Holiday Inn Express Beijing Temple Of Heaven — Hotel in Beijing

Hotel is located near the important hot tourists places like Temple of Heaven & Tiananmen square. It is about 40 minutes away by taxi (due to traffic jams) from the shopping malls & shopping districts. Around the hotel no shops are available just a major supermarket called Wu Mart which is 5 minutes away on foot. Local restaurants and other barber shops are around. On the other direction from the Wu Mart, KFC restaurant is there about 20 minutes of foot. In the same hotel building there is a small deli shop where you can buy Water and other quick packed items like chocolates & biscuits. On arrival to Beijing Airport I followed the advises to take the Express Train then Taxi, but the end result is that when arrived to the station Taxi Drivers started to ask 5 times the Meter Fare starting 300 RMB, at the end one Taxi that I flagged to in the street drove us to the hotel for 46 RMB and even I paid him 60 RMB including tip he was very happy and the service was good. On our way to Airport, we took a Taxi, the meter fare was 135 RMB i.e. the Same Cost for 3 Adults with Train and Taxi, but with Quick Direct Clean Service. Therefore the Advice is if you are 2 or more driving from Airport to Downtown, take a Taxi. Hotel front desk staff are very friendly & helpful, I reserved a Double Room with an Extra Bed for a total RMB about 2,550 for the 4 Nights, on arrival the front desk staff informed me that they have Special Offer for Advance Booking (my case) who will stay more than 2 Nights (my case) to have FREE of Charge 3rd Person (Extra bed & Breakfast), which dropped down my total cost of stay to be 2,010 RMB instead of 2,550 RMB. He was honest enough to inform me about that although I was satistfied with my booking of 2,550 RMB. Room was very good (space wise with the extra bed), the TV has only CNN & HBO as English speaking Channels while the rest were Chinese. The Room has NO Mini Bar i.e. No Fridge in the room which was a draw back in HOT Summer High Temp, but when I asked the Restaurant for Ice Cubes and Container, they provided both with a smile, then I filled a big container with ice and embed inside Water & Juice bottles that stayed COLD from afternoon till next morning. Breakfast Buffet does not include much of International food, just the Boiled Eggs, some vegetables & Salads aside from cereals, butter & jam and Fruits. While Chinese food items were more than 10 or 12 serving plates. I wished if they serve some Fish like Smoked Salmon or Tuna Salad, but they never did. The Internet connection in the room as per my booking, supposed to have WiFi in the room free of charge, when checked in the 5th floor (547), the Signal was very week to connect, I used the Cable but other NBs could not connect when claimed to the front desk they promised to provide Access Point to strengthen the Signal, next day they apologized that all their Aps are in use, they I requested to solve out the problem, they offered Better Room in the 7th floor with excellent WiFi connect and even better view. Service was provided always with smile. I think their only problem is that the Housekeeping Staff do not speak or understand English at all, so they missed the room cleaning once when we asked them to delay a bit, but when asked the front desk in English they sent them to make up the room at once. Conclusion Yes I will stay again...

First, let me address the positive. The staff at the front desk are awesome - Terry, Mandy, and crew. They go above and beyond to assist the guests, whether it be providing detailed directions in the area, arranging show, attraction, and transportation, or even lending an umbrella to guests ...even when the guests doesn't ask.

Terry et al., if you are reading this, find an investor and open your own establishment that can keep up with your level of hospitality. Truly remarkable customer service.

Now the negative....

This hotel needs some TLC and standards enforcement. The entire hotel smells of smoke and it is obvious that the hotel does not enforce the no-smoking policy in non-smoking rooms. To emphasize this point - they have beautiful water lily displays near the elevators...full of cigarettes. Nasty. Keeping these clean is a pretty easy fix.

My family of four (two kids) stayed on the same floor and our floor was the equivalent of a college dorm. Many of the doors of the individual rooms were left open by the guests as they were socializing. The doors were probably left open because the heat was extremely high in the rooms (28C??)....and there was no way to lower it. One night, my family came back to the hotel late and walked by an open door to see an older, rotund gentlemen lying on the bed in only his underwear. Perhaps, waiting for someone??? Yep, exactly what you want your kids to see. Classy. On a slight positive note, we did complain to the front desk about this and I believe they did have someone come up and tell people to shut their doors. However, I think this is a clear indication of the regular clientele and low standards this location accepts.

Breakfast had a mix of western and asian options, but we found most of it not tasty. Others may have liked it though, so this may not be entirely negative....more neutral. The second day we ended up sticking with just drinks and bread....and the bread was stale.

Lastly, there were a lot of loose screws, damaged and/or not maintained facilities. I had to fix the soap pump in one of our rooms....this was after they had to fix the door to let me into the room. Not a big deal, batteries die and soap dispensers are easy to fix but so is making sure all of it is correctly working before your guests arrive. In our other room, the window wouldn't close. The facilities guy came up spent about five minutes and couldn't figure it out, and decided the best solution was to leave it open. I went over to look at it and noticed within about two seconds that a screw needed to be tightened. Problem solved. In this same room, the security latch had loose screws and it looked like the door had been forcefully opened at one time (another indication of the neighborhood).

Bottom line: The finance/maintenance department really needs to come up with a better strategy if the hotel wants to survive in this competitive market. Why stay here when many, many other options are available in Beijing - including IHG.

We would not recommend this location to anyone at this time....or in the foreseeable future. Definitely not recommended for...

This is the third attempt to submit this review, attempting to conform to the IHG guidelines (symantics)...

First, let me address the positive. The staff at the front desk are awesome - Terry, Mandy, and crew. They go above and beyond to assist the guests, whether it be providing detailed directions in the area, arranging show, attraction, and transportation, or even lending an umbrella to guests ...even when the guests doesn't ask. Terry et al., if you are reading this, find an investor and open your own establishment that can keep up with your level of hospitality. Truly remarkable customer service.

Now the negative....

This hotel needs some maintenance and to conform to IHG standards. The entire hotel smells of smoke and it is obvious that the hotel does not enforce the no-smoking policy in non-smoking rooms. To emphasize this point - they have beautiful water lily displays near the elevators...full of cigarettes. Nasty. Keeping these clean is a pretty easy fix.

My family of four (two kids) stayed on the same floor and our floor was the equivalent of a college dorm. Many of the doors of the individual rooms were left open by the guests as they were socializing. The doors were probably left open because the heat was extremely high in the rooms (28C??)....and there was no way to lower it. One night, my family came back to the hotel late and walked by an open door to see an older, rotund gentlemen lying on the bed in only his underwear. Perhaps, waiting for someone??? Yep, exactly what you want your kids to see. Classy. On a slight positive note, we did complain to the front desk about this and I believe they did have someone come up and tell people to shut their doors. However, I think this is a clear indication of the regular clientele and low standards this location accepts.

Breakfast had a mix of western and asian options, but we found most of it not tasty. Others may have liked it though, so this may not be entirely negative....more neutral. The second day we ended up sticking with just drinks and bread....and the bread was stale.

Lastly, there were a lot of loose screws, damaged and/or not maintained facilities. I had to fix the soap pump in one of our rooms....this was after they had to fix the door to let me into the room. Not a big deal, batteries die and soap dispensers are easy to fix but so is making sure all of it is correctly working before your guests arrive. There were other room maintenance issues that did not meet comfort standards afforded by other IHG hotels we have stayed in that offer peace of mind to their guests.

Bottom line: The finance/maintenance department really needs to come up with a better strategy if the hotel wants to survive in this competitive market. Why stay here when many, many other options are available in Beijing - including IHG.

We would not recommend this location to anyone at this time....or in the foreseeable future. Definitely not recommended for...