The Charterhouse, Hong Kong

This month I had the pleasure of going to Hong Kong on a research trip with two other recent graduates and a lecturer in sociology. It was an amazing trip and I am sure I will write more about it very soon indeed. But this review is about our base, the Charterhouse Hotel.

The hotel is on Wan Chai Road on Hong Kong Island, a very convenient base for sightseeing, shopping, eating and basically everything. Wan Chai Road is between Wan ...
...minute walk between the two.

The website is www.charterhouse.com, which may give you more information. As this trip was funded by research committees, we booked standard rooms, which were single rooms with an en suite, at about £50 a night including breakfast. The website illustrates the deluxe rooms and suites, but our budget did not stretch to such luxuries. Still, the rooms were more than adequate, equipped with air-con (and thank ... more

This month I had the pleasure of going to Hong Kong on a research trip with two other recent graduates and a lecturer in sociology. It was an amazing trip and I am sure I will write more about it very soon indeed. But this review is about our base, the Charterhouse Hotel.

The hotel is on Wan Chai Road on Hong Kong Island, a very convenient base for sightseeing, shopping, eating and basically everything. Wan Chai Road is between Wan Chai MTR (metro) station and Causeway Bay station, a 5 minute walk between the two.

The website is www.charterhouse.com, which may give you more information. As this trip was funded by research committees, we booked standard rooms, which were single rooms with an en suite, at about £50 a night including breakfast. The website illustrates the deluxe rooms and suites, but our budget did not stretch to such luxuries. Still, the rooms were more than adequate, equipped with air-con (and thank god, it was so humid, around 35C everyday), a phone, a minibar and hairdryer. Mine was a smoking room, so cigarettes and an ashtray were also supplied (at a cost). There are 4 or 5 non-smoking floors too. The bed was very comfy indeed and the small wardrobe had enough hanging space for all of my many garments. They did however place the 4 of us on different floors. I was on the 11th, with one girl directly below me, and another below her, whilst our long-suffering teacher was all the way on the 19th floor. I guess they didn’t have four rooms together, and it seemed a pain at first, but the lifts were very quick and in the end it did not have too much of an impact.

Breakfast was served daily until around 10:30 in a large buffet area on the first floor, with loads of food on offer, including fresh juice, tea and coffee, cereal, full English breakfast, dim sum and noodles, and fruit. Oh and yummy Danishes. So we were able to comfortably fill our boots every morning before embarking on all that shopping and oh yeah, research. We were given breakfast coupons for each day of our trip and were pounced upon by staff for these coupons each time we arrived in the breakfast room.

Opposite the breakfast room is a bar, nicely decorated and fairly quiet. This was where we conducted our interviews with Chinese students, and it was the perfect setting as he quiet atmosphere allowed us to tape-record them. The staff got a little narky when we didn’t order any drinks, but we talked them round. They also insisted that we moved elsewhere in the hotel at the busier lunchtime period, and so some of the interviews were conducted in the hotel’s tastefully decorated lobby. Mr Teacher had enquired about a private room but this would cost us, so we opted for the free areas.

Rooms were cleaned daily by very sweet non-English speaking staff. This caused a problem one morning, when I was leaving my room the cleaner chased me back into the room and picked up one of my shoes babbling in Cantonese. I eventually figured out she was concerned that there was only one shoe there, so I had to pull the other one out of my case to assure her that it had not been stolen. I guess this charade was necessary because she was afraid of being blamed for the theft of my wedge. Though what a tiny Chinese lady would want with a size 9 shoe is beyond me, their feet are tiny (meaning that I wasn’t able to find any shoes in my size throughout Hong Kong!).

The concierge was always on hand to answer questions and give advice on sightseeing and we were also able to use them to book a place on a coach tour. They were very polite and willing to answer our queries.

The basement bar was a more American affair, where we went for a drink one night. WE also tried to eat there, but the menu was rather limited and there were no vegetarian choices on offer for on of the girls, so we opted to go up to the buffet on the first floor where we were treated to some delicious, varied fodder, with lots of choice in dessert! Lovely. This cost an additional $168 each, which is about £11.

Internet access was available in the rooms and also- in the ‘business centre’ but we didn’t use ti. I managed to stay away from the net all week while teacher checked his emails in a cheaper nearby internet café. As I mentioned conference facilities were available at a cost but I did not get to see them. We asked whether the hotel had spa facilities, and the answer was a no, but there was a small well-equipped gym on the 3rd floor which we checked out.

As swell as our standard rooms, deluxe rooms and suites are available as well as some rather posh looking rooms on the 2nd floor, the Signature floor, more details on the website. They looked really nice and I hope to go back one day and stay in them, when my finances allow.

Overall the hotel was more than accommodating. Although the staff were narky about our stinginess in drinks ordering, they were polite, helpful and apologetic when they told us to relocate for our interviews. Teacher had a problem with his room but was swiftly moved to another down the corridor. Some maintenance was goingon and it was very noisy, although 8 floors down I didn’t get to witness this.

Halfway through our trip we discovered that we had got the dates wrong and we were to fly at Midnight on Friday, not on Saturday. The hotel was not able to refund us for the extra night we had booked which was a little annoying for teacher as it came from university funds. We did however get to use the room for the entire day and check out that evening which was more fun than lugging our cases around. My mini bar total at checkout came to about £11, but this included the JD I downed in an insomniac fit, 3 bottles of water and 2 packets of cigarettes (yes, I know, I trill haven’t quit), so was very reasonable. There was bookable transport from the hotel to the airport but we decided to get the public bus as it was cheaper.

A very reasonable hotel at a very reasonable cost, affordable, conveniently located and suitable for everyone. We saw many businesspeople, young families, and older couples in the hotel. Highly recommended

My review writing is a little rusty, its been a while, let me know if I’ve left anything vital out! 

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