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Shenzhen is an easy city to bring children to — it is safe, it is clean, the metro is excellent and there is more for them to do than most people expect. The hotel is where it goes wrong, because a lot of the city’s stock is built for business travellers on one-night stays: small rooms, a token pool on the fortieth floor, and nothing within walking distance except an office lobby.
What to actually check before booking
Four things, in order. Is the pool a real one with a shallow end, or a lap pool with a depth that rules out young children? Do connecting rooms exist, and can you book them rather than request them — a requested connecting room is not a connecting room. Is there anything within a ten-minute walk of the door, or does every outing start with ordering a car? And is there a kettle or a kitchenette, because the ability to make up a bottle or reheat something at nine at night matters more than the lobby.
The resort properties — the Hilton Nanhai in Shekou, the InterContinental at Dameisha, Interlaken at OCT East — clear all four comfortably, and they are the ones I point families at first. They are also further out, which is the trade.
Dameisha and OCT East are proper day-trip distances from the city centre, not city hotels. Wonderful for a weekend; a poor base if you also have business in Futian. Check the journey before you book.
Where to be with children
Shekou is the easiest base — the coast, the space, Sea World, and a foreign community that means the practicalities are well worn. Nanshan and the bay work well too, with parks and the OCT area within reach. Futian is the least child-friendly of the central districts despite having the best hotels: it is offices and towers, and everything is a car ride.
For what to do once you are here, things to do in Shenzhen covers the parks, the coast and the theme parks. For longer stays, the schools guide and the cost-of-living budgets are the practical next steps.
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