Morgan 7 Star Hotel Beijing - Pangu Plaza

Forget about five star hotels, the latest buzz is all about seven stars! right in time for the Beijing Olympic games, China is leading with adding a second seven star hotel in the world (Dubai’s seven star Burj Al Arab Hotel was the first).

The Morgan Plaza (Now called the Pangu Plaza 7 Star Hotel) is a multiple building complex overlooking the busy Olympic District of Beijing, a neighbour with many of the 2008 Beijing Olympic venues, including the National Stadium (Bird's Nest) and the National Aquatic Center (Water Cube). Also, it will be close to the National Library, the 4th largest in the world and largest in China. The Morgan Plaza Hotel occupies the "Third Block" of the "Pangu". The plaza contains two pavilions, a temple, the world's best Japanese restaurant and a 600 meter long corridor.



The hotel's spacious lobby is a combination of Chinese and Western decoration, evidenced by marble pillars and rare onmosia henryi wood carvings on the ceiling. The 88-m-tall hotel has 19 stories above ground.The hotel's vow is to pamper customers in its spacious 234 rooms and suites that have ceilings 4 m high and space of at least 45 sq m. The largest is 488 sq m. All its rooms are decorated in light colors with silken wallpaper. Modern amenities include Sony TVs, Boss acoustics, furniture from the United States and bathroom fixtures from France.



Despite the Western-style fireplace in each room, decor is typically Chinese in its imperial taste.Every room has a traditional Chinese painting with a titanium alloy framework, all copies from collections in the Palace Museum depicting ancient culture and providing a Chinese vision to guests.Lampshades are painted with dragons and auspicious clouds. Its bathrooms, with both a bathtub and shower, have TVs that enable watching while taking a bath. Luxurious viewing is further enhanced by imported spray fixtures that replicate the feel of a waterfal






The hotel's restaurants serve Chinese, Japanese, French and other Western cuisines.
The Chinese restaurant on both the 5th and 6th floors has 26 private rooms furnished in the styles of France, California, Bali, modern Chinese, Thai and England. The hotel has attracted Kaden Minokichi, a 290-year-old Japanese restaurant, to open an outlet on its 21st floor, the only one overseas for the Minokichi group. All its chefs and service staff are from Japan.Minokichi, founded in 1719 as one of eight restaurants licensed to serve freshwater fish, is one of Japan's best-known restaurants for Kyoto cuisine. Its Western cuisine is provided all day.





Rumors say that apartments at the Morgan Plaza are rented for around $800,000 a year, cheap enough for Bill Gates to rent a top floor court yard house for the Olympic Games.

Burj Al Arab Hotel

The Burj Al Arab is a luxury hotel located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. At 321 metres (1,053 ft), it is the second tallest building used exclusively as a hotel, after Rose Tower, also in Dubai. However, the structure of the unfinished Ryugyong Hotel is nine meters taller than the Burj Al Arab, and the Rose Tower, also in Dubai, which has already topped Burj Al Arab’s height at 333 m (1,090 ft), will take away the title upon its opening.



The Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island 280 metres (919 ft) out from Jumeirah beach, and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. It is an iconic structure, designed to symbolize Dubai’s urban transformation and to mimic the sail of a boat.



Construction of Burj Al Arab began in 1994. It was built to resemble the sail of a dhow, a type of Arabian vessel. Two “wings” spread in a V to form a vast “mast”, while the space between them is enclosed in a massive atrium. The architect Tom Wright said “The client wanted a building that would become an iconic or symbolic statement for Dubai; this is very similar to Sydney with its Opera House, or Paris with the Eiffel Tower. It needed to be a building that would become synonymous with the name of the country.”




The architect and engineering consultant for the project was Atkins, the UK’s largest multidisciplinary consultancy. The hotel was built by South African construction contractor Murray & Roberts. The hotel cost $650 million to build.



This all-suite hotel stands 27 double-height storeys high and comprises 202 duplex suites. Your transfer to the hotel may be arranged by one of the world´s largest fleets of Rolls Royce Silver Seraph.








Reaching new heights of luxury and service levels, Burj Al Arab Hotel offers a choice of 142 1-Bedroom DeLuxe Suites, 18 1-Bedroom Panoramic Suites, four 1-Bedroom Club Suites, 28 2-Bedroom Suites, six 3-Bedroom Suites, two Presidential Suites and two Royal Suites. The finest materials have been sourced from around the globe for your luxury and comfort, coming together in exclusively designed and handcrafted interiors. All suites feature floor to ceiling windows and are of course equipped with the latest technology like interactive television (with a camera that views all visitors to the suite - and you can give access to them without leaving the comfort of your bed or the armchair), all-purpose office equipment, laptop computers and internet access.











Superb cuisine in dramatic settings - you can dine at BURJ AL ARAB in restaurants among the stars or below the sea. Al Muntaha, the Modern European cuisine restaurant, is suspended 200 meters above the sea, with scenic elevators that bring you there. Al Mahara is the seafood restaurant that can be reached by a scenic underwater ride from the lobby. Al Iwan seaview restaurant and Majlis Al Bahar, the beachfront restaurant, complete the dining facilities at Burj Al Arab, plus the other 21 bars and restaurants the adjacent Jumeirah Beach Hotel provides you with.



With your chauffeur driven Rolls Royce, discreet in-suite check in, private reception desk on every floor and a brigade of highly trained butlers who provide around-the-clock attention, you can be assured of a highly personalised service throughout your stay.

Heaven at the world's first seven-star hotel

Italian hotelier Alessandro Rosso is not afraid of a challenge. When the owner of the sleek Italian hotel group, Town House, decided to open a new flagship hotel in Milan, he didn't just want to create the best hotel in town. He wanted to create a hotel so good, it needed a whole new rating system. That's how the world's first seven-star hotel was born.



Until now, the best hotels in the world have been awarded five stars. This may come as a surprise to readers who have treated themselves to a stay at a so-called six-star hotel but, officially, there's no such thing. The term was first applied to Dubai's Burj Al Arab when it opened - not by the hotel itself, mind you, but by visitors and journalists as a way of describing the property's extra level of luxury. Since then, the term has been bandied about with increasing frequency. However, until now, there's been no official standard to distinguish an "ordinary" five-star hotel from one that offers an even more indulgent experience.






Rosso found a simple solution - he hired a company to create a new ranking system. Swiss company SGS specialises in management systems, audits and certifications. After analysing various structural and service aspects, it used the findings to create a set of detailed technical specifications that became Rosso's blueprint to deliver the world's first seven-star hotel.



The Town House Galleria is not an experience that everyone can enjoy. For one thing, room rates start at EUR1000 ($2035) a night, rising to EUR3900. For another, the hotel, which has just 20 rooms, seems to be booked out much of the time. As an exercise, I checked availability for 10 separate dates this year and found rooms on only two of them.