POV: You Need a Late Checkout Because You’ve Gotten Lost in Your Huge Hotel Suite

AS FAR AS OPULENT SUITES with panoramic views go, Hong Kong has always stolen the show.

Yet I could not stifle a gasp when I entered the new Shangri-La Suite at Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong. I should have expected it; after all, I was whisked from the airport to the hotel in a Rolls-Royce Phantom. The 222-square-meter, two-bedroom residence decked in rich textiles, marble floorings and onyx finishings felt like an elegant Asian home wrapped in coziness.

Old-school class and modern chic come together in plush velvet and silk playing off chinoiserie and botanical details. The artworks are remarkable: an eight-meter-long mural of Victoria Harbour Kowloon runs along one wall of the living room while the 10-seat dining table is flanked by panels of painted foliage and French hand-blown crystal chandeliers suspended overhead. The master bedroom was clad in a soothing green florals-and-birds wallpaper and a comfortable lounger by floor-to-ceiling windows. Throw in a well-equipped kitchen with a fridge of drinks and an equally well stocked jade-topped bar and the party is ready to begin.

The welcome began with rose tea from a trolley. The hotel staff gently picked the tea leaves from a glass jar and “washed” them in a first infusion before serving the final aromatic brew in fine hand-painted porcelain cups.

Gigi, my butler, was the MVP of my stay. Right after lunch I came back to piping-hot milk tea and delicious egg tarts from the hotel’s Café TOO. She had somehow read my mind even as I was chowing through a six-course Hokkien feast at Ming Pavilion that included five-spice pork rolls, steamed mud crab, glutinous rice and Singapore-style Hokkien noodles.

The next day, a new set of tea and tarts was delivered. By that time, I had settled into the tai-tai (a Chinese colloquial term for privileged, wealthy wives who don’t have to work) life. I had a friend over and we discovered the joys of egg tarts with champagne—a complimentary bottle of Veuve Clicquot Brut, no less. Shangri-La Suite guests can also arrange for an in-suite private dinner with a sommelier and a bartender or have a private gym or spa treatment set up in the second bedroom. I could barely eke out a complaint besides the suite being so big that I had gotten “lost” several times trying to get to my bed via the spacious walk-in wardrobe or thinking that the second bedroom was a corridor.

The jewel in this 52nd-story crown, though, is the master bathroom.

Right in the middle of the dark-marble interiors was a gigantic bathtub so deep that there is a step with railings to get in and it easily fits two. The Chinese often say that good things come in pairs and there are twin rainforest showers and two vanity tops here to make sure there are no fights over space. And if you want to linger a little to admire the floor-to-ceiling Victoria Harbour views, there is cushioned seating on either end of the bathtub, right by the window.

In the evening, Gigi put a pine-scented “Zen Forest” diffuser in my bedroom and had a hot “muscle-release bubble bath” ready at precisely 11 p.m. By then I was relaxed enough to hit the sack.

“Can I check out at 3 p.m.?” I texted Gigi sheepishly on Whatsapp the next day, my mind still in clouds of bubble bath, egg tarts and milk tea.

“Of course, can even do 4 p.m., hahaha,” she replied swiftly. Apparently, she had already informed the driver and front desk. How did she know?!

One could always do with a grand Shangri-La Suite and a mind-reading Gigi in one’s life, don’t you think?

shangri-la.com/hongkong/islandshangrila; starting price of Shangri-La Suite HK$90,000++.

BOOK YOUR STAY AT ISLAND SHANGRI-LA, HONG KONG VIA AGODA.COM

BOOK YOUR STAY AT ISLAND SHANGRI-LA, HONG KONG VIA BOOKING.COM

Images courtesy of Island Shangri-La Hong Kong, unless otherwise noted.

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