Hotels

Banyan Tree is best known for its collection of world-class spa resorts on the various paradisiacal beaches of Southeast Asia, but lately they’ve been making a bid for some of the continent’s major cities. Their strategy: bring along the pleasures of one of those world-class spa-resorts on a paradisiacal beach, add an extra measure of cosmopolitanism to the bars and restaurants, push the boundaries a little with the architecture, and place it all on some prime urban real estate. Oh, and make the rooms really, really big — like the biggest in town, right from the first tier — because nothing combats the claustrophobia of being in the middle of a futuristic metropolis like having a vast, serene room to sprawl out in.

The particular piece of prime urban real estate they’ve chosen is a stretch of Huangpu waterfront in the northern section of the Bund. That puts the hotel close to Shanghai’s major sights, but it’s also just a short trip across the water to Pudong’s financial district. Speaking of the location, there’s a reason all these Shanghai riverside hotels are so fond of picture windows; the views are incredible. Here, they’re helped along considerably by the hotel’s position at just the right point on a bend in the river, plus the curvature of the building’s wavelike façade. In some of the better rooms, there’s a window-side pool from which to take it all in, though chaises longues or day beds, a perfectly fine consolation, occupy the same spot for those who have to get by without an en-suite pool.

A luxury hotel would hardly be a luxury hotel these days without a bathroom as big as a Manhattan sublet, and naturally they only get more lavish when we’re talking about an outpost of a company that’s best known for its world-class spa program — deep round soaking tubs, private dressing areas, televisions in the mirrors, a tropical rain mist shower and plenty of marble and glass all around.

Then, of course, there’s the spa itself. Banyan Tree’s usual forms of spa-based bliss are present, in a warmly lit environment that’s every bit as tranquil as their predecessors on far-flung tropical islands. And as ever, it’s all overseen by therapists trained in Banyan Tree’s own highly regarded international spa academies.