China People's Palace Hotel — Hotel in Beijing

By the end of my three-day stay, I had learned to enjoy the China People’s Palace Hotel which, I am reliably informed, in Chinese is actually, ‘the People’s Home’. ||||I was nervous about staying here because of the bad reviews I read on this site. I write this to set the record straight and better inform would-be guests. ||||First the room: I stayed in Tower A. Clean, comfortable, spacious. No complaints other than only tea bags are provided - no coffee, creamer, or sugar, not even a teaspoon - China is a tea-drinking nation. ||||Next the conference venue: excellent. This place is better called a conference centre. There are multiple restaurants, meeting rooms and halls for large gatherings. ||||The staff: wonderful… But… Ah, now for the ‘but’. For a non-Chinese speaker, this place is hard-going. Some staff speak some English, but are not well practised. The only way they could understand me was if I wrote something down and they read it slowly. Aural comprehension levels are low. The staff are equipped with smartphones with a translating app. Ask a question, the staff member speaks into the app and the smartphone replies in English. This leads to confusion. ||||It actually did take me till the second day to find where breakfast was served. I would ask, ‘Where’s breakfast?’ The staff member spoke into the translation app. The words ‘A Layer’ appeared on a screen. I scoured the venue for a restaurant called ‘A Layer’. None were. I found it by chance when, early one morning, I saw a delegation from Zambia slip through a door on the ground floor that was not marked ‘A Layer’.||||Breakfast: probably excellent, but entirely Chinese. Cereals: none, except for oatmeal and hot milk, oddly marked ‘For Muslims’. Make it yourself. Eggs: pre-cooked fried eggs. The rest: Chinese dishes. If you want a Western breakfast, head for the Tangla Hotel or KFC. Both are about ten minutes walk away. ||||A final beef, on my way to the gym, as I stepped from the lift, a girl in a tracksuit approached and said - in English - ‘It’s not free.’ That has the limit of her English. She was clearly trained to stand there and tell any foreign looking persons that it was not free. ||||Summary, nice place, friendly staff, but if you speak no Chinese and want a Western breakfast, check out...

Very disappointed after staying in this hotel for a month. There are cockroaches in my room and in the lobby. The hotel front desk staff are painfully slow. I got up at 5 am in the morning to check out, and waited nearly 1 hour to get the room deposit back, in the end, they told me they can not return the money because my credit card is from an American Bank! Well, they did not have problem to charge the credit card, how can they have problem to return the money? To avoid being late fro my flight, i had to leave without them returning my deposit. The breakfast is included in the price, but food has very little variety and the cakes they serve are very old, the icing on top of the cake taste horrible. ||The hotel has a terrible prostitution problem, it is unsafe and discusting! ||I often did not have hot water for my shower for the first week, at first, they told me it was because i did not know how to use the shower. After many complains, i went to the manager, and i incidentally heard the manager told the floor staff that the showers of the entire strip of rooms ( my room, the rooms above me and below me) are defective. That in order for my shower to work, all the guests in that entire strip must leave the facet handle in a particular position at the same time!!!||I was furious, and insisted for a new room with a functional shower. Although i got a new room in the end, i was placed to a room beside the laundry room, where i had the pleasure to hear the washing machine making noises every night!||Most of The taxi drivers in front of the hotel are greedy and dishonest. They often refuse to take guests if the trip is short. I got sick one day, and had to go from taxi to taxi to beg them to take me to a hospital. After 30 minutes in the scorching sun, i finally was able to get someone to go, with double the price.||There are very few restaurants near by, and the hotel food is...

I chose to stay in this hotel not because it is good, but because I must look after a family member who is in a hospital near by. I stayed here in 2008, 2016 and 2017.||For 80 US Dollars / night, it is rather expensive for what it has to offer. Hotel is relatively clean, but some rooms smells heavy cigarette, and moldy. Breakfast buffet was good in 2008, but got progressively worse over time. Hotel restaurants are quite expensive. Room service is fast, but sometimes does not resolve problems. It is far from the East District where many tourists live. The hotel is about 10 minutes to the subway by foot, which is great. It has an ATM where you can get cash from an American credit card. It has a swimming pool, and a hair salon. It feels like a 2 - 3 start hotel, but it is listed as 4 star. Overall,...