After the quick train ride on the Airport Express from Hong Kong International Airport to Kowloon station followed by a short taxi ride I was at my hotel in the bustling Tsim Sha Tsui neighbourhood of Kowloon.
Hart Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Hotel reception is on the 10th floor, so up I went in the lifts that looked like they were being refurbished. The reception area has a modern, industrial feel and the staff were friendly and efficient.
Access to guest floors needs you to swipe your access card which is good as the lifts open up almost directly onto the street on the ground floor. There is, however, an art to swiping your card and pressing the floor number. I just employed the swipe, press, swipe, press method until my floor was selected.
The rooms are very small. I had 2 double beds which took up probably 70% of the wooden floor space.
In the corner of the room is the “bathroom” that consists of a clear glass door that opens into the toilet cubicle. Given I was in a double room, if you were sharing you’d want to know the other room occupant very, very well, as there’s no privacy while you’re sitting on the crapper.
To have a shower you proceeded through the toilet cubicle into the shower cubicle, and then closed the second clear glass door behind you.
If the curtains in the room windows were open the inhabitants of the the building opposite would get a quite regular, and very disturbing, eyeful. The only saving grace is that it was almost impossible to open the curtains as that required me to climb over one of the beds to get access to them.
The walls between the rooms are quite thin and you can hear everything that your neighbours say and do.
On the plus sides, the hotel wifi was excellent and you can’t fault the location. Walking out of the lifts you have access to hundreds of restaurants and you’re only a 5 minutes walk from the bustling thoroughfare of Nathan Road (and the associated touts 🙁 ).
For a quick, one night stopover with easy access to transportation, food and shopping this is a decent place.
But if I were staying in Hong Kong for more than a night I would find the rooms too claustrophobic and would need to stay elsewhere.