Just came back from our 3 nights stay with Le Royal Meridien , Shanghai. This new & ultra-modern hotel is one of the best hotel I've stayed in. The amenities are the best, staffs are really friendly & helpful, food is good and it's centrally located in the midst of the busy street of Nanjing.

The Good

Great views (only from the high floor rooms looking east towards Pudong). Clean functional rooms, comfortable beds.

The Bad

Total confusion at check-out, when the staff, including the foreign guest relations manager had no idea how to deal with 1 nights charge booked and prepaid through the hotel website and the other nights charge to be paid direct to the hotel. 5 people standing around staring at a computer screen and mumbling and scratching their heads takes something away from the professionalism. Insisting I pay an incorrect invoice and explaining to me the concept of a credit card guarantee at check in (really). Staff needs re-training and educated in the hotel policies. Not a good experience.

The Ugly

The waitress/attendent in the breakfast room with her finger stuck up her nose.

In conclusion it seems 50% of the staff I dealt with have been trained and are somewhat professional....the pleasant girl on the ground floor who would welcome you and press the elevator button, then the next day a different girl who was much more interested in chatting with one of the floor attendents to even notice the guests. Its not that I need elevator buttons pressed but only an example of the other 50% of the staff who have no idea what they are doing or supposed to be doing, seems they are just standing around to fill up space.

There are a lot of options in Shanghai maybe better to take your money elsewhere and enjoy accomodation where all the staff (including the foreigners) have been trained to the same standard and service is a little bit more consistent.

As a business traveler, I appreciated the details in the hotel room like: lots of multi-country electric plugs, reliable internet access, walk-in rain or hand-held shower, safe big enough to fit lap-tops with plug-ins, do-not-disturb room settings, lots of complementary bottled water, different task lighting, and it was well maintained.

One detail that I hadn't seen before was gas mask for "fire safety" in the hotel room.

We enjoyed the location of the hotel across from the People's Square, and near the many restaurants along the Nanjing pedestrian mall.

It's worth going to Le Royal Meridien, if only for the most interesting thing about Shanghai—the incredible views of the cityscape. It would be a shame to go to the city and not be high-up. This hotel is situated in a huge tower right in the centre of the city and our room was on the 52nd floor. We also opted for a rate, which gave us access to an executive club lounge on the 44th floor and it's something that I'd recommend other travellers to do. You can have breakfast there in relative tranquillity, all-day Internet access, cocktails and nibbles in the evening... and a fantastic panorama that stretches over to the skyscrapers of the Pudong district.

We found the hotel's location to be pretty perfect. It's situated right at the heart of the city and is easily within walking district of both the Bund and the old French quarter. The only drawback was actually that you're really in the touristy commercial part of Shanghai and thus, as soon as you step out onto the street, you're accosted by people wanting to sell you "watches, bags, T-shirts..." every ten metres. After we realised this, we often chose to avoid Nanjing Road and to take one of the parallel streets, where there are not so many hawkers.

Other than that, our room was perfectly clean and very comfortable. We also tried out the Chinese restaurant, where the service was friendly the food really quite nice. If we ever go back to Shanghai (which is not certain, because we weren't that keen on the actual city), then we'd definitely return to the Royal Meridien.

I spent two nights at the Meridien Shanghai and found it to be an excellent hotel. Its location on Nanjing Road i.e. at the heart of the commercial and shopping district makes it a great hotel for leisure travellers with deep pockets, in addition to business travellers. From the hotel, it is possible to walk to The Bund - Shanghai's renowned promenade. Shoppers can literally drop their bags in their rooms before heading out for another bout of shopping with major malls such as Raffles City within the hotel's vicinity.

Checking-in and checking-out of the hotel was a breeze. I did not need to use the business centre due to my short stay. My overall impression - frontline staff were competent without major communication issues, though their smiles do come across as rather plastic, if you know what I mean.

My room was very well appointed with plush carpeting, a huge tv and a comfortable king bed that gave me restful slumber for my two nights in the city. I highlight comfortable beds because practically all hotels in China have rock-hard mattresses so falling asleep even for a very tired person takes some effort because it is like lying on benches. The bathroom could have been more luxe in comparison with other Meridien Hotels in Asia, though I was delighted with the spa quality toiletries from L'Occitane. My only gripe was the afternoon sun - still strong at 6pm - shining into my room on the 35th floor. But the mornings and nights are fine, with wonderful views of the cityscape from the picture window in my room. I would return to the Meridien again on subsequent trips primarily because of the central location and the comfortable mattresses - a rarity in China.

I just stayed at Le Royal Meridien on last week (3 Sep), It is my first time to go to Shanghai, as it's a 5 star hotel the price of the room is very expensive so I spend only 1 night at this hotel. It's a 5star hotel so if you talk about the room, it's perfect, the bed, pillow, bathroom, view of the room and especially the stuff or shower gel, shampoo, lotion etc....of course it's L'occitane brand.

In the evening around 6 pm the staff will come to you room and do the turn down service for you (prepare the bed+roomor give more water or towels) to sleep. I really love the bathroom which has a bath tub included 2 shower and + 1 shower on the celing which it's like you are standing in the rain.

About the location, this has a perfect spot, when you get out from the metro station at People square staion exit at 19 you just look above and you will see the hotel which is very high and has 2 poles on top which this help me when I get lost (while I was shopping in the Nanjing rd) As the building is very high so it's a little bit complicate which I don't really like you have to go up by the elavator to the L floor for the lobby, (it's should be on the first floor only, and you have to see the elevator which one goes to which floor. So you have to change to many elevators.

Tall enough to have an eagleview. great bed and TV.

Stayed the first night in Shanghai at the Four Seasons, which certainly was nice, but this was BETTER. Moved on the advice of a traveling companion (we were there on business) who had stayed at the Le Royal Meridien before.

The room was fantastic, with one of the best layouts of a hotel room.

The service and attentiveness was at the highest level.

This is a bland, international hotel but with such a great location and done very well, hence the rating. Right on People's square, the hotel is a landmark building and very easy to find from just about anywhere (just look up). My room was large, with amazing views (on the 52nd floor), floor to ceiling windows, and all the usual luxuries like a posh bathroom, comfortable bed, mini-bar (pricey) and a very large TV (not that there's much to watch on CCTV) . The hotel has a decent swimming pool and leisure club, lots of spa treatments (I didn't try these), a bar at the top (65th floor) and excellent staff who go out of their way to help you.

If you can get a good price, go for the 'Royal Club' deals, as you get a room near the top of the hotel, a very good breakfast, free afternoon tea, nibbles and drinks in the evening in a dedicated lounge, and some other bits and pieces.

Don't stay here if you want Chinese character and charm - try some of the smaller hotels hidden in the Hutongs.

I was speaking at a conference in Shanghai and my wife and I stayed at LRM for four days in early June after reading many accolades on Trip Advisor. The location is great: right next to Nanjing Road, across from People's Park and museums, 10 minutes'walk from the Bund, across from the subway, etc. The building is spectacular. The views are superb. We were in a Club room on the 53rd floor and so took advantage of the breakfast and happy hours, with nice food and drinks that combined western and Chinese styles. Staff were quite helpful, including an excellent concierge service for arranging restaurants and tours. Most of the guests appeared to be business people. Now for a few concerns that lowered our rating: There is no free wi-fi, whether in the rooms or the Club room; this is inexcusable for a top level hotel in today's world. Others have remarked on the dual elevators to get to the upper rooms. Our room, while spacious, had strange design aspects for the contemporary feel. For instance, we could not open just a bathroom light at night, so if one of us used the facilities, the other was woken up by floodlights in the vanity (there are no solid doors). The rainforest shower was nice but not something to write home about. In fact, on the first morning we awoke to no hot water. I had to get to the conference and so washed up rather unsatisfactorily. My wife stayed behing and called the front desk. They sent up a person fairly soon and it turned out that someone on the staff had turned off the hot water valve before we arrived. Turning on the valve cured the problem but no one in management ever apologized for this considerable inconvenience; this is not up to par for a high-end hotel.

I chose this hotel primarily because of the excellent views from floor to ceiling windows. The room was fine. We looked at a junior suite but felt it didn't look much different than the room. We chose to stay on an Executive floor (57th) with the perks of free breakfast and evening cocktails. Service was excellent throughout the hotel. The hotel is right in front of the Nanjing pedestrian road and across from People's Square. I usually stay at the JW Marriott which is across the square. The Marriott has better bathrooms but the Meridien has much better views and a better location. Right outside the hotel is the pedestrian area where you can buy water or whatever you need. The JW Marriott doesn't have anything right outside it like that.

I loved everything about this hotel, It is the most modern hotel I've ever stayed in, and was extemely warmly decorated. The views from the rooms are amazing. There is a huge indoor pool, with a sun-bathing deck overlooking the city. The staff was friendly, helpful and courteous. I could not have asked for more.

We just returned from China and our final stop was 3 days in Shanghai at the Le Meridien. We loved this hotel. Great localtion-lots of shops,c cafes, coffee shops and shopping galore close by. Our room was beautful and well maintained. The breakfast buffet was great! We would recommend this hotel -it was a five star experience.

Also for those with disabilties the hotel privides a free wheelchair.

Read all the good comments here, so decided to stay in the Le Meridien during my trip to Shanghai this month. Had an interesting experience there what its worth to share:

At my arrival I really was getting lost with the confusing elevator system there, the staff in the lobby recognized me, but ignored me. Finally I found the reception and get an quick check in. When I arrived in my room I recognized that there was a strange smell in the bathroom. I called the operator to fix it, and somebody showed up with a spray after 10 minutes. In the meantime I saw there were many black hairs on my bed and in the bathroom, so I decided to move in another room. I tried to explain that the boy with the spray, but no English in all, so I called the operator again. She told me, I have to come down to the reception. Ok, I just had a 15 hours flight behind me, I only wanted a shower and a clean room, but I was too tired to discuss. So I went down, luckily I found the agent who checked me in, she was really smart, she gave me another room in a higher floor and she apologized for the inconvenience.

At the moment I wanted to leave the reception a person asked me from behind, if there was any problem, I turned around and a small man was smiling to me. He introduced himself as the General Manager of this hotel and he asked me to wait. He approached the reception and asked the lady to change my room again. I was a little surprised about that, but to confuse to say anything.

The General Manager gave my the new room key and told me, that I can use the Club Lounge free of charge during my stay, and he hope to see me there for breakfast in the next days. He gave me his name card with the words that I may call him anytime if there is anything he can do for me.

I went back to my new room (very huge, they called it "Executive Suite") and was surprised again, that after 10 minutes an associate brought me a fruit basket and a bottle of red wine and card signed by the General Manager. I felt a little bit strange about this man at this moment, but too tired to think about it.

I had some business meetings the other days and don’t get the breakfast in the Club, one time I tried the “Happy Hour” there in the evening, but the staff was not very attentive, the tables in the lounge were full of empty glasses and plates, you have to get your drinks by yourself, a lot of staff standing around, but no one of them offered assistance and help. They were chatting with each other on the desk the whole time.

But to come to the end of my story, I was come back late one night, and I saw the General Manager in my guest floor hand in hand with a Chinese lady (he did not saw me), going to a guest room just two rooms next to my room. This confuses me, but I thought maybe it’s his wife, I heard, that in some hotels the General Manager stay there. But two days later, I saw him again, with another lady (much taller), going in the same room, this time he recognized me, and he smiled to me.

Next morning I choose the Club for breakfast and had a chat with a staff member, and yes, the girl confirmed, the General Manager of the Meridien life’s in the hotel, and yes, he has his room on my floor and he is not married!

The whole story confused me, specially the room change to his floor on my arrival day and how he approached me on that day, so I decided to move out on the next day and stay in the Westin, 15 minutes far from the Meridien. So far, the Meridien hotel is ok, except the Club Lounge, this is nothing special in my eyes, but if you are travelling as a single female, better select another hotel when you are in Shanghai, after the things I saw and I expressed, I would not feel comfortable there anymore.

Wonderful stay all around, from the room to the facilities. We stayed for two nights in Le Royal Meridien Shanghai and loved our room, which had an amazing view of downtown Shanghai extending to the Bund and across the water to Pudong, including the famed Pearl of the Orient and Jinmao tower. The beauty of the hotel is that all the rooms are above the 20th floor, and every room has floor to window ceilings, so you're guarenteed a great view. On top of that, room amenities are truly five star, by American and European standards. I've stayed a lot of "five star" Chinese hotels, but this is the real thing--modern bathroom fixtures with ceiling rain shower and large comfortable tub clean enough to take a bath in. Separate toilet and sink areas. 42inch Samsung plasma TV, and just a load of other details that make the stay a pleasure (free shoe shine, Le Occitane shower products, etc ,etc). The pool is indoors with a great gym and outdoor sunbathing balcony. Posh but reasonably priced restaurants for a five star hotel--try the dim sum at the Cantonese restaurant--as good as Hong Kong. The room is work every cent--we paid more than for any hotel we've paid for in China, but it was well worth it.

My wife and I stayed at this hotel for 6 nights in March, 2008 and I selected it because of its proximity to Tanjin Road which is a pedestrian mall running right down to the Bund (which is famous for its pre-World War 2 architecture) and is right on the river. Our impression of Shanghai is a bustling modern city of 18 million. The hotel is approx. 65 stories high and we chose the Club floor. The buffet breakfast was quite nice but the cocktail evening food was a little short on quantity but after we complained to one of the senior staff things improved dramatically.

The room we had on the 40th level was OK but the rainshower was unusual in that the water covered the entire bathroom floor before draining away. At least you had plenty of space. There is a separate bath and vanity. The toiletries are 1st class. Go the the top floor at any time and get the magnificent view. Make sure you have a room on at least the 40th floor (the Club is on the 44th floor) as the different lifts below that level can be a problem. The staff were all very friendly and helpful and nothing was too much trouble. All in all a good hotel.

Ultra modern hotel in the absolute best location in Shanghai.

Close to Nanjing pedestrain mall,the Bund,great shopping,People's park with its Museums and old Shanghai.Short and cheap cab rides take you to many great eating districts including Xintiandi and the French Concession area.

Solicitors(watches,bags,massages) minor nuissance outside hotel.All major hotels seem to have this small problem.If you ignore them they will leave you alone.The city is very safe.We walked everywhere and took the subway-easy to use and very modern.

We had a club room at first which was very nice on th e44th floor then we upgraded to the Imperial Suite.The views from the 60th floor suite we amazing esp from the bathtub.We will never forget it.

The service in the club lounge was incredible.We felt the staff went out of their way to make sure we were enjoying ourselves.Thanks to Ken ,Bobo and the rest of the concierge staff for making our stay unforgettable and for their fantastic advice on restaurants.

The location cant be beat.If you like modern high rises in central location than look no further.For a more contemporary look then the Four Seasons is a good option but you wont get the views.

My parents and I (Parents 66, I am 35) just returned from 5 nights at Le Royal Meridien Shanghai. We chose the hotel based on the reviews, location and royal club level amenities.

We took the MAGLEV bullet train (40-50 RMB/person ($6-7) ) from the airport for the 7 minute ride into Shanghai Pudong area. From there we took a ~40-52 RMB ($6-7) cab to the hotel. You could instead choose to walk across the street to the Metro station for a ~$1 fare for a six stop metro to peoples square station which is right next to the hotel. Its quite busy at the peoples square station and you will have plenty of opportunities to experience that insanity later in your trip so I would suggest just taking the cab from the MAGLEV. MAKE SURE you have the hotel address and location printed in CHINESE before you go. You can find this and print it from the Meridien website.

As others have recommended, we second the idea of upgrading to the Royal Club level. With access to the lounge, we ate breakfast, had daily cocktails, ate dinner and used the free internet to stay connected to our lives back home (although its very slow...56K when I checked the bandwidth). The food is buffet style but we found they had a nice selection of appetizer portions that could easily be substituted for a meal. We chose to eat at the hotel due to the high number of poor reviews of Shangahi restaurants. We did have a few meals out in the city but used the Royal Club more often than not in order to eat breakfast and dinner.

The rooms are modern, there are a number of english news and movie channels, we had amazing views of the city and the staff was very attentive. The staff booked tickets to see the acrobats for my parents, they called my cab driver and had my gloves returned to me after I left them accidently and they were eager to provide help whenever we wanted.

Le Royal Meridien has a great location on Nanjing road so you can easily get to several areas of the city by foot, metro or cab ride (very cheap).

Overall, we really enjoyed our stay in the hotel and our only gripe would be the painfully slow free internet in the Royal Club lounge as well as the upcharge if you used the internet in your room (also slow).

This was my 2nd time staying there...overall we have stayed here for 10 days. The room is very nice, but the problem is that they have hired people off the street to clean the rooms. These people have no experience it seems like, and have LOW STANDARDS of cleanliness!! This would be a health code violation in America!! The first day, I had the cleaning lady come into our room, and clean while I was there. She came from the next room over with a small handcarry cleaning caddy. I wondered where her big cleaning cart was. It didn't exist.

She first RINSED out our used glass with water, and then proceeded to dry it out with a DIRTY RAG, that she had in her caddy. She then used this rag to wipe the mirror. Then she went , and wiped the counters, and then went inside the bathroom. I am standing right there, watching her, and she is cleaning as if this is normal. She proceeds to wipe the TOILET, TOILET SEAT, where my toddler son had peed over the night before, and then starts wiping the toilet floor, and now is proceeding to wipe the entire marble floor with this cloth. She did not rinse/ exchange this cloth not even once. I finally had to tell her to stop cleaning, and after that, I did not let them clean our room. A few other staff who helped exchange our towels out, and garbage cans, had the same nasty cleaning knowledge. When garbage dumped out on the floor, they wiped up the garbage can, and continued to wipe the floor...with a dirty rag. Staff here are not used to clean ways. I really now question the cleanliness of the restaurants. I trust the Italian restaurant a little more, since they have a foreign renowned? chef working there, but as for the Chinese restaurant....I don't know. Le Meridien is part of the SPG Starwood Hotels Preferred Group, and they are aware of this problem, but have not fixed it at all of their hotels. I just watched a Fox news clip on the hidden cameras they installed. The hotel stay was okay, other than this problem. I do like the room set up, and decor. The only other problem was hotel transportation. We paid premium bucks for the hotel/airport pickup service, and the drivers drove like maniacs. Feel free to warn them that they need to drive slow and complain to management! This is a serious issue! I made sure they knew I wanted them to drive slow, and we still came 1 inch away from an accident, driver slammed on his brakes. He was tailgating, speeding, weaving in and out of 80% of other cars, and the traffic was very light. This is after I made sure the bellhop tell him to drive slowly, because of our first nightmare experience, where the fellow drove like a maniac at 1 am in the morning (flight was delayed) during thick fog. We are certainly not in any hurry to get to the hotel, and traffic was non existent.

Last thing about the hotel....it has 4 or 5 restaurants to eat at...so there are a lot of choices for dining. I do not trust all the food, but there was nothing else better that I knew of, so we ate there. If you can get Executive Lounge access, you are in good hands. You get free internet, free drinks (San Pellegrino), free alcohol drinks during happy hours, snacks, and free buffet breakfast. We ate breakfast at both buffets (the free one, and the expensive one downstairs). Of course, the expensive one is better, but if you have lounge access, I would just stick to the free buffet, since they have a lot of the same items from downstairs. Also, you can request/ order eggs at the lounge, though they do not tell you this.

Would I stay here again? Maybe. Because I do not know where else to trust in China. Will any other 5 star hotel clean better? I don't think so. Is there any way to complain and make the hotel better? I don't think so. The standards in China are lower, overall. That's my personal opinion. I have complained about both topics, but we'll see if there is any change.

Stayed for 4 nights at this property !

It can be the 9th Wonder of the world !

If you are willing to spend upto $220 dollars, then this is a dream come true !

Nanjing Lu, The Bund, The whole shanghai in range . .

Amazing Amazing Hotel !

MUST STAY HERE !!