This is the only luxury hotel in Yanjiao, east of Beijing. The building is great, and the lobby is very splendent. The service is friendly, but seems not very professional.
The room is large enough, but with very strong smoke smell (at least in the room I booked, and then I asked to replacing). Some small details in the room are not very high level as well.
- good size of the rooms
- large restaurant
- no english speaking personal
- poor quality of installations
- very bad food
- nothing around
- hard to find taxis to beijing
- poor service
The basics for a good hotel are given, but they do not know how to use them! The area around is not very good. The food in the restaurant is the worst I ever had in China!
I use this hotel a lot because there aren't many options in the Sanhe/Yanjiao area. I wish there was something better very much. I suggest if you're vacationing to plan the extra time and find a better option in Beijing. Tip: There aren't taxis waiting around the hotel so if you need one, call the front desk in advance. There are many small restaurants around the hotel but most aren't very good and only Chinese menus so you need a companion. I suggest the nearby Fucheng BBQ and the further Fucheng hotpot (yeah this Fucheng guy owns everything in this town). You can walk to the Fucheng BBQ; facing the street when leaving the hotel walk straight to the road and go left. You can't miss it and it's always packed. The Fucheng huoguo (hot pot) will require a car ride.
Pros
+Housekeeping service is always prompt and nice. You must speak Chinese though.
+The room is spacious.
+They brought us fresh fruit for the first 2 days of our stay to our room.
+Bathroom is spacious with one of those rainwater shower heads.
+I believe the bathroom floor is heated which is a fun feature during the wintertime.
+Very quiet.
Cons
-Last time I stayed there they gave us a broken irioning board and there was no hot water for showering in the morning. I don't know if this was an electricity issue to the droughts but they should have explained what was going on.
-The beds are hard, and they give you a buckwheat pillow. No problems with the buckwheat but the pillow was so full that it gave me a horrible rench in my neck and shoulders that lasted 3 days.
-The front desk is SLOW and doesn't speak enough English for an "International" hotel.
-The breakfast is one of the WORST in China hotels. The breakfast is almost all Chinese food (no problem for me) but the quality and recipes are not good.
-Not a lot of great food options in the area.
-The hallways for the rooms are so poorly lit. It doesn't feel safe except that there are hardly any people around.
-No free wireless internet in the rooms.
-Too much smoking in the vast lobby. They could easily make half non-smoking and the other smoking.
-Valet on a heavily stormy night would not let us pull right up to the door where there was cover...?? Strange.
-Cable tv has only 1 English channel (CNN). Not even the English CCTV?? Again strange.
-Our mini fridge was missing the first 2 nights. When we checked in again after the weekend in Beijing, we requested a room with a fridge.
-Too many things for sale in the room.
I hope my company can make a contract with someone else soon. Another hotel just opened across the street. Maybe I'll try that next time.
They locked my Roomkey two times in two days, yesterday they opened it after 45 Minutes without telling me one reason for locking the card. Today the Manager on Duty was keeping me waiting again with a locked Roomkeycard. and with all my belongings in the closed room for more then one hour. He was not friendly !! I called the boss of the Hotel Mr. Tan, he promised me to visit me in my room the next half hour for talking to me about the problems, he is now keeping me waiting for 1,5 hours .......
