We booked our trip through our local community center. They were going through Collette Vacations. At first, I was a bit disappointed that this hotel was a bit far from the city, but it turned out to be centrally located to all of the sites on our trip.

The hotel was just beautiful! There were doormen that greeted us each day. The staircase in the lobby was remarkable. Our rooms were perfect...I just can't say enough about how wonderful this hotel was!

Room - The bathroom was black marble, with toothbrush, toothpaste, everything you could need. We used our room key to turn on the lights. The room was spotless. They had cans of Coke in the minibar, the kind with the "pull off" tab. I typically do not hit the mini bar - but I had to have one - it reminded me of when I was a kid...before the new fangled tabs that do not come off the can.

Dining - We had the breakfast buffet each day. We had PLENTY of western dishes to choose from - omlets, cereal, fresh fruit, hot cereal, the list goes on. There were also Chinese options. The Chinese do not eat eggs/pancakes for breakfast. They eat lunch and dinner type foods for breakfast - and there were a lot of those options as well. We even had a Western Night dinner with Chocolate Cake and ICE CREAM! It was great!

On the day we flew to Xian, we had to leave before dawn, and the hotel had boxed up "breakfast" for us. They packed yogurt, a delicious apple, that tasted like a pear, a hard boiled egg, a sandwich, etc. so that we did not go hungry.

We had 2 "fancy" dinners at the hotel. One was the "meet and greet" dinner. Lots of chinese cuisine served on lazy susan's. Mostly appetizer types choices...but very good. The other was on our last night. We had a lovely sit down dinner with choice of entrees.

Service - The hotel delivered and picked up our luggage for us, we did not have to transport our luggage at all. They were very helpful with exchanging our money and mailing our post cards. The staff spoke plenty of Engish.

I did visit the business center to send email to my teenagers who stayed behind with their dad. (calling and emailing hit my wallet the hardest!)

I cannot say anything bad about our visit to this hotel. It was truly an amazing visit!

We stayed at this hotel for ten days on a combined business/sightseeing trip. We were attending a conference held at this hotel; otherwise we probably would not have booked it since it is is very far from the city center.

However, we found the hotel to be an excellent choice. The property is beautiful and has all the amenities expected of a good five-star hotel (pool, spa, shopping, gym, tennis, bowling...). There are many excellent restaurants on-site, which is good since there is not much else in this area. The restaurants were generally rather pricey by Beijing standards, but still much cheaper than we were used to so we didn't mind.

The rooms were very spacious, immaculately clean and well-decorated. The bathrooms were very large with lovely furnishings. Free bottled water was provided in the rooms since the tap water isn't safe to drink. In-room internet access is available for a cost - however you pay only when logged on, and while we were online frequently the total cost for the stay was negligible.

We paid a very reasonable 650 yuan per night, including the buffet breakfast which was very extensive, and excellent quality. There are of course much cheaper hotels in Beijing, but this seems to be a good price for a five-star hotel.

The location is the main downside, since it does take some time to get into the center. However we found it to be simple and inexpensive: a five-minute taxi to LongZe station (12 yuan every time), followed by the line 13 train and the line 2 subway (5 yuan total). It took up to an hour but again, was quite simple. Note that it's not really possible to walk anywhere from this hotel, since the highway is very close.

Very nice and clean hotel. Most desk staff speak a little English, but double check important details. Breakfast buffet is very nice. The huge spa is something not to be missed. Prices are most reasonable. I prefered the 9th floor spa to the services offered in the pool area (better ambience, though the pool area is cheaper).
In restaurants, order your meat more cooked than you like it. Ours tended to keep coming our rarer than we'd prefer.
It is in the ourskirts of town, so not necesarily convenient, but great value for the money, and taxis are cheap(make sure you only get in metered taxis!). Have fun!

Wonderful Hotel. One of the best I've stayed in anywhere in the world. We stayed in the new section just opened in March '07. Wonderful breakfast buffet also. We were on a tour so the distance to the city wasn't an issue. Conveneient to the Great Wall and the Olympic stadium but maybe too far for business downtown.