Guangzhou InterContinental Resort

It's "Luxury Selection," not "Luxury."

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Seeing the backend showed an upgrade to a one-bedroom suite with a dining area, I felt my Platinum card shining like a Diamond card!!

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Full of anticipation, I expected the room to resemble the corner balcony executive room I'd stayed in at the InterContinental Changsha. Instead, what I got was a room that looked exactly like the online photos of the executive river-view room. The staff said this was the suite, and the so-called "dining area" referred to the living room.

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Still, I appreciate the upgrade.

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The indoor space is roughly 60-70 sqm, with a separate living room—though, once again, no proper desk, just a small round table. It also took me forever to figure out that the switches for the overhead light on the table and the guest bathroom light were actually by the bedside...

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The room has a modern gray-toned design, which isn’t my style at all, hahaha. But at least the bedroom bed doesn’t have a reading light overhead, so no glare—nice touch.

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The living room and bedroom share a roughly 10-meter-long balcony (for rooms facing this direction) with a view of the Canton Tower. It’s scorching hot in the afternoon but incredibly pleasant at night. That said, having only one chair on such a huge balcony feels a bit stingy, no?

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The hotel is shockingly frugal on costs. For such a large room, there are only two bottles of Pure Joy water, tea bags from Chali, an empty minibar, and not even a trash bin in the main bathroom—let alone a hygiene bag. I agonized over whether to roll up my sanitary pad and toss it on the bathroom floor or take it to the guest bathroom trash...

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No concierge on the first floor. Elevator lobby has dripping water. Lounge staff are aloof. Steamed dim sum is cold and hard. The soup pot lid was so broken it nearly burned my hand. The room’s Wi-Fi is abysmal. The balcony has zero signal.

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The invoice still wasn’t ready a week after checkout.

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Remember, it’s just "Luxury Selection," not "Luxury." Considering the room rate isn’t high for a five-star, I made peace with it—after all, the price only covers the hardware.