Zhijiang Hotel Hangzhou — Hotel in Hangzhou City

I stayed in this hotel from 20-27th May 2009 for a meeting and leisure. The check-in seems to take ages eventhough the organisers of the meeting had already asked the hotel management to allocate the rooms in advance. You need to pay the full amount on checking in. Initially I was given a room on the 6th floor. On arrival at the room there was this terrible stench of tobacco smoke. I was assured that the tobacco smell left behind by the previous guest will go away eventually. I asked for a room on a non-smoking floor but was told by the front desk that the hotel does not have a non-smoking floor! I would take nothing for this crap and demanded that I be given a room on the non-smoking floor immediately. Getting the hint that I would not relent the front desk got me one on the 26th floor; I think this is the only non-smoking floor. The chamber maid was very nice and polite and would even change your towels and make up the room twice daily! The room was quite nice but average; the usual bed with attached bathroom of a decent size. There is a fridge and tea making facility. For entertainment there are more than 20 channels to choose from, mainly Chinese stuff. If you want an English speaking channel then switch to CCTV9 for news. There is Cinemax for western movies though movies are not recent. A safe box is available but take note that it is not attached and could be carted off! The lifts are fast but it is very annoying when you have a guest puffing away in the lift. Communication with the hotel staff is a problem. They hardly speak English. I could speak Mandarin and so it was not a problem. Buffet breakfast is a disappointent though plenty of bread and some pastries are available. The menu hardly changes and consists mainly of local Chinese fare. The restaurants are not non-smoking areas and the guests can be extremely rude and elbow their way for foods without bothering to queue up for their turns. They also make all kinds of irritating sounds, slurping at the porridge, clearing their throats, and belching even while carrying their food to the tables. Space could be a constraint. The buffet breakfast starts only at 7.00 am. Those who book local tours will miss their breakfast because the tour agents would normally pick you up at 6.30 am for a day trip. Forget about a dip in the pool for there is no swimming pool. Apart from buffet breakfast I never patronise the restaurants. I prefer the local eateries nearby. West Lake is a must and you can spend the whole day there. Take the 186 bus (Shi Hui Qiao stop) across the road in front of the hotel and stop at the 3rd bus stop. Shopping for silk? Then take the bus K30 and get down (Huang Bei Shang Chang bus stop) at Xinhua Street . Hefang Street (at Wushan cultural square) is a must for the bazaar atmosphere. Take bus Y7, Y8, opposite the hotel. Get off at the bus terminal. When bargaining be prepared to slash to below 50% of the asking price. Usually you can get it for half the asking price; otherwise just walk away. All bus fare cost only 2RMB. Prepare coins before embarking. For light shopping there is Vanguard supermarket nearby about 10-15 min walk from the hotel; but certain things are not cheap. Get out of the hotel, turn right and walk along the pavement till you reach the first traffic light; then turn right again. Vanguard supermarket is just about 150 m ahead but you must cross the street to get to it. When crossing streets be very careful to look out for vehicles from both directions. Motorised bikes which is silent (runs on battery) is a nuisance and they can just whizz past you all of a sudden. The local people still cannot get rid of their indiscriminate spitting habit. So watch out for it when you hear someone clearing his throat. ||Despite all its deficiencies and drawbacks I would still say that the only thing good about this hotel is its central location and cleanliness. Forget about the services though it certainly helps a lot if you...

I stayed at the Zhijiang Hotel in Hangzhou China for 8 days in July 2005, here is what I discovered. Upon checkin you must place your credit card for deposit, Period! The young men and women behind the desks do not speak very good english if at all and are constantly butting in and interupting each others and everyone elses conversations! They are rude but it seems to be exceptable to everyone but the visitor from the west. The checkin took about fifteen minutes. My room was appx. 12x 16 feet with a view of the city below. There were 2 small twin type beds with decent feather pillows on both. The beds were firm to the point of being hard like sleeping on a carpeted floor. The carpet really was grungy so wear the slippers provided for you in the room. Television had ample channels and varity. I found movies and news in several languages including english. The housekeepers leave you alone as long as the do not disturb sign is on. If you send laundry out for same or next day service expect to call to get it back sooner than 3 days. There is a small fridge under the tv and a tea pot for boiling water for Ramen or tea that was filled daily by the housekeepers. Do boil the water! I used it for the whole stay for ramen and never got sick. The water for showers was always hot and traditional facecloths and towels are provided. The bathroom was adequate with western toilet, tub and shower. My room was on the upper floor so the city sounds never disturbed me. The lifts were fast and reliable. The buffet breakfast was somewhat different for my taste but I did manage to find plenty to fill up on, fried eggs, lots of bread choices, rice, noodles, etc,.but mostly Chinese fare. The bar downstaires had good service but often ran low on our favorite beers when there was a group of 3-4-people at a time.|The Western Restaurant on the second floor had excellent food choices and good pizza. The pasta dishes I had were very good. Prices are low compared to US restaurants. If you need cash there is an ATM machine right outside the hotel that excepts most credit and debit cards but not AMEX! Beware if you go to the ATM at night as there are a group of 4-6 men trying very hard to get you to go with them for fun, massage, girls, etc. Take my word for it DO NOT GO! One of the young guys in our group ended up being escorted to several ATM'S to withdraw 3000 Yaun to pay for his 15 minute good time which included watermellon slices, 2 glasses of cheep wine, peanuts, and 5 minute conversation with local girl in seedy hotel room next door to our hotel with 5 burley men watching over them. After 15 minutes my friend was told it was time to pay and the charge was 3000 yuan! He was escorted to ATM's for the demanded payment so be carefull. Taxies are available 24 hours a day with decent service but get where your going written down in Chinese and take a direction card back to the hotel from the tourist rack by the front desk area. The hotel gift shop has cheep beer, water, soda, juice, and candy as well as instant ramen to make in your room and is open till 11 to 12 in the evening. All in all I would recommend this hotel as an ok place to stay. The group I was with payed about $56.00 US per day. Do yourself a favor and go see the WESTLAKE area. It's a 15 yuan cab ride and about 60 yuan for ferry boat tickets. There are lots of places for water and snacks...

I stayed one night at this hotel in May 2012 as part of a convention. I won't comment on their service at that time due to 700 people we had there, it must have been a huge challenge. So I can't blame the 2 hours it took to check-in on them, nor the required full pre-payment. Despite that, this hotel has issues and is absolutely not a 4-star hotel as rated.||||ROOM||I had requested a non-smoking room with a double/queen/king bed, anything but two twin beds... and of course I was given a smoking room with 2 twin beds. They were so full, there was nothing they could do to change the room. Also, it was not clean upon check in and I had to wait while the maids quickly cleaned the room in about 5 minutes... so not very thorough. Besides that, the room was not overly clean and very old, the refrigerator did not work, there was not a safe to store passport or valuables, and the bathroom was not very nice. The beds themselves were also too short for me (I am about 6 feet tall so I was too long for the short beds).||||INTERNET||No WiFi available. There is a LAN cable provided in the room, but you cannot plug it in and go. I called the front desk and they said it costs 30 RMB per day and you need to pay first. I asked them to charge it to my room and give me the password, but that was not allowed. I was required to go down to the front desk myself and pay cash in advance. When I asked them for 1 day, they refused. They required me to fill out a form, pay 100 RMB deposit, and then keep the slip for checkout, at which point I would get 70 RMB back. So that was a pain in itself, but beytond that the internet connectivity was spotty and each time it lost connectivity I had to reboot and re-login in order to use it.||||FOOD||I ate twice at the hotel... once for lunch and once for breakfast. The only lunch they had available was a sub-standard buffet for which they charged 100 RMB ($15) and it was worth about 1/3 that. The Chinese friend I was with was also unsatisified. The breakfast was very Chinese with no western options available. In both instances they only serve hot drinks: tea, coffee, and hot orange drink. No fresh juice or cold soft drinks available.||||In general the whole place was quite smokey - in the lobby, in the rooms, and around the elevator and this was a big negative for me. I definitely do not...