The Bund Riverside Hotel Shanghai

The Bund Riverside Hotel Shanghai is easy to get to from East Nanjing Rd metro station – about a 5-minute walk along a road with restaurants, a great little massage place and a couple of 24-hour supermarkets stocking big bottles of Tsingtao and Reeb for under AU$2 a pop.

The Bund Riverside Hotel has a modern feel, is clean (except maybe the outside of the rooms’ windows), most of the staff speak some English(ish) and there’s a bar in the lobby and a restaurant on the 18th floor. Best of all are the views if you book a River View room.

Our room (1708) had jaw-dropping views over to Pudong. Windows were grimy (from construction work below the hotel on a bridge over the Suzhou Creek) and when it rained the dripping on the bay window’s flat ceiling got a little annoying – but all in all, for the price we paid (approx $600 for the 7 nights) – an absolute bargain! OK, it’s not the Four Seasons but it’s nicer than most hotels you will find in Australia at the price.

Our room was one of the smaller ones, but the bed was big, bathroom massive, shower huge, everything new, BIG flat screen LCD TV with 50 channels (you’ve got to love Chinese ads) including CNN, BBC etc, and a bay window you could throw pillows on and sit back, soak in the views, sounds and smells (the windows open) while drinking cheap, tasty beer from the shops.

The mattress was hard – but been told that’s standard in China. I would recommend a River View room, but maybe avoid the 17th floor. It is directly below the restaurant, so you hear noises as staff move around tables at all hours, plus being the highest floor for rooms the bay window has a flat ceiling directly below the rain overflow off the roof. A couple of floors down wouldn’t ruin your view of the Pearl Tower or Pudong. And maybe negotiate for a bigger room. We sneaked a peek inside one of the suites and they look really big.

The stores all along Beijing Rd below the hotel sell industrial stuff – valves, washers and assorted metal things – but you can walk to the Bund in 10 minutes, Nanjing Rd in 5 and stores are all really close. Location is excellent if you plan to walk a lot or use the metro, which is the quickest and cheapest way to get around the city (ticket machines have English translations, most trips cost 3 or 4 yuan). And it’s on Metro line 2, which connects from Longyang Rd station where the Pudong airport Maglev line stops. Took us 30 minutes from the airport to get to the hotel by train, very simple.

The hotel will give you a China Daily newspaper on request (in English) and can exchange most of the major currencies (slightly better rates at the hotel than we got in Australia), plus there’s a Bank of China next door. And they have cards at reception with the hotel location – plus all the most popular sights – in Chinese in case you take a taxi.

We didn’t eat in the hotel (too many choices in Shanghai) so no idea about the food. Overall, if you are in Shanghai to explore the real Shanghai and need a cheaper hotel close to the Bund, Nanjing Rd and within walking distance of the Old Town – plus a metro stop – I’d absolutely recommend it. Pudong might have much fancier places to stay, but the real Shanghai is on this side of the Huangpu River.

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