Starphire Hotel

There’s a free museum nearby called the Mei Ho Museum, about social housing. The metro is roughly a 10-minute walk away. The staff were polite, the coffee was delicious, and you can get water. The view from the 18th floor is amazing, and the hotel is great for the price.

The room was spotless, with no bugs or rodents or anything like that. The AC worked well and the water pressure was strong, with warm water. WiFi was hit or miss, though it mostly worked, and it was too slow for watching YouTube comfortably. The room itself is modern and a bit stylish, but really tiny, even by HK standards. Two of us couldn’t unpack our suitcases, and there was no clothes cabinet. Staff were friendly and spoke English. Breakfast was very small, just self-serve coffee and one pastry per guest. They cleaned the room and made the bed on request. It’s in a quiet area, around 5-10 minutes on foot from the MTR red line, which goes direct to lots of HK attractions. Busy Mong Kok shopping areas near Nathan Rd are 10-15 minutes away on foot. For a cheap hotel, it’s fine for 2-3 nights. Large suitcases take up too much space, but if you travel light, it’s sufficient and the price and location aren’t bad.

Our stay at Starphire Hotel was really disappointing and stressful. We’re from Philippines and had just traveled to HongKong. We were told our rooms would be ready by 2pm, but past 2:10pm they still weren’t. We were traveling with a senior citizen who was in pain and badly needed to rest. I went to the front desk for an update. The staff member got irritated, raised his voice, and said they were tired too. He was passive aggressive, laughing and being rude, which made things worse and escalated the situation. Even my mom couldn’t take it anymore. He also suddenly brought up our previous president, which was completely unnecessary and unprofessional. I kept saying “thank you” over and over just to calm things down and get him to stop talking. We’d booked two rooms for five people, but he tried to offer us only one as a solution. That was clearly unfair, and we didn’t back down. Eventually he gave us one of the rooms assigned to us, but we still had to wait longer for the other, which should already have been clean. Almost all the other families who arrived with us were already in their rooms while we were still waiting, despite having a senior citizen who wasn’t feeling well. We did eventually get both rooms, but the whole ordeal was exhausting and ruined the mood of our trip. Guests shouldn’t be treated this way. Very disappointing service, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

The AC and heat were broken, and the room was extremely cold, even colder than outside. It was unbearable in winter weather. They refused to move us, saying the hotel was fully booked, though online rooms still appeared available. All they offered was an extra blanket. I woke up from the cold and had to put on all my clothes.