Chongqing Tianlai Hotel — Hotel in Chongqing

Tianlai is a typical Chinese hotel that wants to compete with international companies. The truth? It's an hotel that base its business on government officers who attend any sort business, that makes it extremely local.||The hotel has around 600 rooms. Nothing extraordinary as matter of fact you pay for what you get. The structure is divided in two buildings, each one of them has a lobby, a bit confusing to understand the orientation at begin. To move from one tower to another, one must walk through the pool or across a "labyrinthine corridor" on level 2.||||LOCATION||Tianlai hotel is located at 30 minutes' drive from Chongqing Airport. Convenient to come and go, less convenient when one has to go to downtown, additional 30-40 minutes by taxi.|| ||CHECK IN/OUT||The main problem was the communication with the staff. Most of them are not able to speak English. Who does it, it's a broken English. It was difficult to communicate especially when/if you have some special requests that required more than a "yes" or "no" as an answer.||||ROOM||My room was just fine. Regular size, not too small not too big. It's a generous Chinese standard room. If you compare with Europe it's considered big, within China market it will considered small.||Despite the size the hotel rooms need a renovation. ||||Wi-Fi had a decent signal, the speed of internet have major problems. I am not sure if was the hotel itself or a common local problem. Matter of fact; way too slow to surf without being upset. ||||Room amenities pretty standard. I would not consider this hotel as 5 star structure, most likely a 4 star.||||CLEANING||In general the service was acceptable. The room was serviced daily, no major complain about it. But once again English communication if you need an extra towel. ||||F&B||The hotel offers few outlets where its guests can dine. Highly recommended to eat in hotel since no much around. ||Chinese restaurant is the highlight. Eventually the buffet restaurant (also the breakfast venue) offers a bit more international spread. Consider that the term "international" is very flexible in this case. You definitely have to adapt your taste to the local version.||The bar was pretty empty. Very sad.||||VALUE||In general I do not recognize much value for this hotel.||The price I paid I could have gone in a more international brand, I think it will be the best...

Have to say I used to like this hotel and stay here often on business (at least 50days / year). I have also recommended it to other business colleagues who stay here when they visit, so all told I probably bring over 100days business to this place.||The reasons I like it - location close to where I work, reasonable price, great gym and food is generally good.||Issues I am currently experiencing||- no heating at all in the hotel (on my 5th day here and it's still not fixed). ||- safety box not working, now fixed but informed reception 3 days running before I finally went back for a fourth time and they sent some-one to fix it.||- Room service impossible to get hold of - tried to call for 1 hour last night (7pm to 8pm) before finally giving up and going to the bar to order my food.||- Food not availble - asked for the Salmon dish, after 10mins was told it wasn't available. Asked for the Chicken, again waited 10mins to be told it wasn't available at which point the waitress advised that nothing 'zero' from the seafood list was available and only 1 dish from the grill list was available. Is that ridiculous, 5 star hotel!!! Doesn't have chicken??? Every restaurant in China has Chicken. 5 Star???||Seems to me typical signs of lazy, incapable management. Probably too busy 'we-chatting' their friends. Hopefully the powers that be will come down hard and get this place back to what...

This hotel would be fine if you were a Chinese businessman who smokes. We were a group of Americans on a business trip who had local contacts book this hotel. The check-in took forever because they could not find our reservation. All of our rooms had to be changed because they were all smoking rooms and none of us smoked. The checkout was the worst. We had ground transportation put under the telephone calls portion of the bill, which of course our employers would not pay for. It literally took at least 20 minutes for each person to checkout because the desk staff spoke no English, nor did the supervisor. The rooms were not very nice with dirty carpets and beds that were rock hard (and I mean seriously, about the hardest bed I've ever slept on in a hotel). People were smoking everywhere and we all had "business cards" for Chinese young lady "escorts" stuck under our doors in the evenings. I don't recommend the place at all unless you speak...