I was booked into this place because there was a missive exhibition on in Shenzhen and all the ‘European’ hotels were fully booked. For me, it was the location that was good, being just around the corner from the stock exchange.

First off, for any other traveler thinking a 3/5 score isn’t bad – let me explain that this hotel is probably the WORST I have ever stayed in. It obviously likes to think of itself as a 4* luxury outfit, but it’s all just so second rate that it actually transcends bad and starts to become good; an example – They didn’t restock the mini-bar after the first night, so I went to reception to find out why. After a 15-minute debate with various members of staff it turned out the reason they hadn’t re-filled the mini-bar was because the room didn’t have one… I assured them that it did and even offered to take them up and show them the fridge in a cabinet under the TV, but no. I didn’t have one. Didn’t stop them from charging me for the drinks I subsequently took from the ‘non-existing’ mini-bar. Another? Well, how weird is it that for 4 nights on the trot, I ate in the restaurant on the 26th floor completely on my own – not another single customer. But the service was still terrible. I took to ordering 3-beers at the same time, because it took so long to get one, that you’d have to order another while they were pouring the first one out. The “bar” on the ground floor doesn’t have any drinks. The waitress takes your order and somebody comes from somewhere else with your drink – when you offer to pay, the person you ordered from can’t take money and the person who delivers them can’t either – that is somebody else’s job! There are blokes out the front dressed like navy admirals who'd lost their boats (I guess they were taxi wranglers, but I never saw them working).

I have *no* idea what the stains were on the carpet in my room. I don’t even know what sort of fluids cause such a range of colours. Equally unknown was exactly how the toilet worked. It often didn’t like even single sheets of tissue. Bed was OK. View was awful. The included breakfast was actually good, with a wide range of cooked and cold. Odd exerience (for us Brits) that people can smoke at the breakfast table though...

Four nights in a "superior" double, dinner x4, breakfast and one totally empty mini-bar = £170.

I am going back to Shenzhen in December and have already requested that I’m in this hotel!

So bad, it’s good.