Is This Hong Kong’s Family-Friendliest Hotel?

WITH DOZENS OF LUXURY HOTEL stays under his belt, my six-year-old son is a bona fide #hotelbrat. Tagging along on my assignments as a travel journalist, he has played in the Maldives’ best kids clubs, done craft workshops with novice monks in Bhutan, and watched elephants from our villa’s balcony at a Kenyan safari camp. Teepee tents set up in his room no longer woo him, milk and cookies at turndown service simply get a shrug. And if the kids’ playground doesn’t have a swirling slide and ball pit, well, he’s simply not interested. In other words: he’s pretty hard to impress.

On a recent family trip to Hong Kong, though, one hotel rose to the challenge. While the Island Shangri-La has long been a business travel stalwart in the Admiralty district, a recent (and still ongoing) refurbishment has steered it into a more leisurely direction—including a whole floor designed exclusively for traveling families. The move is part of a bigger shift by Shangri-La, which is gradually rolling out this intensely well-considered family focus across their hotels in the region, with their two properties in Singapore having debuted the first family floors.

The moment we stepped out of the elevator on level 45, I could see my son’s eyes light up. He spotted the model steam train chugging over tracks suspended from the ceiling, and wooden forest animals and marine creatures dancing along the hallways on each door (designed to help young guests find their Peak- or Harbour-view rooms respectively).

The family floor’s 21 rooms range from spacious studios for troupes of three, to two- bedroom suites that can sleep up to three kids and their parents. Each one has a distinct theme: there are jungle-inspired hideaways with leafy wallpaper and rattan rocking chairs, and ‘Fisherman’s Cove’ rooms that play into Hong Kong’s maritime history with nautical details such as shell-shaped pillows and coral-patterned rugs. The larger suites’ themes include a flower-dotted fairytale garden, a safari-style hideaway with stuffed African animals, and a classic Hong Kong tram with street-grid carpet and paintings of Victoria Peak on the walls. All come with (bunk) beds that double as jungle gyms, fitted with slides, ladders, stepping stones, and, in case of the studios, blinds around the child’s bed so parents can still keep on their reading lights after bedtime.

Our room, the harbor-facing Airship Voyage Suite, drew inspiration from old-timey Hong Kong with an airship-shaped bunk bed that seemed to have floated straight out of Howl’s Moving Castle. Whimsical illustrations of the city’s traditional medicine shops, dragons and giant goldfish covered the walls, while my son could discover hidden scribbles with the UV torch he received in his personal mailbox upon check-in (along with a treasure- hunt activity booklet tailored to our suite’s theme). He spent hours ‘steering’ his ship on imaginary journeys, made all the more realistic with buttons that controlled lights and sound effects, and a moving galaxy light projection on the ceiling. The whole design was so elaborately done that even…