Springs Valley — Hotel in Beijing

The first thing that sounded the warning bells was the fact that no one seemed to know where the place was, that might just have been the people helping us at the airport of course, but it was a bit disheartening. I would definitely recommend you calling the hotel to fix airport transport beforehand because the taxi bill became quite large.. When we finally got to the hotel all lights were turned off, not that inviting. The clerk knew no english so it was all pointing in the dark, literally. ||When we finally got to our room we were a bit surprised that we got a room with no door to the toilet and the shower in the middle of the room when we had not ordered such a room. The next surprise was all the (unused) condoms, sex oils and the vibrator on the night stand. The hotel seems to give you them for free, but it was a bit weird since I was staying there with my platonic friend hahah. Might be good if you're staying there with a partner, we just found it funny hahah. ||It was placed pretty nicely, if you're used to walking you can easily get to Temple of Heaven, Wangfujing street, The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square by foot. ||We booked this hotel through Hotels.com and it looked all alright, weird thing was tough that through hotels.com money was withdrawn from my account about €300 when the hotel cost was €260, we didn't think much of it until we were checking out and the hotel wanted us to pay the bill €260. Since they barely knew english I had a difficult time arguing against it because they didn't understand.. However I finally got to talk with someone who knew some english and she said that the €300 was a deposit that would return to my card. I have never experienced this before and honestly it sucked. It was so weird that the deposit sum was larger than the hotel bill. The only thing said about the hotel on hotels.com was that they wanted a cash deposit of about €20 per stay, not €300.. ||I contacted hotels.com and they told me to wait and then contact them again if I don't get my money back.. For someone traveling Asia for 7 weeks €300 is quite a lot.. So yeah, beware of that if you're booking...

The first thing that sounded the warning bells was the fact that no one seemed to know where the place was, that might just have been the people helping us at the airport of course, but it was a bit disheartening. I would definitely recommend you calling the hotel to fix airport transport beforehand because the taxi bill became quite large.. When we finally got to the hotel all lights were turned off, not that inviting. The clerk knew no english so it was all pointing in the dark, literally. ||When we finally got to our room we were a bit surprised that we got a room with no door to the toilet and the shower in the middle of the room when we had not ordered such a room. The next surprise was all the (unused) condoms, sex oils and the vibrator on the night stand. The hotel seems to give you them for free, but it was a bit weird since I was staying there with my platonic friend hahah. Might be good if you're staying there with a partner, we just found it funny hahah. ||It was placed pretty nicely, if you're used to walking you can easily get to Temple of Heaven, Wangfujing street, The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square by foot. ||We booked this hotel through Hotels.com and it looked all alright, weird thing was tough that through hotels.com money was withdrawn from my account about €300 when the hotel cost was €260, we didn't think much of it until we were checking out and the hotel wanted us to pay the bill €260. Since they barely knew english I had a difficult time arguing against it because they didn't understand.. However I finally got to talk with someone who knew some english and she said that the €300 was a deposit that would return to my card. I have never experienced this before and honestly it sucked. It was so weird that the deposit sum was larger than the hotel bill. The only thing said about the hotel on hotels.com was that they wanted a cash deposit of about €20 per stay, not €300.. ||I contacted hotels.com and they told me to wait and then contact them again if I don't get my money back.. For someone traveling Asia for 7 weeks €300 is quite a lot.. So yeah, beware of that if you're booking...

Our first impressions of China we're marred by this so called hotel!|We were basically ignored at check in with Chinese people constantly pushing in front of us to be served and checked out and the guy at front desk obviously had no English whatsoever. Eventually, after complaining loudly 30 min later, he rang another lady to come and serve us. They ignored our booking.com reservation and price and charged us their advertised room rate which fortunately was about the same. He then gave us the key and we went to our room (we booked a family room for 2 adults and 2 primary age kids). Well, the pictures on booking.com were certainly not taken in this room and I doubt this hotel! The rooms are tiny, dirty, the beds are rock hard, there is no privacy in the bathrooms at all with only a shower curtain separating the bed from the toilet, there's no fridge in the rooms, no ice available, the restaurant does not exist, the location is not too bad but about 6km from city centre, no one in the hotel speaks English and the lady at the tour desk doesn't speak a word of English!|On the positive side, the wifi isn't too bad, once you find a browser that works in China it is quite good, they have lifts which operate, you receive 2 free bottles of water each day, the hot water and pressure in the shower is fine, shampoo etc is supplied, air con is ok and the hotel is very quiet at night. There is also a nice fruit shop and convenience store close by and a good duck restaurant a couple of doors away. |I would not chose to stay here again and would not recommend it for other families especially if your...