So where was the hotel from hell?

Earlier this week I posted about a horrible hotel stay in Hong Kong. I was on a limited budget and needed to find something in a specific location. I found what looked to be like a boutique hotel and the website made the hotel seem appealing. Reviews were not too bad either.

I booked 3 nights at the Mingle on the Wing Hotel in Sheung Wan Hong Kong. The hotel is small, I mean, very small. There really wasn’t enough space in the lobby for two people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. The elevator could fit, at most, 2 people and there were no public areas to work, relax, etc… I could have dealt with the small hotel, that is really at the bottom of my list in terms of “issues.”

After checking in I went to my room on the 3^rd floor. The door, which opened with a key card, was very challenging to figure out how to open. Once inside the room I saw just how tiny the room was. It was about the size of a small cruise ship cabin. The room was clean, but there were things that clearly hadn’t been finished during construction. Again, not a huge deal.

On the door to the room I noticed there were no locks. No deadbolt, no nothing. There was a chain, but it was broken. I called the front desk and they told me that the door locked automatically and all rooms were the same. That’s when I promptly wiggled the chair under the door handle so it couldn’t turn. This was my number 1 and biggest issue with the hotel. Safety is critical and I didn’t feel safe or comfortable without visible locks on my door.

The second thing that was sort of an annoyance was that the hotel did not provide any bottled water. Every other hotel I’ve been to in a country where you can’t drink the water has provided at least 1 bottle of water. At this hotel the answer was there’s a 7-11 at the corner. That’s okay, I could buy my water, but at mid-night when I’m getting ready for bed and brushing my teeth I didn’t want to wander out to 7-11. So what did I do? I brushed with Perrier. Yep, you can laugh now, I laughed.

I was awoken times times during the night. Once by the people in one of the rooms on my floor – the walls were very thin and I could hear them around 1am being quite loud. The second wake-up came around 3:30am when it sounded like furniture was being moved. It went on for more than 30 minutes. I called the front desk and the girls reply was that she was the only person at the desk and couldn’t leave to check out the noise. The last wake-up came at 7:30am when the housekeepers arrived and turned on their music. It was loud enough to wake me up in my room. I asked them to turn it down and they didn’t seem to understand my request.

So, because the hotel couldn’t move me to a room with a lock or working chain, I decided to leave and check into the Holiday Inn Express – where I should have booked to begin with!
I would never recommend the Mingle on the Wing – or any of the other Mingle hotels in Hong Kong as a result of this experience. If you need a hotel in Sheung Wan, the Holiday Inn Express is very nice – that’s where I’ll be staying from now on (unless by some miracle I get a gigantic budget and can book the Mandarin Oriental!)