Passports and Peep Toes: Review: Hong Kong Transportation and Hotel

Our first stop on an around-the-world itinerary brought us to beautiful, busy, sky scraper jammed Hong Kong. Our trip undeniably started off perfectly with our Cathay Pacific First Class flight from Boston to Hong Kong (review here).

We arrived into Hong Kong around 6:30am. My first priority was to find "The Arrival", Cathay Pacific's Arrival Lounge at Hong Kong International Airport. Available to both First and Business class passengers of Cathay Pacific and Emerald OneWorld partners, the lounge was busy, but not overly crowded at our early time of arrival. The lounge was relatively easy to find on Level 5, past the arrivals hall in between terminals 1 and 2 of the airport, you have to go down 1 level right after passing through the arrivals hall. Most importantly, the lounge had beautiful shower rooms that we only had a short wait for. In my sleep deprived state I didn't take any pictures so you will have to trust me! I also indulged in the buffet for a little breakfast, it was small, but the options were nice and you could also get made to order omelette's.

Next, we were off to the hotel. We choose the W Hong Kong for our stay for two reasons, first I am an SPG Platinum and get great benefits, and second because it is the absolutely easiest hotel to get to from the airport. The beautiful thing was that we boarded the train inside the airport, and were dropped off at the Kowloon Station, which is in a mall. The W Hotel is essentially attached to the mall, so the transportation couldn't have been easier. Another significant benefit of the Kowloon MRT train station is that there are multiple airline check-in counters at the station, so you can check-in for your flight, drop your checked luggage, and you do not see it again until you land at your destination! Amazing! I could seriously kiss the person who thought of these remote check-in counters because it was fantastic to not have to worry about any luggage. The train stations each have an attendant in case you are having trouble with the automated ticket counter (and we did - like every tourist), and the vast majority of the attendants all speak English, which I was grateful for.

The W Hong Kong was in a convenient location via the train station. If we had been in town for anything longer than a day I would probably have wanted to stay somewhere closer to the markets or a more "local" authentic feeling location. The hotel was very nice and comfortable though which is really all I needed. We had a great room with a beautiful view of the harbor, and the hotel was pretty quiet even though it was full. My two absolute favorite aspects of this property however where that they provided smartphones for you to take out into the city equipped with a data plan and their breakfast buffet. Holy.Shit. I don't even usually like buffets, but I could have moved in and lived at this one. The room it was hosted in was huge, and had every single thing you could have imagined. There were rows upon rows of individual serving fruit infused water (cucumber mint!), tons of breakfast items, and well, let's just agree that when you see 12 different toppings for your waffles you are going to be fine! But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words so here you go....