Nice Pre-Arrival Gesture from Mercure Shanghai Yu Garden
As I mentioned previously in my trip preview, I chose to stay at Mercure Shanghai Yu Garden for my one night in Shanghai.
Within a day of booking on Hotels.com, I received an email with a message from the hotel via Hotels.com.
This is the full message:
Dear The Asian Rambler,
Greetings from the entire team here at Mercure Shanghai Yu Garden. Thank you for choosing to stay with us when in Shanghai. In order to ensure your stay will be as enjoyable as possible, we would like to share the below information with you prior to your arrival.
FROM HONGQIAO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT:
Taxi: Mercure Shanghai Yu Garden is located in the city center of Shanghai but yet still easy reachable by taxi from Hongqiao Airport. Please keep in mind that you should ask the driver to activate the taxi meter. The approximate taxi fare will be around CNY80 during the daytime and around CNY100 after 11PM. The taxi ride might take 30–40 minutes. Please show the driver our hotel address, which is: 上海市复兴东路789号 上海豫园美居酒店.Please call us at +86 21 5396 1988 if you require any further assistance if you cannot find our hotel.
Subway: Upon arrival at Hongqiao Airport, please follow the signs leading to the subway station. Hongqiao Airport is located line 10 (purple line), leading all the way to downtown Shanghai. You can easily buy your subway ticket at the entrance of the subway station. When on the platform of line 10, you will see the subway in the direction of ‘Xinjiangwancheng’. Please get into the subway carriage and remain seated until you reach ‘Laoximen’. Once at this station, walk to exit 6, cross the street and walk along Fuxing Road for about 10 minutes. At the next major crossing, you will find Mercure Shanghai Yu Garden on your left hand side. Please call us at +86 21 5396 1988 if you require any further assistance if you cannot find our hotel.
FROM HONGQIAO RAILWAY STATION:
Taxi: Mercure Shanghai Yu Garden is located in the city center of Shanghai but yet still easy reachable by taxi from Hongqiao Airport. Please keep in mind that you should ask the driver to activate the taxi meter. The approximate taxi fare will be around CNY80 during the daytime and around CNY100 after 11PM. The taxi ride might take 30–40 minutes. Please show the driver our hotel address, which is: 上海市复兴东路789号 上海豫园美居酒店. Please call us at +86 21 5396 1988 if you require any further assistance if you cannot find our hotel.
Subway: Upon arrival at Hongqiao Airport, please follow the signs leading to the subway station. Hongqiao Airport is located line 10 (purple line), leading all the way to downtown Shanghai. You can easily buy your subway ticket at the entrance of the subway station. When on the platform of line 10, you will see the subway in the direction of ‘Xinjiangwancheng’. Please get into the subway carriage and remain seated until you reach ‘Laoximen’. Once at this station, walk to exit 6, cross the street and walk along Fuxing Road for about 10 minutes. At the next major crossing, you will find Mercure Shanghai Yu Garden on your left hand side. Please call us at +86 21 5396 1988 if you require any further assistance if you cannot find our hotel.
FROM PUDONG INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT:
Taxi: From Pudong International Airport, it takes about 45–50 minutes to reach our hotel by taxi. If you choose using the taxi, please ensure that you will use one of the official taxis in the taxi rank instead of walking with one of the drivers who are waiting in the arrivals hall. According to the taxi meter, the maximum charge from the airport to our hotel should be CNY160–180 during daytime and about CNY200 during the night. Please show the driver our hotel address, which is: 上海市复兴东路789号 上海豫园美居酒店. Please call us at +86 21 5396 1988 if you require any further assistance if you cannot find our hotel.
Subway: Due to the fact Pudong International Airport is located on the other side of the city; it takes a bit longer to reach our hotel in downtown. Upon your arrival at the airport, follow the signs to the subway station, which is located in between terminal 1 and terminal 2. Pudong International Airport is the starting point of line 2 (green line) and leads all the way to downtown Shanghai. You can easily buy your subway ticket at the entrance of the subway station. When on the platform of line 2, you will see the subway in the direction of ‘Xujing East’. Please get into the subway carriage and remain seated until you arrive at ‘East Nanjing Road’ station. At this station, follow the signs which lead you to line 10 and get into the subway in the direction of ‘Hongqiao Railway Station’. Please get off at the very next station, ‘Yu Garden’, exit the station through exit 3. Walk along South Henan Road for about 10 minutes until you reach the next major intersection and you will find our hotel on your right hand side. Please call us at +86 21 5396 1988 if you require any further assistance if you cannot find our hotel.
Maglev + Subway: The Maglev Train is the fastest commercial high-speed electric train in the world and it definitely makes your trip to our hotel much faster. The Maglev Train leaves from the Maglev station, which is located in between terminal 1 and terminal 2. Expect to pay CNY50 for a single ticket and CNY80 for a return ticket. The first train leaves Pudong International Airport at 7:02AM and the last train leaves at 09:42PM (Two extra trains at 10:15PM and 10:40PM). You will reach the station of LongYang Road within eight minutes and from here, you can easily transfer to subway line 2 (green line). When on the platform of line 2, you will see the subway in the direction of ‘Xujing East’. Please get into the subway carriage and remain seated until you arrive at ‘East Nanjing Road’ station. At this station, follow the signs which lead you to line 10 and get into the subway in the direction of ‘Hongqiao Railway Station’. Please get off at the very next station, ‘Yu Garden’, exit the station through exit 3. Walk along South Henan Road for about 10 minutes until you reach the next major intersection and you will find our hotel on your right hand side. Please call us at +86 21 5396 1988 if you require any further assistance if you cannot find our hotel.
INTERNET ACCESS IN CHINA:
Please remember that various websites and applications in China are prohibited and cannot be accessed. We understand that this might be inconvenient for you and we strongly suggest downloading VPN before leaving home. Without VPN, you are unable to access websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google, Gmail and various other international websites and applications.
EXTRA BEDS AND SPECIAL REQUESTS:
Please be advised that our team of associates is doing their utmost best to provide the best possible service to you during your stay with us. We are able to arrange an extra bed in your room, which costs CNY200 per night extra. Breakfast is not included in this extra charge. If you wish to have an extra bed in your room, please inform us in advance in order to arrange this for you on time. All other requests, such as high floor room or room near the elevator, will be duly noted and we will do our utmost best to assign the best possible room for you. We however cannot guarantee any special requests until your check-in day due to our availability and we kindly ask for your understanding. Please be informed that, due to Shanghai legislation, since March 1st 2017, all our hotel rooms and public areas are strictly non-smoking.
EARLY CHECK-IN / LATE CHECK-OUT:
Our official check-in time is 2PM but we always do our utmost best to provide the room upon your arrival. If you arriving at our hotel after 8/9AM, we can let you check-in without any extra charges if there is a room available. When making the booking, we cannot guarantee there will be a room available upon your arrival but your request will be duly noted into our reservations system. According to our experience, the room is ready for the guests most of times and if not, we invite the guests to wait in the hotel lobby while we prepare the room as soon as possible. Our official check-out time is at 12 noon. Please simply let us know your request upon your arrival in order to assist you with this. We charge 50% of the daily room rate if you wish to check-out between 2PM and 6PM and the full rate if you check-out after 6PM.
BREAKFAST:
Our hotel offers intercontinental breakfast between 6:30 and 10AM on all days of the week. It consists of e.g.: French pastries, fresh fruits, yogurts, Chinese style hot dishes, Western style dishes, coffee, tea and various juices. If breakfast is not included in your room rate, you can easily pay the extra charges at the Front Desk. The price for our breakfast buffet is CNY79 per person. In case you have to leave the hotel before breakfast opens, you can receive a breakfast box, which consists of pastries, egg and fruit. Please ask one of our staff members in order to enjoy this service.
PARKING:
Please be informed that Mercure Shanghai Yu Garden uses an outsourced parking lot. Therefore, we unfortunately are unable to offer complimentary parking to our guests. The parking costs are CNY50 for a full day.
TEA FESTIVAL, MASSAGE AND TAXI SCAMS IN SHANGHAI:
The tea ceremony scam is the most common scam in both Shanghai and Beijing and it is quite easily to be scammed. This scam involves a couple of very friendly, English speaking ‘students’ who are exploring the city. They will approach you at e.g. the Bund or at the Yuyuan Garden and invite you for a tea ceremony. Please remember that Chinese people would never come up to you in the street and watch out for strangers with promises of great drink deals or massages. It happens that foreigners have to pay a lot of money and end up in dangerous situations. For taxis, please remember that the driver always has to activate the meter and he should give you the receipt. Never accept a ride from someone waiting in the arrivals hall, even when they do look very official (with a badge, logo on shirt etc.). It happens that guests paying three times more than a taxi because they accepted a ride from someone in the arrivals hall. Our suggestion is to always catch taxi at the official taxi rank besides the airport terminal or railway station.
CONFIRM YOUR BOOKING:
We hereby would like to confirm your reservation as follows: You have reserved a room from 2019–xx–xx until 2019–xx–xx. We will guarantee your reservation by using your credit card a few days prior to your arrival day. This means that we will block the amount on your credit card and we do not charge the amount yet. In case we have not received your correct credit card details and if we are fully booked, your reservation might get cancelled after 6PM. Please note that this is not a charge as you will pay the total sum upon check-out and our hotel will not ask for any payment prior arrival.
Please do not hesitate contacting us directly if you require any further information regarding the above. We once again would like to thank you for choosing our hotel and wish you a pleasant journey to Shanghai. We all look forward welcoming you here very soon.
Best regards,
Mercure Shanghai Yu Garden
Having booked tens of nights on Hotels.com, it is the first time I actually received a pre-arrival message from a property .Although all the information provided in the message are readily available online if you spend a few minutes doing some research, I still think it is a nice gesture from the hotel to provide such communication especially when you book via a third party like Hotels.com.
However, it might be nice if the message could be slightly shorter……
I look forward to staying at this property next week!
