Johnmango

Want to take a 2-3 day side trip to the Yellow Mountain Huang Shan when I'm in Shanghai; before we depart for Hong Kong.

I don't think any hotel will let us leave the luggages there for 2-3 days, especially after we've checked out. One alternative would be to rent a cheap empty hotrl room for that 2-3 days, just for storage, so that we don't have to haul our luggages to the top of the mountain. Instead we'll just take our backpacks.

Does anyone know if the Hong Qiao airport (SHA) which flies to Huang Shan, has luggage storage or storage lockers? What about the Shanghai Railway station.

Anyone knows?? Thanks

twofortheroad

We were at the 4 Seasons Shanghai last May. We left lugage at the hotel and went off to Suzhou for 3 nights--no problem. When we returned, our taxi from the train station waited while we picked up the luggage. Much to our surprise, he turned the meter off while he waited.

Cicerone

I can’t tell if you are going to go back to your hotel in Shanghai or not after your trip, but I agree that perhaps the first place you should try is your hotel, they may agree to hold it for you.

I believe most railway stations in China have baggage storage rooms and/for lockers, I don't know which station in Shanghai you are going from and don't know where the lockers are, but the best place to check for details on this would be the Lonely Planet guidebook if no one posts particulars here.


On the airport’s website at http://www.shanghaiairport.com/conte...ewstyle=noback, I found a map showing baggage storage facilities, but no other information. The faciliteis apprea to be on the right-hand side of the depature hall not far from the entrance. Perhaps your htoel could help with more precise info. The website for the airport is at http://www.shanghaiairport.com/en

Johnmango

Thanks Cicerone.

My plan is after staying in Shanghai for 5 days, vacate the hotel (and store the main luggage somewhere either at the hotel or airport or train station), and grab the backpack and fly to Huangshan Yellow Mountain for 2 days.

I believe China Eastern flies from Hong Qiao (SHA) airport to Huangshan, while Shanghai Airline has a later flight from Putong PVG. There are of course train and bus options, but from my research the fastest way is to take the plane.

The plan is also to fly back to Shanghai (SHA), retrieve the luggage, then go to Putong airport (PVG) and fly to Hong Kong.

Generally the hotels have no problem storing the luggages for a few hours. But we are talking about 2-3 days. I did send an email to Astor House where I plan to stay and asked about luggage storage, but never got a response.

I also checked into the airport storage, but when I did, the airport website was not loading. I don't want to generalise, but it seems that many websites (at least Shanghai) are functioning sporadically, at best.

There appears to be only an afternoon China Eastern flight from Shanghai to Huangshan, arriving at ~6pm at Tunxi (The Shanghai Airline flight is even later), which is still an hour from Huangshan, and then 1-2 hours up to the peaks by cable cars. That means I will have to stay at Tunxi or some hotel at the mountain base for the night, and make the ascent the following morning.

On the return I am a bit paranoid about flying back to Shanghai and make the connection to Hong Kong the same day. So I may have to stay an extra night in Shanghai to ensure that we don;t miss the Hong Kong flight.

Generally I like to arrange my own travel plan. But this China trip is most frustrating because of the web access to information. Like the Elong website: it appears to give flight information only up to 2 months (which means today Nov 20, I can only get info up to end of December). When I asked for foght info in May, they would say "no flights available"!!! With C-trip I cannot even get past the "issue city" problem: they would ask for the city you want to pick up your tickets, and no matter what cities I give them, there would be an error message saying "no such city exist".

twofortheroad

Besides leaving luggage at the 4 Seasons for 3 days, we have done this many times-- 3 days Old Cataract Aswan, 5 days Amari Airport Hotel Bangkok, 3 days Hyatt Kota Kinabolu, 3 weeks Ritz Bali, 3 weeks Peninsula Babgkok. All of these have locked storage rooms and it seems it doesn't matter if it is 3 hours or 3 weeks.

I don't know if there is storage at the train station, but from our experience, it would take more time than it was worth if there is. When you enter the perimeter, it looks like a refugee camp. There are hundreds of people sprawled outside, sitting, eating, sleeping. Except for soft seat tickets, you are not allowed into the station until your train is called. It took us a half hour to find the soft seat entrance where you can wait inside until your train is called.

If you can get airport storage, and If you want to fly out from PVG the same day, it would make sense to fly to Huang Shan from PVG. It will take you at least 2 hours to come into SHA & transfer to PVG. It would be really crazy to fly to Huang Shan from SHA and back to PVG and have to return to SHA to retreive your luggage and return to PVG.

Johnmango

Thanks Twoforthe road.

I will wait till we check in the hotel to ask, since Astor (which I plan to stay) hasn't responded to me. The backup plan would be using the airport locker, provided that we leave from and return to the same airport (to/from Huangshan).