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leemack

, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100025 China Phone: 86-10 Fax: 86-10 5908 8899

 

11 months, 1 week ago

hatake_k

Stayed during the opening weekend of the Olympics, so perhaps some allowances should be made for a full hotel and an excitable clientele. But at $850 a night, I am not so sure.

The hotel is in the middle of what? A faceless, souleless zone of high rises and high-end shops peddling international branded items at super inflated prices. No character, no thought to planning and as memorable as an airport terminal.

Nothing intrinsically wrong but nothing particularly right. The well established faux English furnishings seemed completely out of place in this anonymous environment. Comfortable but depressing. Finish was poor, everything slid off the bathroom shelf, bath tiles cracked and not properly fixed. Walls were paper thin. Not built to last.

Lobby is designed to keep people out being very small but then of course becomes very crowded as there is nowehere else to wait.

Had a very poor and expensive dinner at the Aroma restaurant. Food indifferent and appaling wines from a very limited list at an average price of $130 a bottle. Not much better at breakfast. But what a contrast at Barolo, the hotel's Italian restaurant which was superb under the tutored eye of Ronnie Rizzi and his German-Greek co-maitre whose name I didn't catch but who supervised a great dining experience.

Pool meets the length test (25 metres) but narrow as a strand of spaghetti so seemed full with only a couple of other swimmers. Wet part of the spa: steam etc was good and had a large terrace from which to survey the bland tower scape.

However, the biggest failing was that the staff were not that well trained and English was a real struggle as is my Mandarin. Simple requests either didn't get met or had to be presented in a variety of ways to build an understanding. Willing but not very capable.

Calling the concierge was immensely frustrating as they never answered the phone, particularly important as I was outside the hotel and needed to change pick-up times. This happened repeatedly. Not good enough.

Hotel transfer to the airport is twice the price of the Peninsula: RMB 1460 vs 700 in an Audi 6 vs a BMW 7 series and it's closer, so how does that work?

All in all a disappointing experience and management just weren't ready for the Big Event.

2 months, 2 weeks ago

hatake_k

the system of alternate number plates was still in place. So, there wasn't too much traffic on the roads and it took us only about 20–25 minutes to get to Tian'anmen Square in a taxi. However, once all the cars are back on the streets, I reckon the that location could be a little more problematic. Solely for that reason, if we went back, we'd probably try the Grand Hyatt, which is so much more conveniently situated for the tourist sights.

2 months, 2 weeks ago