The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong is home to a beautiful Club Lounge with extraordinary views of Hong Kong and the surrounding bodies of water. Starting with breakfast, the lounge offers a number of special meals throughout the day along with some very attentive service. Here’s a full review of the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge
Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge entrance
The Club Lounge is located on the 116th floor — the same level as the spa.
We visited during the Chinese New Year weekend so the lounge was outfitted with traditional Chinese New Year decor and special sweets associated with the New Year were also on display.
Tip: Use WalletFlo for all your credit card needs. It’s free and will help you optimize your rewards and savings!
Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge access
Unfortunately, even if you are a Ritz-Carlton/Marriott Platinum Elite member, you won’t get automatic access into the Club Lounge. Instead, you’ll need a Club Lounge level room to give you access. If you get a club level room, you’ll also get a host of additional benefits like:
- Direct Arrival of the Guest to the Room
- Complimentary pressing service (up to two garments per day)
- Guest recognition of all Club guests by name
- Drop-off Limousine services from within the vicinity, subject to availability
- Check in/out services at the Club lounge
The only perk we used aside from the lounge access was the pressing service. They had our shirts back to us within about 30 minutes, which was pretty impressive. However, the drop off service in the Kowloon area is something that I wish we had take advantage of, too.
Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge
The Club Lounge is open 24 hours so you can enter it any time to relax and grab a couple of drinks or some light snacks. However, during designated time slots throughout the day, they offer specific food and beverage offerings.
These include:
- Breakfast: 6:30am to 10:30am
- Light lunch: 11:30am to 2pm
- Afternoon tea: 3pm to 5pm
- Hors d’oeuvres and cocktails: 5pm to 8pm
- Desserts and cordials: 8:30pm to 10:30pm
Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge views
Upon entering, the first thing that you’ll likely notice about the Club Lounge are the terrific views. It’s probably one of the best places on the planet to catch a sunrise, and it’s crazy to think that you’re actually sitting above the tip of the Empire State Building at 465 meters.
People come to pay money just to see this view about 16 floors below at the Sky100 observation deck. So it’s pretty amazing that this lounge gives you these million dollar views whenever you want them (assuming the clouds comply).
We usually arrived to the lounge as soon as the meals began so that we could lock down a spot along the window or better yet in the corner. But those tables tended to go pretty quickly as you could imagine.
I really liked the corner views as it had great views of Hong Kong Island.
There are a lot of tables that run along the floor to ceiling to windows so unless the lounge is packed, it’s not hard to find a spot with a terrific view. For us, the club lounge never got very crowded but then again we usually arrived as soon as the meals began; it’s likely crowds do pick up at other times.
If you’re not able to get a window seat (or you’re subject to vertigo with such views), there’s still some comfortable couches and other seating options in the interior of the lounge.
Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge breakfast
While I’ve admittedly had better breakfasts at other hotels, breakfast at the Club Lounge is still very solid.
Every morning the staff greeted us by name and after our first morning, they would ask us if we wanted our usual without us having to make any requests. In fact, by the time we would make it back from making our plates, fresh orange juice, cappuccinos, and still water would be waiting for us at the table.
I’d hit the omelet station up first and each morning I chose to go with a ham and cheese omelet. The omelets honestly didn’t blow me away but they were still good and I loved that the chef made them right on the spot without forcing you to wait.
In addition to the omelet station, there’s a counter full of breakfast buffet options.
The buffet offers several different types of pastries to choose from. My favorites were the pastries topped with kiwi slices and raspberries/blueberries, but I tried a lot of these pastries during our stay and as someone who loves sweet pastries with breakfast, I was very well satisfied.
If you want some protein, there’s salmon, cold cuts, and cheeses.
You can also choose from different fruit slices, berries, yogurts, and breads.
There are also a few Asian dishes you can try such as dumplings. I tried a few of these items for breakfast for the sake of trying something different and while they were pretty good, I’m just not used to eating them for breakfast so I didn’t go for them again after my first attempt.
And finally, you can also go with some milk and cereal to keep things simple.
Overall, I enjoyed the breakfast each morning and left full and well satisfied. I also enjoyed the prompt service we received every morning, which was also very attentive. Being able to start your day off with top-notch service felt great and watching the sunrise each morning (when the sky permitted) was one of my favorite memories at the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong.
Club Lounge light lunch
The “light lunch” can be as heavy as you’d like it.
I really liked the sandwiches, which consisted of turkey and cheese sandwiches, smoked salmon, and mixed vegetables that come on a variety of breads.
Typically, we just went with a couple of sandwiches and some chips to hold us over. I’m not sure what kind of crisps they had but they were extremely good and always seemed to hit the spot.
If you want to make your lunch a little heavier, you can go with some of the rice or noodles that they usually have set out. I really loved their rice but I don’t think they served it as frequently as they served the noodles.
They also had a few salads, one of which was a shrimp salad that I really enjoyed.
But what I really liked about the lunch were all of the sweets. They served up all sorts of different flavors from matcha to raspberry tarts and pear cake. The presentation was also pretty noteworthy, too, as many of the sweets were adorned with Chinese New Year themed chocolates.
The servers were extremely attentive so our glasses — whether water or champagne — rarely if ever were empty. And on top of that several of the servers struck up some great conversations with us — it was just an all around pleasant lounge experience.
If you’re interested in self-service, you can also head over to the wine machine for wine on tap.
Tip: Use WalletFlo for all your credit card needs. It’s free and will help you optimize your rewards and savings!
Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge afternoon tea
We caught afternoon tea one day and while we didn’t actually drink any tea, it was still a cool experience.
We were given a tower of treats well suited for traditional tea time (or at least they felt well suited to me — I honestly had no idea what to expect). A server explained what each of the items were on the tray. I recall salmon sandwiches, scones, some sort of roll stuffed with duck, some sort of egg bite, but I don’t remember what all of these were.
I do remember loving the vast majority of what I had, so I’d recommend going for afternoon tea at least once.
I was getting very full during our tea time trying all of the different items and thankfully we decided to cut it a bit short because the clouds cleared out over The Peak and we decided on a whim to book it over to Victoria Peak. As an aside — It turns out that visiting The Peak close to sunset on Chinese New Year weekend isn’t a very good decision….
Hors d’oeuvres
We only tried the hors d’oeuvres once but I really enjoyed them. We tried out the pasta bar where a chef fixed us each up a plate. I loved the pasta dish he fixed up with olive oil and black olives and Brad really liked his tomato-based pasta sauce.
Along with the pasta, they also had lobster soup, pan-fried beef sirloin, sautéed mussel, mixed vegetables with udon (they had these at virtually every meal), mushroom dishes, roasted mixed vegetables, and more.
On other evenings, the chef might be preparing specialized dishes ranging from Peking duck, foie gras pancakes, steamed dumplings, laksa, and Hong Kong style noodles, etc.
Like at lunch, they also had their line-up of amazing sweets to try from.
As much as I love dessert, our schedule never really worked to try out the desserts and cordials so unfortunately I can’t report on the goodness that I’m sure I missed out on.
Club Lounge dress code
The dress code is officially listed as “smart casual.” In practice, I don’t think they are very strict about the dress code. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t dress like I’m going to the beach in the lounge but if you look presentable, you can still get away with a nice pair of shorts and a t-shirt.
We usually dressed pretty casual for breakfast and lunch and a bit nicer for the later time slots.
Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge child policy
The Club Lounge welcomes guests below 10 years of age between 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily. The hotel states that “We kindly ask that Club Lounge guests with children preserve a quiet and warm ambiance, for everyone’s enjoyment.” While we visited all the kids seem to be well behaved.
Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge guest policy
The Ritz states, “During your stay with us, should you have visitors, we also warmly welcome them to the exclusive surroundings of the Club Lounge. However, should they avail themselves of refreshments, a charge at HKD380 per person (subject to 10% service charge) will be applied for this privilege.”
So you can bring a guest into the lounge but it will cost you around $50 USD per person.
Final word on the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong Club Lounge
The Club Lounge at the Ritz-Carlton is solid all around. There’s a good variety of foods served throughout the day that are high quality and you can easily fill yourself up on these foods or just hold yourself over for a while. The service is also tremendous in the lounge as the servers are consistently attentive and personable. And finally, the views are nothing short of exceptional. I’d rate this as one of my all-time favorite hotel lounge experiences for all of the above reasons.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
