and this isn’t the most impressive breakfast compared to some other hotels we’ve been to.

There are a few other restaurants on the property, but we haven’t tried them yet. I have heard good things about Hugo’s (European steakhouse), but it’s definitely at a premium.

If you have Club Access, go up to grab drinks (be reasonable) whenever you’re thirsty. This beats paying 7-Eleven and probably saved us (via Sebby) more money than I’d like to admit!

The fastest way to the MTR (from our feel of it) is to take the elevators to street level and walk across the street (and to the right a bit) to get to the MTR station.

If you’re visiting during the summer, take the elevators to the basement, which is still connected to the MTR station. That way you can enjoy air conditioning for as long as possible 🙂