Pretty smelly and service is all over the place. Some of the staff we encountered here were angels, smiling, extremely helpful and full of suggestions while others seem to have no clue where they were, as if they were from a different province and it was their first night on the job, and others were just outright rude. Don't know what to make of that, maybe they don't get much training or incentive, maybe they don't get paid enough to deal with people, but it's certainly inconsistent.
One of the young girls in the staff spent twenty minutes retrieving a map of the city, pointing out shopping and nightlife hotspots and writing Chinese notes for us to give to cabbies. She was awesome. Unfortunately, the reception staff seem to think that they could downgrade our room at will with no compensation and I had to actually call the police to get them to back down. The police never came, but I think the threat of police lights flashing and screaming guests was all that persuaded them to respect our reservation. That part was, indeed, very frustrating.
I mentioned smelliness, well, those with experience in China know that there are few, if any smoking laws here and people smoke everywhere. The smell of cigarettes is pretty much a permanent feature of the entire hotel, not a very inviting prospect to many, but then, on several floors that scent mingles with a huge assortment of Chinese food smells emanating from all the restaurants housed in the building, and there are many.
Overall, a pretty mixed experience, but with so many hotels to choose from in this city, I think we'll be trying a different one next time. |