Bamboo Garden Hotel Beijing — Hotel in Beijing

The moment you walk through the archway to this hotel it promises a tranquility and calm away from the madness of the city, which thankfully, it delivers in spades. The location is without doubt the best thing about this hotel, with many hutongs surrounding it's quaint and tiny streets. It's extremely close to not only the Forbidden City, but to the lakes and downtown district where the city comes to life at night. For location, you can't beat it. ||||The room too was huge and spacious with lots of room to move around and having everything that you'd ever need. A huge tick and brownie point goes to the A/C. Unlike in everywhere else in the world and all the other places in China we stayed, this A/C just had 3 simple settings, L, M, H, for low, medium and high, simple! If only all other hotels followed such a simple and easy system, i was impressed. ||||The breakfast, I felt, was rather lacking in choice, well, if you wanted any western options. Sure there was lots of Chinese options, but as much as I'm happy to eat any countries local food all day long for as long as I'm in the country, for breakfast, I'd just like something a little familiar, so here it was egg on toast and bowl of something resembling cereals. ||||My only two gripes about the hotel were the following. First of all, the wifi. Yes I know they'll be thousands of you now screaming at this saying that 'one doesn't travel to be online all the time,' but when it's ones business and they need to be in contact daily, it is important. That said, you can only get wifi here in your rooms, not in reception, nowhere in the beautiful gardens, just in your rooms. Which means that if you wanted some downtime catching up with things, you have to sit in your room. As I say, not a major headache but still a little frustrating. The second point is linked to the first, in as much as however beautiful and serene the gardens and grounds of the hotel are, there's nowhere really you can just chill and relax in them. You'd either got to sit at a table in the outside area of the restaurant, or there's a handful or hard concrete benches scattered around. ||||I only mention this becasue on two days, we'd spent a long time sightseeing, were knackered, so came back to the hotel just to chill for a few hours before heading back out again, but as I've mentioned, we were pretty much confined to our rooms. Again, not a major setback, but just a little frustrating for me. ||||And that's it, wifi throughout the whole of the hotel and a little oasis area with maybe settes, loungers etc in the grounds and the Bamboo Garden would certainly be a 5/5 hotel and the only place I'd stay...

This hotel is off the beaten track, and has very atmospheric grounds- our driver was taking photos of the yellow leaves on the trees.||I agree with the previous comments- we only used reception for checking in and out. We too were confined to our room for relaxing, which was very comfortable , and the restaurant shut up at 9. Although it was very good food, it was disconcerting to be asked to pay the bill at 8.40 while still eating. Breakfast in the same place, geared more naturally to Chinese guests, but omelettes cooked to order.||Plenty of good restaurants on the main drag.||There was a bar/coffee bar in the block we were in, but as no smoking no one was using it, and it did take forever for the coffee machine to spark up.||Little English spoken by staff other than reception, but lots of goodwill.||Wifi in the rooms, which I couldn't use as no chinese phone number to register, but free access wifi in the restaurant and coffee bar. Note unless you use your own data roaming there is no access to FB or whatsapp/google as blocked by the authorities. However occasionally hotels have their own VPN which can access these ( not this hotel).||We used the round tables by the little pond to sit out in the evening with a drink and watch the wildlife.||Would be very happy to stay here again...

This hotel is off the beaten track, and has very atmospheric grounds- our driver was taking photos of the yellow leaves on the trees.||I agree with the previous comments- we only used reception for checking in and out. We too were confined to our room for relaxing, which was very comfortable , and the restaurant shut up at 9. Although it was very good food, it was disconcerting to be asked to pay the bill at 8.40 while still eating. Breakfast in the same place, geared more naturally to Chinese guests, but omelettes cooked to order.||Plenty of good restaurants on the main drag.||There was a bar/coffee bar in the block we were in, but as no smoking no one was using it, and it did take forever for the coffee machine to spark up.||Little English spoken by staff other than reception, but lots of goodwill.||Wifi in the rooms, which I couldn't use as no chinese phone number to register, but free access wifi in the restaurant and coffee bar. Note unless you use your own data roaming there is no access to FB or whatsapp/google as blocked by the authorities. However occasionally hotels have their own VPN which can access these ( not this hotel).||We used the round tables by the little pond to sit out in the evening with a drink and watch the wildlife.||Would be very happy to stay here again...