SShalinda WIf you don’t speak the local language, I do not recommend staying at this hotel. It was incredibly difficult getting both on, and off the mountain “scenic area”. Some hotels in Trip reached out to us in advance to help coordinate transportation, this one does not. Your only way to contact the hotel is by calling, which isn’t feasible if you don’t speak the language. The hotel website showed that parking was available, so I thought we would be able to get there by DiDi, as long as I paid the fee to get the car into the park. This was not the case. We did see private vehicles, but I’m not sure what goes into that, but I believe 4 wheel drive is one requirement. So with our luggage, he dropped us off at the base of the mountain. It took a little while to get to the ticket office, you have to walk up several stairs and through a cobblestone market to get there, so we got nice and sweaty and uncomfortable. From there, you take a bus (ours had no underside luggage stowage) about halfway up to another stop. We had to awkwardly hold our luggage in the aisle of a full bus, while going up-hill and doing switch-backs. Everyone gets off about halfway-way up, at a station with several different buses. We asked for help and someone pointed us to the correct one. From the final bus stop up top, it was a short walk to the hotel. We figured going down would be much smoother, but after getting off the first bus, we accidentally got on the wrong one and started going back up. Overall, took us about 2.5 hours from the airport to the hotel, then just over three hours from hotel to the HSR station.
Minor descriptions for the room were inaccurate. Ours was listed as on floor 3 or 4, it was actually basement level. The hotel is in the edge of the mountain, so it still had a scenic view. The window in our room was dirty (I expected more for what we were paying). The hand soap in the bathroom was in a re-used bottle and was watered down. Listed amenities said sauna and massage room, there are neither here (nor was there an offer of other local places to go when I asked).
The breakfast food was amazing, including a hot, fresh bar with a chef making eggs and noodles. I wasn’t able to partake in the noodles one day because of the language barrier. Hotel staff was more hesitant than other places we’ve stayed in using translation tools and I felt like too much of an inconvenience in using them to ask for noodles. There is bottled water in the rooms, you can ask for more for free (they friended me via WeChat on Check-In and is largely how we communicated). There is free tea and snacks in the afternoon, the hotel was quiet so we were able to take up one of two seats that had an amazing view outside. The staff working the tea time was great and super courteous. You can hike to South Crag Palace and Nanyan Palace by foot, both are absolutely stunning.
In summary, if we were to visit the area again, I would stay at a hotel at the bottom of the mountain (not in the scenic area) and use the day exploring/getting lost on the bus. While the view was great, it simply wasn’t worth the high price and the difficulty in getting there for non-locals. If I knew a hotel in the scenic area would reach out to me in advance to assist, then I would go for it. But unfortunately, with the way Trip.com works right now, hotels have to initiate that, guests cannot. I don’t recommend this hotel for non-native speakers.
Voir plus