Aulicare Collection Hotel Harbin — Hotel in Harbin

So, a family trip to Harbin and for reasons of her own, my wife decided to book two hotels for our two night stay and this was number one.||||Located in the heart of Harbin within a gentle thirty minutes walk of the city's famous shopping street, The Aulicare's first appearance seems to support the four stars that are attache to it's reputation. It is shiny, without appearing gaudy (lacking the gold panelling and paint so often seen in these parts). Check-in was pretty smooth and once we had our room cards it wasa time to check our accomodation out.||||Walk into the room and the entranceway is a little narrow, no deal-breaker though. On my left is a well-appointed wc/shower room. That's nice enough then into... the smallest hotel room I've been in for... 11 years!||||Don't get me wrong, it's not tiny, I mean there's space for our luggage and if I'd brought a benchmark-sized cat I would be able to swing it around... but it's... petite as rooms go. It's nice though, well lit (when you can find what control goes where), tastefully decorated (although the oil-painting of the Great Wall aboive the bed keeps making my eyes slide off it whenever I try to look at it proprely). ||||The bed is just on the comfortable side of firm and there are outlets aplenty, however the room's space issues continue when you lay eyes on the teeny-tiny desk and realise there are no wardrobe (unless you count the wall-mounted units either side of the bed where they keep your dressing gowns and fire-safety equipment).||||So yes, small.||||The shower, oddly, is quite spacious and was one of the nicest I've used for quite some time and the bathroom facilities were decent (my wife was very complimentary about the toothbrushes... odd, but true).||||The fridge in the room which displayed the water available for purchase was looked, so presumably we'd have had to phone down to reception for our over-priced water, but we never reached that level. Annoyingly it meant we couldn't refrigerate our own stuff either.||||Avoidable issue also arose when the toilet in my mother-in-law's room blocked up (no-joke, sorry). The single worst point being when someone decided that 7:30 in the morning was a good time to use a masonry drill in the room upstairs (I know it's not that early, but I'm on holiday, for Pete's sake). The car park is a little on the tight side, and as of writing I'm not sure how long it will take us to get our car out.||||Still, free wifi that was excellent everywhere except the bathroom, comfy but tiny rooms, decent facilities... it's ok, but it is certainly not living up to anythinig...

The hotel boasts a good location, just a short 5 to 10 minute stroll to Sophia Cathedral and Central Street. The MRT station is also just round the corner. On the downside, the aircon in the room seemed to be...

You know when you ask someone 'how was it?' and they reply with 'it was interesting👀'....... That...