Hong Kong Insider：[Hotel] Upper House – The Home-like Luxurious Staycation Experience

We celebrated Big’s birthday in December and decided to book The Upper House, which is ranked No. 1 on Trip Advisor’s Best Hotels in Hong Kong, for a 24-hour celebration.

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Chinese version of the staycation experience: (中文版)

Guest Room

This time we stayed in Studio 70’s sea-view suite. The room is about 700 feet. The emphasis is on “Home, Not Hotel”. Therefore, the decoration is mainly in wood color and warm beige, low-key and simple in design. The room is very spacious even with a six-foot bed and a corner sofa next to the window sill, there is still enough space for The Big to run and exercise (yes, this is her quirk).

It is not difficult to find the faintly low-key artwork in the corner of the room. In addition to the overall design, we also found the design concept hidden in the details. Every small object in the room can be seen in style, such as marble toilet paper tubes, leather storage trays, and small bottles for bath salts.

The bedroom can be separated by a wooden door. On the right side of the corridor is an open space for storage, wardrobes, safes, etc. On the left side of the corridor is the room for wash room. Going up the stairs on the left is the bathroom with shower and bathtub. The door on the right at the end of the corridor contains the toilet.

I guess that many people should be like us, they can’t help but go to Upper House Staycation because they see the beautiful bathtub of the hotel. The view is first-class and world-class. You can enjoy the night view at night.

The bath products in the guest rooms are all made of British aristocratic brand Bamford. Originating from the United Kingdom, Bamford advocates a luxurious, elegant and natural and organic lifestyle. It uses natural plant extracts and does not contain preservatives, artificial colors, mineral oils and synthetic fragrances.

There is a Mini bar in the room, including illy coffee capsules, Jing tea bags, snacks such as nuts, cookies and candies, soft drinks, aerated and ordinary mineral water, juice or milk, etc. are all free to enjoy.

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Birthday Special

After contacting the hotel that it is The Big’s birthday, in addition to room upgrades, the hotel also provides pick-up and drop-off service from the private car to the hotel entrance. The car is spacious and equipped with mineral water.

When it comes to birthday decorations, balloons are indispensable. The only tip are: 1) The rooms are made of simple beige wood. The color of the balloons is too bright and a bit unsuitable

Very warm and welcoming handwritten cards, and it made us feel like home in a hotel is indeed the style of Upper House. There is a gift bag at the back of the card. The beautiful ribbon box contains two bottles of Cafe Gray Deluxe’s homemade jam, which are red mulberry and orange flavor. You can take it home and share with your family, and we both absolutely love it.

There is also a dessert platter. The one on the left has white strawberry, Basque cake, lemon tart and chocolate. The one on the right is completely Chocolate Overload. The outer layer is made of milk chocolate, and the inside is broken digestive cake. The top layer has two milk and black chocolate each. It is super delicious!

The view

The two reasons for choosing Upper House were the windowsills and bathtubs of the guest rooms, mainly because of The Big. The landscape is a big selling point. Although it is also located on Hong Kong Island and overlooks the Kowloon Peninsula, it is completely different from the landscape of Four Seasons where we lived before. The Upper House is located in Admiralty, and the architectural design allows the room to enjoy the view of Wan Chai and Central and the Kowloon intercity line.

Service

In the car, the driver kept reporting the location, so when he arrived there was already a hotel staff waiting. The luggage will be delivered to the room, and someone will take you to the room to introduce hotel facilities, rooms and services, and the check-in process is also completed in the room.

Basically, if you have any request, it will be delivered within 15 minutes after you make a phone call. The most profound thing is that there is free popcorn provided. It is a luxury to lie on the sofa and eat popcorn while watching a movie.

Restaurant and food

Room service dinner

We were not too hungry on the night we checked in, and the room was served with a lot of chocolate and desserts, so we simply ordered two dishes from the room service menu. The Hainanese Chicken Rice is tender, the chicken skin is crispy, and the portion is very generous. We also ordered Hoar Cheese Toast with Tomato Cream Soup. It is the best cheese sandwich in our life. The bread is crispy, the cheese is salty, and we can taste a mixture of several kinds of cheese.

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Breakfast

Breakfast is the only meal that we had in the restaurant instead of eating in the room throughout the day. There are 5 breakfast options. We chose Japanese and Western breakfast. The Japanese breakfast consists of pan-fried salmon, three-color pickles, Japanese pearl rice and noodle soup. The salmon is fragrant, especially fresh and appetizing after adding lime juice. Western breakfast consists of salmon scrambled egg muffins with salmon roe, papaya and mango salad, chia seed pudding, cereal parfait. You can also order bread, including croissants, Danish pastries, homemade jams and French butter. For drinks, we ordered hot chocolate, Cappuccino and watermelon juice.

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Afternoon tea

Since we had too much for breakfast, so we ordered the afternoon tea set directly to the room. Afternoon tea includes four savoury items, four desserts and English muffins. On the contrary, the savoury items are better than the desserts.

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Dinner

The Big’s birthday dinner on the first day of course should be best meal! So even if there is no dine-in, we still have to order two Cafe Gray Deluxe signature dishes in the room, one is handmade seafood spaghetti, and the other is short ribs. The hand-made seafood spaghetti al dante has a rich creamy sauce, a bit like lobster sauce, full of seafood flavor. Seafood includes scallops and tiger prawns. The whole pasta looks small, but in fact the plate is quite deep and the proportion is very generous. As for the short ribs, the meat is soft and cooked. You can separate the beef with only a fork. It is deliciously cooked. The mashed potato underneath is also smooth and mouth-watering.

Facilites

The hotel itself does not have a swimming pool. Since the upper house is mainly regarded as a second home, not hotel, please enjoy the freehand feeling of the room. Anyway, it is winter and there are epidemic restrictions, it does not matter too much for us as that time. As for the gym room, although it was closed, we went to take a look. The area is not too big, the sparrow is small, and it has all the internal organs. There is a terrace garden on the 6th floor of the hotel, the space is covered with artificial turf, and there are sofas and outdoor benches to create a freehand space. If you get bored in the room, you might as well take a breath of fresh air.

Back indoors, there are also a few sofas for guests to rest, and a few pop-up store where you can buy various products.

In addition, the hotel’s Cheeseerie is also located on the 6th floor. If you are interested in fine wine and cheese, we highly recommend the hotel’s cheese platter. You can taste it on the sofa, or go to the outdoor space The Lawn and relax for a while.

After eating breakfast at Cafe Gray Deluxe, remember to sit in the lounge opposite. We did not know whether the lounge was open or not, but we looked at the staff when we walked in, and the staff did not stop us, so we sat down quietly. The window is facing the mountain view, and the wood decoration make the atmosphere and us feel even more comfortable. With the sun shining, it become a warm home.

This experience is very different from a typical hotel, but we really like the feeling of “home”. It was a very special staycation experience, and it also give us more ideas and inspirations about the decoration of our future home, haha.

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