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-   -   Relax in Hong Kong - Repulse Bay ? (https://www.fodors.com/community/asia/relax-in-hong-kong-repulse-bay-680525/)

josepmaria Feb 17th, 2007 04:41 AM

Relax in Hong Kong - Repulse Bay ?
 
We are a spanish familly (the couple and our two sons of 26 and 22 years old)
We are planing our summer holidays (during August) and we will travel to China.
After visit Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Guilin, our first plan was to visit Hong Kong and relax in the beach in Sanya (Hainan island).
Due some difficulties with de fly schedule now we are thinking to spend our relax time in the south of Hong Kong Island (Repulse Bay ?)
Our idea is: stay 3 nigths in the YMCA Salysbury (according the recomendations of this forum) and move to the beach to spend 3 nigths more.

We need the opinion of the fodorites:
(Cicerone and rkkwan please)

The south of Hong Kong Island (Repulse Bay for instance)is a good place for relax and swim in the beach during end of August ?

In the afirmative, can anybody recomend some apartments or hotel in the area ?

Thanks in advance
Josep Maria

rkkwan Feb 17th, 2007 04:54 AM

No hotels in the area.

In August, it will be pretty crowded, especially on weekends. It's not relaxing, and I was never impressed by its sand or water quality.

Hong Kong has some nicer beaches, but they are in the east side of the territory with little facilities and hard to get to.

That's why locals fly out to Thailand and elsewhere when they want a beach vacation.

Hong Kong is a fun place to visit with lots to do. Forget about the beach.

BTW, I don't understand why you would have flight schedule problems. You're not going to August. You can definitely get flights from Guilin or elsewhere to Hainan for a few days before flying to Hong Kong for the rest.

rkkwan Feb 17th, 2007 05:13 AM

If you really just want to stay at a hotel in Hong Kong on a beach, you do have a few options:

- Silvermine Bay Hotel in Mui Wo on Lantau. It has frequent ferry service back to Central (takes 40-55 minutes, depending on ferry type), and you can use the bus to go to the airport as well as Ngong Ping (Po Lin Monastery, Big Buddha, NP360 marketplace and cable car), and Tai O fishing village. Problem is that Silvermine Bay is not a nice beach with really questionable water quality.

www.resort.com.hk

- Warwick Hotel on Cheung Chau. The beach is a little nicer, and there are lots of restaurants (mostly Chinese and local seafood) nearby. Cheung Chau is also 40-55 minutes by frequent ferry to Central, and has no vehicular traffic on the island.

www.warwickhotel.com.hk/en_index.htm

- Gold Coast Hotel near Tuen Mun. This hotel is the newest and should be nicer than the other two. It's on the west side of New Territories, with frequennt bus service to various points in Kowloon.

www.goldcoasthotel.com.hk/home.html

rkkwan Feb 17th, 2007 05:15 AM

The name of the first one should be Silvermine <b>Beach</b> Hotel. The place it's located at is called Silvermine Bay or Mui Wo. Those two names are used interchangeably.

rkkwan Feb 17th, 2007 07:09 AM

Here's another idea. Take the 1-hour ferry to Macau and stay at the Westin. It's adjacent to the Hac Sa (black sand) beach, which is semi-decent.

Nice hotel with huge room and golf course.

www.westin-macau.com

And Macau is actually quite interesting. Besides the casinos, it also has lots of churches, mansions, temples, forts, etc. Much longer history than Hong Kong.

Cicerone Feb 18th, 2007 12:58 AM

The Salisbury YMCA is a good choice for hotel, but it does not have an outdoor pool (it does have an indoor one). If you can pick a hotel in Hong Kong with an outdoor pool, then you could do a combination of seeing Hong Kong and spending afternoons relaxing at the pool. I don’t know your hotel budget. If you look at some of the hotels I have recco’d before (like the Bishop Lei whish has a small pool) with pools you might consider those. Of course if your budget would allow you to stay at a place with a big pool with pool waiter service like the Four Seasons, that would be a good way to spend the time. Take a look at the Renaissance Hong Kong, which shares its huge pool and deck area with the Grand Hyatt. Nice location in Wan Chai, and a more reasonable price than the Four Seasons or Hyatt.

Otherwise, the Macau recco is a good one, the Westin is a very pleasant hotel in the beach.

There aren’t any hotels in Repulse Bay, and I am not aware of any short-term rental apartments in the area, you could try vrbo.com. In any event, the water quality in Repulse Bay is not very good, I would not swim there myself. (There is also the very occasional shark attack there.) I kind of feel that way about Cheng Chau as well, I have windsurfed there, but would not consider it great quality water. It’s one a major shipping channel. It ‘s not until you get out to places in the New Territories in the Sai Kung area that you are going to have somewhat clean water.

josepmaria Feb 18th, 2007 03:14 AM

First of all thank you very much rkkwan and Cicerone for your suggestions.
Our first idea was to visit Hong Kong (stay in the YMCA) and later fly to Sanya as a relax place, finnally fly to Hong Kong and back home.
The problem becomes when the plane from Sanya will arrives to Hong Kong on 25th of August at 23,15 and our plane to London leaves at 23,55 (no conection time)
We have different alternatives:
1.- take de plane from Sanya to Hong Kong on 24th and spend one day in a hotel near the Airport and relax in the swiming pool during the morning or take the NP360 for instance. In the evening go the airport to back home.

2.-Visit Hong Kong as has been planed and later stay in a beach hotel in the area, following your suggestions.

The second option looks fine, but my sons like to be in a hotel not too isolated, in other words, than we can stay in the pool during the morning and walk during the afternoon in a place that we can find some shops, restaurants and people.
Some of the hotels suggested by rkkwan like the Silvermine Beach Hotel (in Lantau), Warwick (in Cheung Cheu Island)or the Hong Kong Gold Coast Hotel (in the new territories) are located in an area where we can walk and have a dinner outside of the hotel ?

Your help will be very appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Josep Maria
(sorry for my poor english)

rkkwan Feb 18th, 2007 05:48 AM

Cheung Chau is the most lively of the three Hong Kong choices. There's hardly any decent dining option in Silvermine Bay, and nothing to do there. The interesting places are at other parts of Lantau, requiring a bus ride.

Gold Coast itself is a residental development, with a small shopping center, I think. Not much outside to do either.

Mind you Cheung Chau is really &quot;local&quot;. It's not a resort, not an upscale place. You walk through confusing alleyways to get from the pier to the hotel. There are temples, and hiking trails around the island; so it can be quite interesting. But like Cicerone says, water quality is also questionable, though a little bit better than Silvermine Bay.

---

Anyways, I don't know what you expect from a beach or the water. I'm not a beach person myself, so I don't know the proper terms to describe them. But the waters around Hong Kong are a dark green color, and not clear. If you're expecting light blue colors like in Thailand/Malaysia, or even the clear deep blue color of some parts of the Mediterranean, you will be disappointed.

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My recommendations is stay in Hong Kong, and then go to the Westin in Macau (it's one of the more expensive hotels in Macau, but hopefully still within your budget). While their classic Portuguese architecture may not interest someone from Spain, it still have other stuff to offer.

In fact, I just realized your sons are 26 and 22. Somehow I was thinking a lot younger. <b>They would not like to be at Silvermine Bay or Gold Coast for 3 nights</b>. In Macau, they are old enough to visit the casinos, they can go to the go-kart track, etc...

From Macau, you can take the direct Turbojet Sea Express at 20:00 to the Hong Kong airport (about 45 minutes, no need to go through Hong Kong immigration) and connect to your flight home.

http://www.turbojetseaexpress.com.hk...ule_fare_table

rkkwan Feb 18th, 2007 05:52 AM

BTW, I just checked the rates for the Westin directly from the hotel's site.

HK$1,388 per night for garden view, HK$1,488 for sea view. While expensive by Macau standard, it's very cheap compared to equivalent properties in Hong Kong. I think you all will be happy there.


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