Foreign Experts Hotel — Hotel in Beijing

I stayed two nights at the Foreign Experts Building just before the Spring Festival (春节) as a foreign expert for a foreign-expert meeting. I see from previous reviews that others stay here through hotel bookings. The Foreign Experts Building is not great as a hotel (饭店) but should instead be regarded as a guesthouse (宾馆) and I am rating as a guesthouse. As a guesthouse, the Foreign Experts Building is well above the average compared to other Chinese academic guesthouses.||||The rooms are large and quite comfortable. The beds are hard but not as hard as average beds. Each bed has two pillows and the pillows are good, compared to the pillows filled with beads or beans, which I don't like. There is a TV in the living room and also in the bedroom. The room, really an apartment, comes with a kitchen that is well equipped and quite clean. The apartment is great for having visitors.||||The apartment has a balcony and I had a view of part of the Bird's Nest Stadium nearby and the Pangu 7 Star Hotel Beijing (the 7 stars are self-awarded but this hotel is nonetheless China's most luxurious). Anyone feeling deprived at the Foreign Experts Building can take a short walk to the Pangu Plaza for luxury. The Foreign Experts Building is in the midst of the Olympic District, which is an interesting area. The subway station is not a long walk from the Foreign Experts Building.||||The lunch and dinner are buffet style, not menu-based, and the food is average. The pure vegetarian selection is weak and not labeled. Some knowledge of Chinese is needed to figure out which options are vegetarian. All Halal food is labeled as "Moslem" so that selection is easy.||||Wifi is free and adequate and slow at times as is the case everywhere I stay in China. As for a wifi modem in your room if the wifi is too slow or you can't get a connection. The "waiter" complies and the wifi bandwidth is then quite strong.||||The apartment shower is poor. I couldn't get the temperature right and micro changes in the setting switch from too cold to too hot water with no way to get comfortable warm water. The elevator can be a long wait at busy times and stairs have locking doors so don't seem to be a good alternative. There is a full gym and pool but I didn't try these out.||||For meetings, I would stay here again remembering that this place is a guesthouse not...

I had the opportunity to stay at this hotel while attending a conference in Beijing. It is a business hotel primarily for large groups and conference attendees, given it's relative proximity to some of the new convention facilities, Olympics venues, etc. The hotel itself is quite spic and span, the staff did a very good job cleaning it despite the number of people always at the lobby for pick ups / drop offs from large buses (preferred mode of shuttling large groups of people). The room was a suite with a separate living area, small kitchenette, washer/dryer, bathroom, and bedroom. Though it was non-smoking, the room furniture and carpeting reeked of smoke. Thank goodness for the working air-conditioning that made it bearable. The view overlooked a park which was fun to go take a walk in and see young and old do their daily morning / evening exercise and Taiji routines. My meals were included and served buffet style in the formal banquet room. Mostly traditional Chinese food with very helpful and attentive staff. Overall, the stay was alright and a unique experience given the needs of the conference. Very few were able to speak fluent English so be prepared to use a translation app to...

Love this hotel! Everything is rather dated but that adds to the charm of the place. We booked a business suite for five nights and it was like home away from home, but better because of a bathtub! There was a large living room with decent furniture and wardrobes, a small kitchen with oven, microwave, and fridge freezer, a washing machine tucked in a corner near the small but functional bathroom, and there was a large balcony with views to the adjacent compound. The bed was large and comfortable, we slept well. There was a faint hum of traffic from the nearby highway but not a problem. We stayed in 1102 which is on the east side of the building. Staff were friendly and everything was very clean, breakfast was simple Chinese food. We hired bicycles to travel the 10 minute journey to Jiandemen metro. If you want to feel like a foreign expert staying in Beijing two or three decades ago this is the place, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay and would...