Holiday Inn Hefei — Hotel in Hefei

Holiday Inn Hefei is a great choice if you come for business or pleasure. Situated in the city centre, just a few minutes distance from the subway and from HuaiHe Lu BuXingJie pedestrian road. The hotel has 26 stories with 3 restaurants - one of the 26th floor (where they serve breakfast) , on coffee place and one restaurant that servers noodles 24/7 where during the night they have a limited menu. ||||The hotel has a spacious gym on the same floor as the the spa.||The spa is separated from the hotel so you need to pay separately. I has a Chinese massage (like shih tzu where you keep your clothes on) and it was very good and professional = highly recommend checking it out when you’re there.||||Breakfast was great - of course, it had a noodles cornet with western food and sushi. ||They server over 5 kinds of COLD juice and warm water, of course.||||The service at the hotel is incredibly kind , friendly and efficient. I never had to wait to get something, whether it was a paper clip for my SIM card, bottle of water and of course check in. Upon my arrival my air-condition didn’t work. I called reception and got someone coming over after 3 minutes. He checked it out and after a few more minutes another guy from the hotel came over and informed me I had to change rooms as it will break again. Despite the inconvenience it was still very quick so I can’t really say they let me wait.||||The shift manger Sunny was amazing - spoke fluent English and helped me to follow up my SIM shipment that was delayed due to bad wether. He was very kind, polite and useful - very impressive and can certainly teach a lot of hotels about high quality service.||||The hotel as itself is outdated, but well maintained so you don’t really feel it during the night, but the windows have to be replaced! The double glazing did not prevent loud noise coming from the main road to be heard in my room on the 17th floor at 06:30 AM in the morning. Not to mention an after flight sleep at noontime on the weekend… More isolation would have been nice.||||Club lounge seemed to have served almost the same food each day that included basic Chinese food, some veggies, seafood, rice. Very basic. Almost no alcohol where you have to pay for the beer. I used it only when I was too tired to go out. In any case the hotel is other alternatives and there is a hotpot restaurant right...

My wife, daughter and I were in Hefei for our second adoption and the Holiday Inn Hefei was the hotel that was recommended through our adoption travel agency. They said it was the only 5 star hotel they recommend and insisted we stay there due to all the fine things it had to offer.||From the initial photos on Trip Advisor we weren’t getting a very good vibe about the place but after being consistently told it has everything we would need relating to the adoption we caved and gave in. Also, the $98 dollar price per night should have told us it was probably too good to be true although in China you never know.||Upon arrival we were greeted with a bell hop and so far it was good. The check in process was fine too as there was nothing too alarming or overly amazing about it. ||Where things fell apart was when we arrived on the 21st floor. First thing my wife and I noticed was it wreaked of smoke and body oder covered with an intense incense smell. We instantly became weary because we had requested a non-smoking room. Maybe they keep smoke enabled rooms on the same floor, who knows, but it was pretty bad. When we got into the room it smelled even worse, so bad that neither of us could even bear to be in the room so we left to look over the amenities.||We first checked out the restaurant which was pretty below average for Chinese hotels. It too had a bad oder which made us then second guess the hotel. We were not impressed. The hostess was nice but we decided to continue to look around as we would be shacked there for over 5 days.||Next, we checked out the pool area. It wasn’t too bad but again well below normal standards of Chinese hotels. Seem very old and outdated and just felt dirty being in the pool area. We went back to the hotel room and tried to bear it one more time but again the smell was overwhelming. ||Long story short we checked out and into a different hotel like two blocks south of the Holiday Inn Hefei. ||Upon checking out, the hotel concierge stated that since we had sat on the beds and moved stuff around in the room we had to pay for that night. We were so tired and just done with the place we said screw it. That’s pretty poor when a hotel is so bad you have to pay the hotel to let you leave :( ||We would NOT recommend the Holiday Inn Hefei. It’s not worth the money and is more like a 3-star...

Having always stayed elsewhere on trips to Hefei, this time I decided to give the Holiday Inn a crack of the whip. There are two in close proximity which can be confusing so best to have the address handy for the taxi. ||First the negatives. I have no idea whether the advertisement for the "airport shuttle" is the hotel's or Ctrip's but it is quite wrong. There is no shuttle, there is an airport bus which will drop you at the north bus station. From there it is a minimum cab fare to the hotel so no great drama there. Inside the hotel, the only gripe is that some of the carpets are worn and should be replaced. ||On the plus side (which far outweighs the above), on arrival a veritable army of concierges surrounded our taxi to take our bags (including up to the room) and it was is we were visiting royalty. The room was clean, spacious and the bed, although not as soft as western beds, was perfectly comfortable. I found the sleep quality good and noise level low. ||I don't think the TV had any western film channels but they did have BBC News, albeit it was grainy.||The only meal we ate was breakfast and I defy anyone to find a better one in Hefei - there was something for everyone, including for Americans, eggy bread and maple syrup. Yes I had some!||Nothing was too much trouble for the staff or the general mageress (Cherry), from lending me a computer mouse to despatching someone to the train station with our IDs to collect our train tickets - and refusing to allow me to pay for the privilege. ||I cannot speak highly enough of this hotel, it is a mystery to me as to why it is not higher on TripAdvisor than it is. It deserves better and on service alone it is world class. I have no hesitation recommending...