Hotel Overview

The InterContinental Shanghai Jing An Hotel was formerly known as the Shanghai Puxi Hotel. A staff member even joked that its old English name sounded exactly like “pus*y,” so it got changed.

  • Hotel rating: 4.5 stars
  • Ranked No. 32 among value-for-money 5-star hotels in Shanghai, out of 97 total. Source: TripAdvisor
  • Address: No. 500 Hengfeng Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai, 200070, China

Here is the hotel description from the official site:

The InterContinental Shanghai Jing An Hotel is located in downtown Shanghai. It is about a 10-minute drive to Xintiandi, Nanjing West Road, Jing’an Temple, and People’s Square. It is adjacent to Shanghai Railway Station and is served by Metro Lines 1/3/4/12/13, airport shuttles, and the north-south elevated road, making it convenient to reach the city’s top business and tourist destinations. It is about a 30-minute drive to Hongqiao International Airport and about 60 minutes to Pudong International Airport.

Because I came by high-speed rail this time, I chose this hotel without hesitation due to its close location to Shanghai Station plus the convenient transit options nearby. (Why not the Bund? Every trip to Shanghai means the Bund, so I wanted somewhere different this time.) Still, in hindsight the straight-line distance being short still had some drawbacks, which I’ll explain in the pre-check-in section.

The room types are divided into Superior Rooms (basically the standard room type), View Rooms, Executive Rooms, and Suites.

Based on the official description, the Superior and View rooms seem to be similar; there wasn’t any standout view, either. But because I was a Platinum member, even though my stay was booked with points, the front desk still upgraded me from a Superior Room to a View Room (it felt like a slightly higher floor). I was still very grateful.

Stay Details

  • Check-in period: March 2019
  • Room type: InterContinental Superior Room (even though it has "Superior" in the name, it is actually the standard room type)
  • Redemption: Final one-time free night with no category limit from the old Chase IHG card (after 2019/5, you can only redeem up to 40,000-point hotels) + 30,000 IHG points (from Chase card welcome bonuses, old and new, which were enough to cover this)

When redeeming, I had very few two-person travel plans this year, and group trips are now mostly handled through Airbnb (renting an entire place is still more flexible than a hotel), and I also still had free-stay benefits from other cards that I hadn’t used yet. So for this stay, I used the free one-night stay from the old IHG Chase card (the room rate shown at the time was 142 USD) and 30,000 IHG points. Because time was tight, the point-based IHG hotel free-night certificate that can be used at any-point IHG hotel was only redeemed at a 30,000-point property, which is not exactly a premium use, but it still far exceeds the value of the card annual fee.

Before Check-In

In the overview section, I said the hotel is very close to Shanghai Railway Station in a straight line. In reality, there is a fairly large plaza plus a rectangular looped elevated bridge in between, and there is no elevator to get up to the bridge. Carrying two large suitcases up dozens of steps to get there was, frankly, miserable.

A section of the circular bridge in front of the hotel, viewed from the plaza

A section of the bridge, viewed from the hotel toward Shanghai Station and the plaza

Once inside, the lobby still feels very grand, especially the ceiling overhead, which looks like transparent ribbon strips. Unfortunately, when I asked a few front-desk staff, none of them knew the material.

This is the full image on the official site, but it was too large so I only took part of it.

This was the check-in area. When I arrived, it was quiet and only one counter was open.

When it gets busy, the first counter seems to be for premium members.

After that, it was standard procedure: chatted with the front desk, they checked my card, upgraded me one tier (though, as I mentioned, it didn’t make much difference), and said I could pick up two complimentary drinks at the first-floor bar (I never used them). After thanking them, I took the key card and took the elevator to my room.

The key card and the drink voucher, redeemable only at the bar

Floor indicator in the elevator; 28–31 are suites

Reached the 20th floor, where this room is located. There are 4 elevators on this floor.

The hallway after the elevator turned out—very neat

Found room 2017!

A floor plan photo taken after entering the room

Room Information

When you open the door, you first see a small hallway: on the right are the closet and shoe cabinet, on the left the toilet, and then you step into a king bed, TV, and desk. The sofa by the window is also hard to miss and makes a great viewing spot.

One thing worth pointing out: the bathroom is truly wet-and-dry separated. The walk-in shower area is on the right side of the hallway, while the toilet is on the left side, fully isolated.

This wet/dry setup is not very convenient.

Now, the key detail here: the bathrobes at this InterContinental are two pieces in white and pink, and people say they are a popular prop among social-media creators.

Everything in the minibar costs extra and is expensive, but here’s what’s in it anyway.

Just standard snacks, XD

Then we went on to check the bathroom properly; the next photo is taken from the bed toward the bathroom.

Two extra bottles of InterContinental-branded water.

The soaking tub at the hotel was basically just for show.

The toiletries are InterContinental’s standard brand, Agraria (艾格瑞).

The following line comes from standard ad hype:

Agraria is from San Francisco and is favored by many celebrities, including former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, actor George Clooney, talk-show host Oprah, and even the newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama is one of its fans.

If Agraria or InterContinental thinks this promotion is good, maybe you can also help promote the 101 website a little more. Haha.

InterContinental slippers in China are very high quality.

Hotel tour

Hotel restaurant

Then it was dinnertime. We checked out what meals could be delivered to the room and which restaurants were downstairs. Laziness (and budget) made us choose delivery...

The restaurants downstairs included Japanese, Sichuan, Cantonese, and a bar. We’ll take a closer look another time.

Hotel gym

The floor with the hotel gym was under renovation during my stay. As soon as we stepped out of the elevator, there were three or four signs. I followed them and asked staff, and once I heard I’d need to change elevators to get to another area, I gave up on checking it out. I was already wiped out from the day; working out would require extra time hunting for it. My partner’s frustration was already clear on her face. Still, health is more important... ORZ

On the plus side, the hotel does have an indoor pool, which looks great in the official photos.

Exterior and surroundings

Like the reason I picked this hotel in the first place, it is right by Shanghai Railway Station, so access is relatively convenient. But the walk from Shanghai Station to the hotel is still there—especially if you have big suitcases. Right next to it is Kerry Night City, which also looks lively and bustling. Overall, the location is still quite good.

On this street, Shanghai Station is on the left and Night City is on the right.

Summary

Overall, this stay was still very comfortable. We were lucky to use a decent room night before the voucher expired; it’s not a bad deal. The hardware isn’t brand new, but you can tell they take good care of things, and the service attitude was good too (before check-in, I read online guides saying some staff could be overly deferential to foreigners; maybe it was just quieter when I was there, so I didn’t run into that).

The only thing that still nags at me is that overpass.

I’ll wrap it up with this view over the Bund, looking across at the Lujiazui skyline.