Hi guys, I'm 30 & live with my hubby and fat cat in Coventry, although I'm from Sunny (?) Wolverhamp...
Hi guys, I'm 30 & live with my hubby and fat cat in Coventry, although I'm from Sunny (?) Wolverhampton originally. My fave topics for reviews are holidays, hotels and travel - my all time favourite pastime, although I do diversify ocassionally! Enjoy!
Member since:02.04.2004
Reviews:33
Members who trust:4
I stayed at the Novotel Xinqiao, Beijing during a family trip to China's capital in February 2005. There were 3 of us in our party, and we had reserved 2 superior rooms for 6 nights. The total costs of this stay was a mere £360 (courtesy of www.asiarooms.com).
The hotel is classified as 4*, and certainly fits the bill. The grand marble lobby creates an impressive first impression which is not let down by the size or quality of the rooms. These are clean and decorated simply. Although we only saw the superior rooms, these were fantastic, with truly huge (and very comfortable) beds, satellite TV (including CNN & HBO for those telly-addicts amongst you) and variable air-con/heating. There
was also a (free) safe, a well stocked mini-bar and complimentary toiletries and bottled water. Admittedly the shower wasn't the most powerful I'd experienced in a hotel and the bath could have been bigger, but the bathroom itself was clean and a decent size. The rooms were also very quiet – each room on our floor had a buzzer outside which rang inside the room. This little touch meant you weren’t ever woken by the sound of people knocking on doors! There was also a little light outside each room which could be activated by a button inside to read “please make up my room” or “do not disturb”.
The hotel itself is incredibly centrally located, something that's particularly important as many of the major hotels in Beijing are a much greater distance from a subway stop and taxis are a nightmare if you don't speak the local lingo!! There is a subway stop directly outside the hotel which is on one of the 3 lines on offer in Beijing - a short 2 stop journey takes you to the interchange for the 2nd (circle) line. This means that travel to most if not all of the principle tourist haunts are within very easy reach indeed, and at 3 yuen per journey of any distance (currently about 20p) this is very economical mode of transport! The hotel is also within walking distance of Tian’an Men Square, the Forbidden City and many restaurants and shops.
The hotel has a vast number of amenities on offer for visitors, including a lobby bar, and 3 restaurants - a coffee bar (which is actually a 24 hour international buffet restaurant where breakfast is served) a Japanese restaurant and a traditional Chinese Restaurant. As always in such hotels, the costs of these restaurants and bars is highly inflated, Jet lag on our first night forced us to stay in the hotel where we paid 250 yuen each (approx £17) for the buffet, although this included a glass of sparkling whitewine. Compared with the charges in local restaurants (which are generally as low as a quarter of this), this is particularly expensive. However, the food was fresh and generally of good quality. There was a good choice and the breakfast in particular (the cost of which was included in our stay) was extensive and included fruit, cereals, pastries and cooked breakfast as well as traditional Chinese breakfast foods.
In addition to the restaurants and bars the hotel offered a business suite with internet access (which, unlike many Chinese hotels did incur a charge of approx 13p per minute), a tourist gift shop and grocery shop, hairdresser, sauna, gym, tenniscourts and a health suite offering massages, foot steeps, salt rubs and much more. The hotel also offered a bureau de change (whose rates of exchange were surprisingly good) and could arrange trips to tourist sites such as the Great Wall and Ming Tombs (approx 2 hours away by coach). All of the staff at the hotel spoke a very good level of English, something that is a rarity in Beijing. The bellboys in particular proved invaluable in translating our chosen destination to a taxi drive which they flagged for us! Like most hotels, the Novotel also provide cards which state “Take me to the Novotel Xinqiao” in Chinese for you to hand to the driver on your return – very handy indeed!!
The hotel was immaculately clean and there always seemed to be 3 or 4 people in the lobby polishing, cleaning or sweeping in order to maintain this. Our rooms were made up every day and were also spotless.
All in all we were very impressed with the hotel and would definitely recommend it to others and return again ourselves!
Wow! Not bad at all. I travelled in China on slightly lower budget but £30 quid is not much at all for what you seem to get there. Cool review. Ruzenka xxx
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Feb 23rd, 2005
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