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About The St. Regis Tianjin

This well-known Tianjin hotel sits along the scenic Haihe River and welcomes guests with extensive facilities and attentive service. The hotel is close to the train station, and just a short walk from the Binjiang Avenue shopping district and the stylish Jinwan Plaza. You can enjoy cocktails at The St. Regis Bar while taking in the surrounding views. The hotel also has several popular restaurants serving Cantonese cuisine, French fine dining, and Italian dishes. Guests can unwind at the indoor pool or indulge in a refined treatment at the Iridium Spa. If you appreciate personalized luxury, you’ll likely enjoy the spacious accommodations, carefully selected furnishings, and elegant interiors across its 274 guest rooms and suites. St. Regis Butler Service, known for its polished style and thoughtful attention to detail, is also there to take care of guests’ needs.

The location of this hotel is genuinely excellent. On one hand, it’s right in the city center, so getting to major attractions and shopping areas is very convenient. On the other hand, it’s right by the Haihe River, with riverside walking paths downstairs, and the hotel itself is very quiet. Right across from the main entrance is Hang Lung Plaza, which makes shopping and dining especially easy.

I had looked at this hotel before, but flytea had especially negative reviews about it, saying it was basically the bottom tier of the St. Regis brand, with weak hardware and even worse service. So to avoid disappointment, I had never actually tried it. But this time, my Marriott 35,000-point free night certificate was about to expire, so I reluctantly decided to give it a shot and see whether it was really a dud.

Booking and Pre-Arrival Messaging

This 35,000-point free night certificate had only about half a month left before expiration, so I figured I might as well use it. Previously I had used a certificate at The Ritz-Carlton, Tianjin. While the room, service, and hardware there were all excellent, the location was fairly average, and walking anywhere took a while. So this time I decided to try the St. Regis instead. Looking at the rates, the base room was pricing at 19,500-25,000 points, with cash rates around RMB1200+, or roughly RMB1,300+ including tax.

After booking, I checked again and it seemed the reputation on flytea had started to turn around a bit. Maybe people were going in with very low expectations and then realizing it was actually not bad.

Before arrival, I used the APP’s front desk messaging function to chat a bit in advance, mainly because I only have Gold status and therefore no breakfast benefit. In my message, I mentioned that this was my first stay, that my companion was a Platinum member, and that we were celebrating a birthday. The front desk noted breakfast for two, said all suites were already sold out so they could only upgrade us to a full river-view room, and also mentioned they would prepare some birthday decorations and a small cake.

Lobby

The lobby was still grand and very much in line with the St. Regis style.

This was probably the nicest-looking lobby sofa I’ve ever seen.

The fountain was nice too.

It was almost Christmas, so the Christmas tree was up as well.

Room

Walking from the elevator toward the room, I honestly had a moment where I wondered: with these doors and this color scheme, did I somehow walk into a KTV?

Fortunately, the room itself was fairly standard. On the right-hand side was the bathroom area, with the usual double vanity, bathtub, toilet, and shower. That said, the toilet was the old-school basic type and had not been upgraded to the smart toilets that are common now.

Further in was the main room, with the standard sofa + desk + bed setup. They had arranged some rose petals and folded a towel into the shape of a small cake.

At first, the promised birthday cake was nowhere to be found in the room. I had to contact the front desk again before they sent it over. And when it arrived, it really was a tiny birthday cake... It looked like they may have taken it from the buffet restaurant and added a bit of decoration.

There was nothing particularly notable about the bed, but overall the room had a somewhat old-fashioned, official-looking style, and the furnishings did feel a bit dated.

The most outrageous part was this sofa. I really don’t understand why they hadn’t replaced it when the backrest was already peeling that badly.

Thankfully, the view outside the window was quite nice. Sitting there with a drink and looking out over the Haihe River and the surrounding scenery was very pleasant.

Breakfast

Breakfast definitely had quite a few issues. First, the dining area was too small, so they had to use the lobby bar area and treat the tea lounge sofas and coffee tables as dining seats, which was not very comfortable. During peak times, there might not even be seats available, so you could end up waiting in line. Overall, I wouldn’t say anything was actually good.

The local Tianjin breakfast items were nicely labeled, but the taste and presentation were really... not great.

Just like people online said, the hotel’s most iconic breakfast feature is that the fruit isn’t peeled. Even more exaggerated, the cucumbers were left whole and long for guests to take themselves.

Just looking at the photo, the bread seemed rock hard.

This beef noodle soup looked okay, but the broth was basically plain stock with almost no flavor.

None of the bread was good.

Pool and Gym

In winter, one of the nicest things about staying at a hotel is using the pool. The smaller pool was heated.

The larger pool was nice too, and the water wasn’t cold.

The locker room also had a bunch of sauna and soaking facilities, though I couldn’t really figure out how to use them.

Parking

One thing especially worth mentioning is parking. This hotel is in downtown Tianjin, where parking is usually expensive, but parking is free for hotel guests here. You just need to scan a code at the front desk during check out and enter your license plate number.

In addition, the hotel has its own dedicated parking section in the garage on B3. There are signs guiding you the whole way, and the directions were some of the clearest I’ve ever seen.

Conclusion

To wrap up, let’s start with the service. In general, staff were pretty proactive about greeting guests. If there was a staff member in the elevator, they would often hold the door for you, make it easier for you to get in, and let you exit first. When I called to request items, they were also fairly responsive. While it’s not on the same level as the outstanding The St. Regis Changsha, it was still pretty solid overall.

That said, this hotel is probably not the best use of a free night certificate, since using a 35,000-point certificate for a 20,000-point room is not a great deal. But as a St. Regis property, considering the location and the decent hardware, redeeming 20,000 points here is still a reasonable value.