White Swan Hotel — Hotel in Guangzhou City

I am a person who suffers from hotel selection syndrome, so I have to evaluate it carefully and objectively! I wrote this review while sleeping in bed at two or three in the morning before I checked out of the hotel. I will post it later after I review it. There are good experiences and there are very bad ones. As the first five-star hotel in China, it has hosted many national leaders. It is said that the morning tea ceiling is here, so I came here because of its reputation. The geographical location is excellent, within walking distance to Shamian, Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street and Yongqingfang. The deluxe river view room is large in size and has a beautiful river view during the day. There is almost no night view at night and the lighting is very bleak. The service attitudes of the front desk and security are very good (except Hongtu Mansion, which will be discussed in detail later). Switching from an elegant hotel with almost perfect experience, once you enter the lobby, it is indeed overcrowded because non-resident guests can enter. This is understandable. After all, there are several major gourmet restaurants inside, and the public area inside the hotel is very beautiful. Let’s talk about the two well-known signature restaurants [Hongtufu] and [Yutang Chunnuan] in detail: [Hongtufu] morning tea is open from 8:00 to 14:30. I arrived at 13:30 and was still in line for table 21 because I was staying at the hotel. Guests were seated in two minutes. The large hall was indeed full. I ordered shrimp dumplings, chicken feet, swan cakes, Shaqima, Tingzai porridge, and palace Pu'er tea. In terms of taste, Shaqima was worthy of its reputation; shrimp dumplings and There is no difference between the ones at Guangzhou Restaurant; the Tingzi porridge is just average; the swan cake is almost a must because it looks good and tastes good; the chicken feet basically meet expectations; the palace Pu'er tea is delicious. In terms of service: Very average, especially the tea makers. They help the guests make the soup and then pour the tea into the male cups, and then the guests pour the tea into the small cups themselves. Every time they add tea, I say thank you, but they don’t. Upon hearing any response, you can feel their numb expressions wearing masks. I have to pay 15% of the consumption as service fee (requirement), that’s it? At 20:15, I wasn’t hungry at all, so I went to check in at [Yutang Chunnuan]. The environment was good, there was a pretty pond inside, koi were fed and surrounded by flowers and plants. I only ordered braised squab and white braised goose palm wings. The squab was delicious, and the goose wings were good at first. The more you ate, the more it tasted like pickled pepper and chicken feet, and it was a bit salty. The overall attitude of the waiters is better than that of Hongtufu. There is a guzheng player with decent skills. The hotel is located within the flight coverage area, and the aircraft noise is obvious before 12 pm. At 3 am, the sound of gray aircraft piercing the night sky was actually heard. In addition, I live on the 16th floor. Before 12 o'clock in the evening, I could hear noisy chatter coming from the guest rooms or public areas below. The guests on the upper floor of my room were unwilling to take off their high heels even after 12 o'clock. He seems to be taking a walk in the room, and I don’t know if he ate too much. Let me talk about my worst experience, the sleeping experience: due to work reasons, I changed my flight to a very early flight and returned early. I usually go to bed late, so I went to bed at 0:10. At 2:10, I woke up from a nightmare and finally woke up. Come here, let’s analyze the possibilities in several aspects. First, before booking the hotel, we noticed that the bed was placed in an unusual direction. It was placed facing the river, that is, facing the window. This is equivalent to having your feet facing the window when sleeping. In short, if you are taboo about this, don’t book a room with river view. Secondly, it is possible that you may not be able to sleep well if you eat too much before going to bed. Third, the air conditioner may be old and therefore noisy. Fourth, the temperature is difficult to control, the bedding seems not very breathable, my head and hands are exposed and I feel cold, my body is stuffy and sweaty in the quilt, and the pillow is uncomfortable. So I only slept for two hours and I didn't dare to sleep after I was woken up by a nightmare. Hey, I had a good night's sleep at Yazhi last night, and I slept for 7.5 hours. After writing so much in confusion, every sentence is true and I hope it can be of reference value. I also hope that White Swan can make the good aspects better and better, and improve the relatively inadequate ones. I wish the hotel can become more and...

I will only write down two issues I encountered during my stay due to word constraint, but problems are not limited to these.The first issue is that the hotel was well informed about my room preferences but just disregarded them. I told my travel agency to notify the hotel of five points of room preference of mine one day before my arrival. Shockingly, when I checked in, I was told that the hotel was only aware of two out of the five points. I was mad not because I could not get the room I preferred but because I thought my travel agency did not do its job to forward my message to the hotel. I immediately contacted my travel agency about that once I arrived at my room. After a very efficient investigation by my travel agency, they told me that they were 100% sure they had already notified all my five points to White Swan. They were so sure because they recorded down every conversation they had with any hotel. Only then did I realize I was blaming the wrong person: it was not my travel agency not doing its job; it was someone in White Swan whom my travel agency communicated to omitted over half of my preferences by not entering them into the system! This is exasperating: why did he/she do that? I can only think of two explanations. Firstly, he/she just forgot to enter my preferences. This is unacceptable as it means he/she could not fulfill his/her duty even if what he/she was asked to do was just to type a few simple lines into the computer. If it is the case, given that the staff at White Swan failed to do even such a simple job, there is no reason for any guest to believe we can rely on the hotel on anything. The second possible explanation is that he/she personally thought more than half of my preferences were silly. Hence, he/she made the decision to ignore them. This is even more problematic. It implies that White Swan would only do what it thought essential and would ignore all other things even if they were important for the guests. This is arrogant and rude. If it is the case, then it means the White Swan philosophy is more like a military school one than a hotel one: do what I think is good for you, instead of what you think is good for you! I do not believe that one can enjoy a comfortable stay in such a hotel.However, this is not the end of the story. Once my travel agency identified the problem, they immediately contacted the hotel about that. They did it in such a hurry because I told them that I had a meeting in the afternoon and had not even had my lunch yet (at 3 PM!). Nearly three hours had passed but, still, the hotel never got back to my travel agency, despite my travel agency continuously contacting the hotel. Given that the hotel was so disrespectful to guests' time, it is no surprise that no one called me throughout these three good hours to take care of me or just ask me what had happened. Finally, at around 6 PM, my travel agency told me that the hotel was willing to give me another room that matched my room preferences. Interestingly, my travel agency was also very excited, perhaps even they found this waiting journey unreasonably long. However, another very shocking thing happened: no one from the hotel called me to offer the slightest apology, be it for irritatingly omitting my room preferences or for wasting my entire afternoon. Very rude, isn't it?! What was even ruder was that my travel agency told me, "I am really sorry, but the hotel asked you to go down with your luggage to hand them back the old key and pick up the new key." Seriously, White Swan Hotel?! You made such a mistake and wasted my entire afternoon, and then you asked me to go down to pick up your late-coming solution?! I am sorry, but I was, and still am, unconvinced that the hotel was sincerely apologizing, despite how problematic and carking the...

▪️Love [White Swan Hotel], I will choose to stay here without hesitation when I come to Guangzhou. There are many five-star hotels in Guangzhou, but there are chain stores in other cities. White Swan is unique and the only one in the country.▪️China's first five-star hotel has an extremely advantageous location. It is located in the famous Shamian Scenic Area in the old city, facing the Pearl River and facing Baie Lake. The Liufu Pavilion Restaurant on the first floor and the Hongtu Mansion on the second floor both have river views. Traveling here is also very convenient. You can walk to Yongqingfang in more than 10 minutes, and you can walk to Renmin Bridge, Guangdong Customs and Xidi Pier in 7 or 8 minutes. Just outside is Shamian Island, which is full of small Western-style buildings.▪️From the moment I checked in, I experienced the concept of White Swan putting guests first and service first. The people who received me were the front desk supervisor Xiao Rong and Zhou Qiting. They were really enthusiastic and patiently answered all kinds of questions. I also made every request in the future. Solve it for me, like it!▪️The hotel recommends newly renovated room types. Last time I stayed in Deluxe City View Twin Room No. 2019. This time I asked the front desk to arrange a high-rise room for me. I stayed in Deluxe City View King Room No. 1924. The room area is 60 It is flat and has the same layout. Two huge lighting windows provide bright lighting in the room. The hardware facilities are complete. The double sink design is easy to use. The bedding is also made of high yarn, so you can have a comfortable sleep when you are tired from playing.▪️The hotel has two doors. The east door is the main entrance. It is located on the second floor and is also where the hotel lobby is. There is an exclusive road leading up from the People's Bridge. The north door opens on the sand surface side. There is a sign at the door. The "White Swan" where many people come here to check in and take photos, and there is also the famous Saqima store [Gourmet House] at the north gate.▪️An exclusive advantage of staying at the White Swan is that you can book the popular two-story Michelin-starred [Hongtu Mansion] and the third-floor Black Pearl [Yujiang Chunnuan] in advance, saving you the trouble of queuing up to get a reservation, even if you want to go there at last minute When dining, you can also go to the front desk of the restaurant to get your guest number and be seated first.▪️In short, staying at White Swan is a five-star experience. I am very satisfied. I will still choose this hotel next time I come...