Our Stay at The Pier Hotel in Sai Kung – A Review

The Pier Hotel Location

The Pier Hotel is a 4-star hotel located in the Sai Kung District in eastern New Territories, which is known as Hong Kong's "back garden". It's a bit off-the-beaten path which gives it a low-key, village feel that's quite different from many parts of Hong Kong. 

Before getting into my hotel review, I'd like to share a little bit about this area of Hong Kong and why I think it's a great place to visit.

Sai Kung Highlights

In my opinion, the best reason to visit Sai Kung is for the pristine natural beauty of the surrounding country parks. We love getting out there to hike and enjoy the beautiful beaches. In this area, you can also visit some of the tiny islands by boat. 

But Sai Kung Town is also a great spot for a day trip. It's home to a variety of excellent seafood restaurants, quaint cafes, and open-air bars. Walking around the town, it's fun to check out the boutique shops and colorful street art.  

Sai Kung Town is also a transportation hub for the region. Most of the buses from the MTR terminate here. Then, you can catch buses, minibuses, and boats to other villages, hiking trails, and islands in the area. 

Hebe Haven

Just outside Sai Kung Town, the Pier Hotel is located in Hebe Haven, or Pak Sha Wan in Cantonese. This small village is about 2.5-km away from Sai Kung Town and has a handful of restaurants and shops. It's home to several yacht clubs which is why you'll see so many boats docked in the harbor. 

Booking Our Stay at The Pier Hotel

Since we live in Hong Kong, our stay at the Pier Hotel in Sai Kung was for a mini-getaway / staycation to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary. (Still can't believe it's been that long!) 

Unlike my previous Hong Kong staycations at The Peninsula and the Mandarin Oriental, we didn't book a staycation package. The Pier Hotel's special offers, such as the Anniversary Celebration Package seem to mostly include decorations for the room and a bottle of champagne/wine for an additional cost. 

Since decorations aren't really my thing and we weren't planning to be in the room that often, we opted to book our stay just like we would book any other hotel on a trip.

Note: I receive a small commission if you book your stay at The Pier Hotel through Booking.com (and truly appreciate your support!). However, if you cannot find the room you want on Booking.com, it's worth checking out what rooms are available on the hotel site. Sometimes not all rooms available are listed on Booking.com.

Getting to The Pier Hotel

Due to its off-the-beaten path location, getting to The Pier Hotel will probably take you a few forms of transportation. Or, you could take a taxi.  

Public Transportation / Shuttle to The Pier Hotel

If you're taking public transportation to The Pier Hotel, you'll take the MTR then a bus or a minibus. Another option is to take the MTR to the Hang Hau Station, exit A1 then take The Pier Hotel's shuttle bus to the hotel. 

On The Pier Hotel's website, you'll find a helpful PDF transportation guide which includes the hotel shuttle bus service, plus public transportation options. 

Taxi to The Pier Hotel

Instead of using public transportation or the hotel shuttle, we decided to take a taxi from our home in Kennedy Town (western Hong Kong Island) to The Pier Hotel.  It cost us ~HK $230 (US $30) each way, including tolls and 2 pieces of luggage in the trunk and took ~45-minutes.

Although I am an over-packer, I swear we only had 2 pieces of luggage because one was our hiking backpack with our beach and hiking gear!

Our Stay at The Pier Hotel

Overall, I'm happy to say that our stay at The Pier Hotel exceeded our expectations. In fact, I would gladly return for another stay. 

We stayed at The Pier Hotel for 2 nights - from Tuesday to Thursday. It was a quiet time to be in Sai Kung, in part because of the rain, but we enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere. 

Check-In at The Pier Hotel

When we arrived at The Pier Hotel around noon, the welcoming staff greeted us and helped to check us in. Although the room wasn't ready yet (check in is at 3pm), we filled in our health declaration forms and such at that time.

Because our room included breakfast, the staff asked us to reserve our spot in the restaurant for the next morning. Since the hotel restaurant is small, they can only seat a certain number of guests per dining slot - 8am, 9am, or 10am.  

Once we finished checking in, we left our luggage with the concierge at the front desk and headed into Sai Kung Town for lunch. Catching a minibus to Sai Kung Town at the Pak Sha Wan bus stop on Hiram's Highway is easy as they seem to come very frequently.

A few hours later, we returned to The Pier and were able to collect our room key immediately since we'd already checked in. I appreciated how efficiently everything was handled.

Ocean Front Terrace Room

When we opened the door to our room, I was pleasantly surprised. The room was more spacious than I'd thought from looking at the photos online. And the spectacular view of the harbor and the boats outside the window captured my attention immediately.

Highlights of our Room at The Pier Hotel

This spacious waterfront room was probably larger than our apartment over in Kennedy Town. It was clean, comfortable, and we loved so many things about it. Here are some of the highlights for me:

Drawbacks to our Room at The Pier Hotel

To give a full and honest review, I'll mention a few of the things that I wish could have been different about the room. These are fairly nit-picky and shouldn't detract from the overall positive.

Breakfast at The Pier Hotel

As I mentioned, our stay included breakfast for 2 adults in the price of the room. We reserved our spot for both mornings at 9am. 

Breakfast is served at the WA Theater Restaurant - a Japanese restaurant located on the ground floor of the hotel with harbor views. Reading through the guest reviews for The Pier Hotel, I noticed many negative comments about the breakfast. As a result, I went into it with low expectations.

The restaurant offers three breakfast options - Western breakfast, Japanese breakfast, Vegetarian breakfast. Jeremy and I both went for the western breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs, ham, mushrooms, cold baked beans, salad, and a hash brown.

Honestly, I'm not a big eater at breakfast but since I love eggs, I thought it was a fine breakfast. It was filling and pretty tasty. Was it the best breakfast I've ever had? No. But I liked it enough to go back the next day and order the same thing.

The coffee, which tasted like Nescafe to me, was my only real complaint. But it had caffeine so I sucked it down and moved on with the day.

Other Breakfast Options

If you don't love the breakfast options included with the room, you might consider going into Sai Kung Town to try out some of the cafes I recommend in my Sai Kung itinerary.   

Swimming Pool and Rooftop Garden

One of the highlights of staying at The Pier Hotel is access to the incredible rooftop garden and swimming pool. Since it was raining for most of our staycation, we didn't get the chance to use the pool until our last day.

But after breakfast and before check-out, we managed to steal an hour up on the rooftop and take a dip in the swimming pool. The rooftop is surprisingly spacious with lots of tables and chairs, as well as pool loungers.

I'd go back to stay at The Pier Hotel just to relax and soak in the sunshine and the views.

Other Amenities at The Pier Hotel

Although we didn't use them, here are a couple other amenities that you might enjoy at The Pier Hotel:  

Checking Out at The Pier Hotel

On our final day, we checked out just before noon (the check-out time) and the process was smooth and easy.  

Since it was lunchtime, we decided to grab a bite at Padstow Restaurant & Bar - a British pub across the street from the hotel. So we left our luggage with the front desk at The Pier Hotel while we ate. 

After lunch, we collected our luggage and called a taxi on the HK Taxi app. However, when our driver called to confirm he was coming, he spoke very little English. And unfortunately, we speak no Cantonese. 

Luckily, the helpful staff at The Pier Hotel spoke to our driver to confirm our pick-up location and then let us know our driver was 5 minutes away. This extra kindness from the staff left us feeling great about our stay as we departed.