Island Shangri-La May Simply Be Asia’s Most Household-friendly Metropolis Lodge — Peek Inside

With dozens of luxurious stays beneath his belt, my 6-year-old son is a bona fide resort brat. Tagging alongside on my assignments as a journey journalist, he has performed within the Maldives’ finest youngsters golf equipment, tackled craft workshops with novice monks in Bhutan, and watched elephants from our villa’s balcony at a Kenyan safari camp. Teepee tents arrange in his room not woo him, milk and cookies at turndown service merely get a shrug. And if the youngsters playground does not have a swirling slide and ball pit, properly, he is merely not . In different phrases, he is fairly exhausting to impress.

On a current household journey to Hong Kong, one resort rose to the problem. Whereas the Island Shangri-La has lengthy been a enterprise journey stalwart in Hong Kong’s Admiralty district, a current (and nonetheless ongoing) refurbishment has steered it right into a extra leisurely path — together with a complete ground designed solely for touring households.

“With Hong Kong’s altering journey panorama, we noticed the chance to diversify from our historically business-driven choices to a mannequin that will additionally enchantment to leisure vacationers,” Clifford Weiner, the resort’s basic supervisor, advised Journey + Leisure. “We realized that lodges may very well be enjoyable for youths, but in addition a bit of daunting. With our household ground, we have dedicated to creating an area that mixes whimsy with practicality, and hope to set a brand new benchmark for household journey in Hong Kong.”

That dedication grew to become clear from the second we stepped out of the elevator on stage 45. I may see my son’s eyes gentle up when he noticed the mannequin steam practice chugging over tracks suspended from the ceiling, and picket forest and marine creatures dancing alongside the hallways on every room’s door (designed to assist younger company discover their Peak- or Harbour-view rooms, respectively).

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The household ground’s 21 rooms vary from spacious studios for troupes of three to two-bedroom suites that may sleep as much as three youngsters and their dad and mom. Every one has a definite theme: There are jungle-inspired hideaways with leafy wallpaper and rattan rocking chairs, and Fisherman’s Cove rooms that play into Hong Kong’s maritime historical past with nautical particulars equivalent to shell-shaped pillows and coral-patterned rugs. The bigger suites’ themes embrace a whimsical, flower-dotted fairy-tale backyard, a safari-style hideaway with stuffed African animals, and a basic Hong Kong tram with a street-grid carpet and work of Victoria Peak on the partitions. All include bunk beds that double as jungle gyms, fitted with slides, ladders, stepping stones, and, within the studios, blinds across the kid’s mattress so dad and mom can nonetheless carry on their studying lights after bedtime.

Our room, the harbor-facing Airship Voyage Suite, drew inspiration from old-timey Hong Kong with an airship-shaped bunk mattress that appeared to have floated straight out of “Howl’s Transferring Fortress.” Whimsical illustrations of town’s conventional medication outlets, dragons, and large goldfish lined the partitions, and my son found hidden scribbles with the UV torch he acquired in his private mailbox upon check-in (together with a treasure-hunt exercise booklet tailor-made to every suite’s theme). He spent hours “steering” his ship on imaginary journeys, made all of the extra lifelike with buttons that managed lights and sound results, and a transferring galaxy gentle projection on the ceiling. The entire design was so elaborately accomplished that even on the third day of our keep, my son nonetheless got here throughout hidden hatches and tongue-in-cheek particulars within the wall-spanning artworks.

Apart from my son’s room, which he may entry by way of a hobbit-sized wicket within the wall, the suite included a well-equipped kitchen, a roomy dwelling space (with a cupboard stocked with board video games and a bottle of bubbly ready upon arrival), and an opulent grown-up bed room with eye-popping views of Victoria Harbour.

Visitors staying on the household ground even have entry to The Hangout, a light-flooded communal front room and play space with tons of picket toys, board video games, and books for youths of all ages. There is a roster of (complimentary) every day video games and actions equivalent to workshops to make play slime, mini terrariums, and colourful sand artwork items to take residence. A grab-and-go buffet of snacks and lightweight bites modifications all through the day — pastries and fruit to ease early-morning starvation pangs earlier than grown-up breakfast begins, ice cream and madeleines round tea time, and chocolate cookies for late-night munchies.

A fridge full of fruits, child meals, and microwavable parts of pasta is useful when a snack emergency strikes (with younger youngsters, you by no means know). Subsequent door, The Pantry gives each doodad dad and mom may want: washing machines, tumble dryers, and bottle sterilizers to make use of across the clock, plus a variety of household facilities — child bathtubs, rockers, and prams — on mortgage at some stage in your keep.

All this might’ve simply turned the lot into one other Disneyland, however Shangri-La struck the proper stability between giddy and grown-up. There have been no DayGlo-bright cartoon characters or plastic toys, and other than the frilly youngsters mattress constructions, the remainder of the decor — stylish copper trimmings, hand-painted florals, and marble-clad bogs — would not have regarded misplaced in a typical resort suite.

The household ground is a part of a hotel-wide refurbishment that kicked off in 2022. Different new and refreshed additions embrace the sprawling out of doors pool, which acquired a White Lotus-worthy overhaul with rattan daybeds, linen-draped cabanas, and a separate kids’s space with fountains, flower-shaped waterspouts, and a shallow pool. Close by, the brand new Ming Pavilion hit the spot with a recent tackle Hokkien delicacies (do not miss the hen with curry leaves and purple wine lees sauce), whereas a refreshed vary of top-level suites consists of the sprawling Shangri-La Suite, a 1,000-square-foot fantasy of onyx and swirling marble, hand-decorated wall paneling, jewel-toned textiles and, fairly presumably, the prettiest toilet in all of Hong Kong.

The decision? In line with the professional — my son — it was “the finest resort I’ve ever stayed in.” Coming from him, that is no small feat.