Looking for the underground to underwater staycation?
InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland of Shanghai China is best for you. The world's first underground hotel has been on 20 November 2018 which is 30 miles from China's city center.
Martin Jochman, the winner of the 2006 international design competition, with his studio JADE+QA and collaboration with ATKINS, design the concept of the hotel. The construction process was fraught with many delays before 2013 and lasted over a decade.
The hotel was built in an 88-meter-deep, water-filled long-abandoned quarry in a distant suburb of China. It has 18 stories, 2 levels are above the ground, 16 of which are plunging below the quarry including the 2 levels that are truly underwater. It has a total of 337 rooms including a conference room for up to 1000 people, restaurants, cafès, a ballroom, and extreme sports facilities.
The underwater floors have six suites with their aquariums and balcony, as well as a theater box where you can watch the nightly water show with mesmerizing light and water theatrics which is much more stunning than the Bellagio water show in Las Vegas.
A spectacular “glass waterfall” housing a vertical circulation core and observation lifts, flanked by convex and concave guest wings. Guests can also kayak around the quarry, or go rock climbing, scaling 88-meters of the cliff face. There is also a zipline across the quarry and the resort’s helicopter pad sits right in the middle, which makes you the center of attention upon landing.
The intimate An Spa with Japanese skincare line is where you can find tranquility, and if you want to have some music and enjoy while sipping your favorite wine, the steampunk Quarry Bar and InterContinental Club lounge are just on the same floor.
The concept of the hotel will make you close to the center of the earth and the InterContinental brand truly gains grip in China. It also has 60 more hotels in the pipeline opening worldwide in the next five years.
There are few abandoned quarries in the suburbs of Shanghai and the Chinese government revitalized them over the last couple of decades. Others have been transformed into golf courses or national parks, but the greatest accomplishment with the most extraordinary results is the InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland.
The pricing of the rooms range $360 USD in 2020.
The InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland marksas the world's first quarry hotel record and has been added to the series of China's milestones, which also claims:
The world’s longest sea bridge
The world’s first vertical forest city the world’s tallest atrium
The world’s largest waste-to-energy plant
The world’s largest 3D-printed concrete pedestrian bridge
The world’s largest ice sculpture festival
Sources:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterContinental_Shanghai_Wonderland
