Contents
1. Basic Information about the Hotel
The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong is located in the International Commerce Centre (ICC). The building is 484 meters (1588 ft) in height, and it has 118 floors. The entrance of the hotel is at the 9th floor, and the reception lobby is at the 103rd floor. The 104th – 117th floors are rooms (the 117th floor is the Presidential Suite), and the 118th floor is for the gym and pool. The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong is currently the highest hotel in the world.
2. Basic Information about My Stay
Redemption: I used 70k Marriott points for one night. Note that this is a Tier 5 Ritz-Carlton hotel, but the free nights from the Chase Ritz-Carlton sign-up bonus is only for Tier 1~4. So I couldn’t use my free nights here and had to book with points.
Cash price: about $400+~$500+.
Room type: I didn’t have much expectations for a room upgrade, since I am only a Marriott Gold member and I booked the room with points instead of cash. I casually asked the reception whether they had a room upgrade for me. The reception answered apologetically: “We have a suite with harbour view, but it’s not a non-smoking room, is that OK?” I was like, what?! A suite with harbour view?! I definitely don’t mind the non-smoking room! So I ended up getting this room: Deluxe Victoria Hbr Suite, Club level, 1 Bedroom Suite, 1 King, Victoria Harbour view. The price of this room is $1100+/night!!!
3. Hotel Exterior
In the Hong Kong island, it’s really easy to recognize this building: it’s the tallest!
I tried to take a picture of it under the building, but the top is totally in the clouds…
4. Hotel Location
See the picture below for its location. The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong is right above the Kowloon Station, and we can get to the hotel without exiting the subway station. From the HKG airport, we can take the Airport Express to get to Kowloon Station directly without any transfers.
Just follow the instructions at the subway station, and you can find the hotel. The path is a little complicated but when you see this lion, you will know you are in the right place:
5. The Lobby
There’s an Arrival Lobby at the 9th floor of the ICC building. Note that it’s not the Reception Lobby.
The view from the Arrival Lobby is quite spectacular:
Some people may have this question: does it take very long to go to 100+th floor? Will many people go in and out of the elevator during the process? The answer is no. In the Arrival Lobby, there are some DIRECT elevators towards the Reception Lobby. The buttons in the elevator look like this:
Here’s the Reception Lobby, where we check in:
We need to take another elevator from here to get into our room.
6. Inside of the Room
First, let me put a 360 photo for the living room. You can use your mouse/finger to drag the picture:
Another 360 photo for the bedroom:
This 360 photo is made by Insta360 Nano. The original price is $199, purchase link. We offer an exclusive 5% off coupon code: USCCNANO.
Since I what I got is a harbour view suite, the space is HUGE. This is the living room:
There’s a welcome text on the TV, it has my name on it:
Here are some pictures of the bedroom:
There’s a safe in the bedroom:
The restroom:
There’s another TV beside the bathtub!
7. Outside of the Room
Actually when I opened the door and got into the room, the first thing I wanted to do is to look at the outside. What I imagined is: I am in the highest hotel in the world, and I am inside the harbour view suite, and the city is one of the most prosperous city in the world, what a fantastic view I will get! And then, I saw this:
Then I realized that, the building is so tall that it is already in the clouds… So it’s quite normal to not be able to see anything 😂. Then I tried hard to find the moments when the clouds were not so thick, and took some pictures:
If only it was a clear day! Sigh…
8. Facilities
The gym and the pool is on the 118th floor, the highest floor. If there are no clouds, it’s not hard to imagine how good the view will be. But the day I went there was cloudy, so please just do your best to imagine…
9. Food
There’s no complimentary breakfast in The Ritz-Carlton. I am not rich..so I didn’t purchase any food.
10. Summary
The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong is really a once in a lifetime experience. It’s really worth the points, although it’s a little expensive even if you pay with points. The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong is top-notch in all aspects, especially the fantastic view. Of course, I know I was lucky: it is said that the room I got is not common at all even for Marriott Platinum members.