Crowne Plaza Harbin Songbei — Hotel in Harbin

I do not normally write long reviews but because this is a new hotel, it may be useful for not only westerner visitors but the hotel itself.

The hotel is located in the suburb of Sonbei far from the city center but easy to reach by using bus #47 or a taxi. This is actually part of its charm. The area is upper middle class; nearby is a large mall that houses the world's largest indoor ski slope. Additionally the mall's food court must be seen to be believed as it occupies most of the third floor. This location gives a westerner the opportunity to see a different aspect of Chinese culture. For the most part you can observe and will be totally ignored (if you have traveled in China you will know that this is quite rare).

Upon entering the hotel you will be arrive at reception and quickly realize that the hotel is not catering to westerners. One of my biggest complaints is the poor level of English spoken by nearly all of the staff. Personally I would love to speak more Chinese but one expects more of a Crowne Plaza. I actually went to a small hotel near the train station to get directions and their reception staff spoke much better English. You will also seen a sign instructing rewards members to a special desk but I only rarely saw anyone there and it was often a young man from Kazakhstan who spoke very little English. I assume he was to cater to Russian guests but I never saw any Chinese during my three nights.

I was assigned a king room and when I got to the room, I encountered three construction workers just lazing about. I went back to reception and was given a suite (I am a platinum member). The suite was extremely nice and exceeded my expectations.

Concierge services were also an interesting experience. Their english was also limited but they really tried to help. As an example I wanted to purchase a new battery for my cell phone. They actually had a bell boy walk with me for about 20 minutes to inquire at a local shop. Clearly this is not to be expected of most Crowne Plaza hotels. When I tried to obtain money from the lobby ATM it was empty. Concierge explained that it should be refilled by Monday but this was Friday and I really needed cash. I went back to my room and received a call from the GSM (who actually spoke nearly perfect English). She explained that the head of concierge had gone next door to their sister hotel and discovered that they did have cash in their ATM. I came downstairs and concierge escorted me.

Breakfast is another interesting experience. The choices are quite varied and the offerings are both Chinese and Western. However, hygiene is a different matter. They have both cereal and canned fruit in large bowls. However, the spoons are small and often end up in the bowls. No problem as most guests simply put their hands in the food and retrieve the spoons. The solution is simple, either get much larger spoons or purchase some cereal dispensers.

The pool is another experience; it was always empty and the temperature maintained at a chilly 26 degrees C. I prefer much warmer but the hotel believes 26 is optimal. There is no jacuzzi so it will be very cold getting out of the water.

My best experience by far was in the Executive Lounge. Although choices are limited at evening happy hour, the staff tries their best. One evening they brought me a special fruit plate after they realized I was not eating the meat dishes. Christina (her given English name, I do not remember her Chinese name), was an amazing employee. I mentioned to her that I wanted to visit hot springs in the nearby town of Lingdian. I had obtained the name of a hotel but nothing more. She called the hotel, made me reservations at a discounted price but the hotel would not accept a credit card. She quickly resolved the problem by transferring money from her account and I gave her the money in cash. I was a bit surprised but she insisted it was ok. She then contacted the local taxi company in Daqing and arranged for a taxi to meet me at the train station to take me to Lingdian. She then gave me her contact information and said to call her if I had any problems. The next day I traveled to Daqing and my train was late leaving Harbin. When I arrived of course there was no taxi waiting. I reluctantly called Christina who immediately made new arrangements. The fact that she did this was very nice but what makes her very special indeed, is that she did this on her day off!

To sum up my review I highly recommend the hotel for a westerner who is looking for a very different Chinese experience. This hotel would not be suited to someone who wants to experience Central Avenue and downtown Harbin but I much preferred this Crowne Plaza and hope...

Will be a long review as I was very hesitant on staying at this hotel after reading a lot of the earlier comments which were very negative. Even as late as the night before check-in, was considering to give up my deposit and find another hotel in Harbin. Nonetheless, decided to take a chance and stay at least for one night.

When arrived at the hotel, the main door was indeed not working as per reported in earlier reviews (main door was ready on the 24th of Dec). We had to go find a small door at the side and there were no doorman helping us with our luggage. Its a nightmare as we are travelling with a 4 year old daughter and the weather was freezing.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, James (hotel lobby manager) appeared and started helping us take our luggage into the hotel. He must have appeared like superman to my daughter as he was only wearing a light suit (no heavy jackets in -20 degrees weather??) and started carrying all the luggage in by himself. When he found that we were IHG members, he quickly guided us to the 25th floor for a quicker check-in and assured us the luggage will be in our room.

After a quick check-in, we went into our room and it was great. There's no "renovation" smell as reported in earlier reviews and the furnishing is nice. Our luggage were also in the room as promised.

The only issue was that the room was too hot!!!! OMG, even though there's report of the rooms being too warm, never imagine that it could be this hot. Called the operator and they quickly sent someone into the room with a fan and advised us to switch off the air-conditioning as it will provide heat irregardless of whether we set it to "cool" or "heat". They also opened a small window to let some of the cold air in but its simply not enough and the room remained hot. When we saw James the next day, we told James about the heat and he promised to help us. Not sure what he magic he did but the room was indeed cooler the next few days.

The buffet breakfast had a good spread and the quality was also good. Not sure why anyone will want to complain about it?

A hidden gem in the hotel is the Chinese restaurant on the 2nd floor. Was worried initially as its an open area with a few table placed there and it does not seem to be too popular as there's only one more table occupied ..... Along comes Jason and Laura. Both are very friendly and quickly recommended the popular dishes and advises us when they feel we've over-ordered. The food is great and the pricing is even better. There's this toufu soup in a stone bowl which keeps the soup hot and its only priced at RMB9.90!!! Obviously a marketing promotion but the other dishes are also priced very reasonably and a meal for 3 will be around RMB300-400/-. Can't imagine anyone wanting to go out in the cold to get dinner when there's this nice Chinese restaurant in the hotel.

Overall, a wonderful stay at the hotel and the staff are the ones who will make me want to visit again. All of them are very friendly and helpful. Will like to single out James, Jason and Laura for special mention as they are really really wonderful and thoughtful.

The room is indeed too hot and will really really hope the management consider having a few portable air coolers to help guests not comfortable sleeping in hot rooms. However, its still a wonderful hotel and you can see the staff really trying to help and improve. Hope more positive reviews will come in and do justice...

This hotel was one of the biggest disappointments. Check in was slow, rude and incompetent. We got given the wrong room and had to change, the heating in the 2nd room would not work so they apparently sent the engineer up, but they didn't and I had to call again twice and go back down to reception for them to send someone up to tell us what we already knew...The heating was broken. So they moved us rooms again. This room was dirty with the slippers inside the packet containing hair!!! They are supposed to be new. That evening we went for dinner and ordered two dishes, of which only one was brought because they forgot the other and then were complaining the kitchen was closing so they couldn't bring the food out they had forgotten, it was 9:20pm. Breakfast the following day was fine and the staff were very friendly, attentive and helpful. The first evidence of this since we had arrived. We went out for the day and came back to our room not being cleaned despite the please clean our room sign on the door and us having left at 9am. We had to ask them come up when we had returned after a long day at 8pm so we could have a shower etc as the amount of body wash, shampoo given is enough for half a person if they are lucky. I shall stop here as it’s just one thing after another. This hotel staff were willing but incapable and lacking in training. Reception staff are acting bored and evidently lack training or overworked. The new slippers in individual wrapped plastic bags were actually NOT clean or new and had a clump of hair in them. When I reported this to reception for future cleaning suggestions she just said, oh ok I will tell them to change your slippers. Completely bypassing the fact that this should not have happened in the first place.

Then as we were checking out the lady was rude and unwilling to listen to anything I had to say.

I also had emailed teh hotel twice over 1 week in advance to ask if they had a car service from the airport we could book, after no response we ended up booking a driver for the whole duration of the stay.

As we were leaving I went to use the lobby restrooms and noticed the disabled bathroom was being used a storage area with the cleaner sleeping on a box in the corner. Thankfully none us were in need of the disabled facilities available in the hotel but if someone were to need them, they would not be able...