Home of the Great Wall — Hotel in Beijing

We booked one of the villas for a week over Christmas, and were very disappointed. First and foremost, we arrived on a very cold December 23rd, and the heat had not been turned on. Since the main heating source is radiant floor heating, it takes a long time to warm up. Despite burning all the firewood we had purchased the first afternoon/evening, we could not get the place above 14-degrees and it fell to below 10-degrees overnight. The next day we requested heaters and were provided with three. Even with these three radiators, it took another 36 hours to get the place to a livable temperature. ||||Promised internet was not working when we arrived and it took 2 days to get it fixed. Getting it fixed involved having two to four workers traipsing in and out of the house most of Christmas Day. We could not even go out for a walk as apparently we were the only people with a key to let workers in.||||The write up described a full kitchen - that is a joke. It is barely a kitchenette. The one sharp knife provided, could not cut bread. The oven is a small convection/microwave with Chinese buttons and no instructions. It certainly is not an appliance that you can cook a Christmas duck in! The bath and shower products were individual packages of disgusting-smelling shampoo and bath foam thrown on the window sill in the bathroom. The bathroom, while the warmest place in the house, smells of sewage. The cleaning service involves some ineffectual sweeping, mopping with a mop that appears to have been used for several years now and changing the towels. Dishes were not washed, bathroom was not cleaned.||||When we suggested that we be reimbursed for the two days that we froze, we were flatly turned down. Further we were charged for more firewood, despite having used our first load in a vain effort to be warm the first night.||||This is an expensive place to stay and there is absolutely no value for the money. For these prices you should get...

We booked one of the villas for a week over Christmas, and were very disappointed. First and foremost, we arrived on a very cold December 23rd, and the heat had not been turned on. Since the main heating source is radiant floor heating, it takes a long time to warm up. Despite burning all the firewood we had purchased the first afternoon/evening, we could not get the place above 14-degrees and it fell to below 10-degrees overnight. The next day we requested heaters and were provided with three. Even with these three radiators, it took another 36 hours to get the place to a livable temperature. ||||Promised internet was not working when we arrived and it took 2 days to get it fixed. Getting it fixed involved having two to four workers traipsing in and out of the house most of Christmas Day. We could not even go out for a walk as apparently we were the only people with a key to let workers in.||||The write up described a full kitchen - that is a joke. It is barely a kitchenette. The one sharp knife provided, could not cut bread. The oven is a small convection/microwave with Chinese buttons and no instructions. It certainly is not an appliance that you can cook a Christmas duck in! The bath and shower products were individual packages of disgusting-smelling shampoo and bath foam thrown on the window sill in the bathroom. The bathroom, while the warmest place in the house, smells of sewage. The cleaning service involves some ineffectual sweeping, mopping with a mop that appears to have been used for several years now and changing the towels. Dishes were not washed, bathroom was not cleaned.||||When we suggested that we be reimbursed for the two days that we froze, we were flatly turned down. Further we were charged for more firewood, despite having used our first load in a vain effort to be warm the first night.||||This is an expensive place to stay and there is absolutely no value for the money. For these prices you should get...

Decided to stay here based on proximity to GW so we could get up the wall early. It would have been smarter to stay in Beijing and charter a car in the early morning or join a tour. The hotel is at the top of a 1km, extremely steep driveway. To get to the entrance to the wall it's about 2km by foot from the hotel. When returning, you have to climb back up the driveway, which has sections as steep as anything on the wall.||||The room aesthetic is nice, but the beds are hard and the furniture in different states of decay. We came during summer - very hot outside, but the A/C in the room worked well (on the other hand, the bathroom was like a sauna) .||||I definitely overpaid for the experience - over $200 US for the night. Then the cost of getting transport at another US$200 RT to Beijing. I feared the traffic in Beijing and figured this was a way around it, but we caught traffic all the same when returning mid-day. If you can get a day tour to the Mutianyu wall for less than US250 a head, it's probably worth it.||||The skeleton crew service was OK. The man and woman who attend to the place are kind of hard to find, but friendly and responsive considering my broken chinese. Minimal help in english. ||||I don't understand many of the positive reviews posted about this place. It's certainly rustic, but at the price of a top class Beijing Hotel, it comes nowhere close.||||It would be a significant improvement if the hotel shuttled guests back and forth to the GW entrance in the back of the facility motorized tricycle (that would be fun, too). ||||If you're visiting the Great Wall, find...