Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort — Hotel in Huzhou

We stayed at this hotel for 2 nights early April 2013. Upon checkin we were upgraded to a 'Premier' room with lakeview - based on my SPG Gold status.

The hotel itself is spectacular, the architecture is stunning and especially at night they have a lightshow on, starting around 6pm and finished at 9.30pm. There isn't much in the immediate surroundings of the hotel, a few Chinese restaurants within walking distance. They clearly have great plans for the area, but it is very much work in progress and they will probably need another 1-2 years to finish it all.

The room was - and unusual for Chinese Sheratons (I've seen a few) - very much 'Chinese' style decorated. I don't mean dragons and stuff :), but lots of "bling" in the room, one of those where many Chinese people will love it but don't expect a Western style Sheraton room. The room had the most unusual lay-out, with a bathtub right in the middle and toilet and shower only separated by a curtain from the bedroom. To get from the toilet to the sink you had to walk around the bathtub to the other side of the room. It felt a bit as if they had thrown. at random, all different parts of the room together. We had a very nice balcony with beautiful views across the lake.

Staff was very friendly and had clearly been trained quite recently. Some staff mentioned they had transferred across from other Sheratons in China. The only area where staff seemed untrained and unorganised was the YUE restaurant (more below).

The breakfast buffet at the Feast was ok - good quality but nothing special. In the evening we tried the YUE restaurant (Cantonese), the food was excellent however prices were absolutely ridiculous. What made it worse that for that price the service was absolutely below the level expected. Staff had no idea how to serve the very few guests in the restaurant - not unusual in China but for those prices you expect 5 star service. The highlight was my order of a glass of wine which she then proceeded to fill up completely to the top of the glass, I think I must have had half a bottle at least :).... As said the food was nice but service needs a massive improvement - it was completely unclear who was in charge in the YUE restaurant. We also tried the Bar downstairs, we had very good and efficient service and the bar food - albeit again overpriced - was nice and the live band created a nice atmosphere.

Around the hotel are major building works, noise is limited to daytime hours only, but the works produce quite a bit of dirt/dust. We could clearly see, both in our room and in the Feast restaurant downstairs that this had a negative impact on the cleanliness of the hotel. Our bathtub had dust all over it.

We had one day of terrible rain and wanted to watch a movie. Unfortunately it turned out the pay-per-view movie system had not been installed yet, so we couldn't see anything. The very friendly Guest Services Manager provided us with an ipad mini to watch movies however without any movies downloaded on it and without any VPN available we couldn't access blocked streaming sites such as Youtube etc.

We had a brief chat with one of the foreign managers at the hotel and he mentioned they were still in the period of 'soft opening'. Given the various improvements needed, the building works still ongoing, service inconsistent across different parts of the hotel and things like in-room entertainment systems not installed this didn't surprise us. What DID surprise us is that they charge full price (I'm not allowed to say here what we paid, but generally rooms tend to go for 3000RMB+ incl tax per night during the soft opening period).

Whilst they are working through their soft opening period to improve things they should charge heavily discounted prices / reduced Starpoints rates. Dining in the YUE restaurant should be discounted until they can provice proper 5 star service. At the moment the hotel isn't worth more than a third of what they charge.

Overall an ok and relaxing stay, but had expected a lot more - right now a stay here is very poor...

Maybe I was just the wrong person for this hotel. I arrived by taxi from the bus terminal, didn’t wear a suit and was unshaved. So the first thing I heard was: “Are you sure you have a reservation at this hotel?”. Later, when I came back from a walk, the guy at the gate even didn’t bother to ask whether I was a guest. He just said: ‘No entry’. And when I felt hungry I wanted to have the afternoon tea at the lobby lounge. It was 4:30, the finger food and the patisserie looked delicious. But I was not allowed to have it. Afternoon tea finishes at 5. As if, within half an hour, I wouldn’t be able to eat quite a bit of food that is already prepared. Nevertheless, I got a very nice and spacious room with two large beds, an equally large bathroom, a separate entrance area and two balconies (though only one could be used, the other one was closed). The numerous light switches were a challenge and it almost drove me crazy to switch off all the lights at bedtime. The building is spectacular, no doubt. Especially in the evening when the light show is on. Truly amazing. Next to the hotel is an area called ‘Fisherman’s wharf’. One or two restaurants are open as well as a few shops, but for the major part, the buildings are empty. So the whole area looks a bit dead. I had dinner at the hotel’s ‘Feast’ restaurant. The food was really tasty and nicely presented, and the service was attentive (a rare thing in China). What made me make a booking at the hotel was, besides the spectacular building, the promise of the hot springs. At least the hotel has ‘hot springs’ in its name. So I was looking forward to a few pleasant hours at the spa. However, I couldn’t find any information about the hot springs. Not in the room, not in the elevator, not at the gym. So at check-out I asked what the ‘hot springs’ in the name stands for. I was told that they have hot springs in an adjacent building. It had opened the previous month and there was even a special opening promotion. What a disappointment. How comes there is not information available in the hotel? The hotel’s website informs that the train station is 11 miles away. What it doesn’t say is that there are no taxis at the hotel. They have to come from the town, which takes at least 20 minutes and you have to pay them for the trip from the town to the hotel. Very strange for a five-star hotel not to have any taxis available. Luckily the concierge was able to organize a formula one taxi driver, so I made it in time to catch my train. I guess the hotel is perfect for domestic guests from Shanghai or so, who want to spend a few days at the lakeside. For western tourists visiting China it is not really...

The lobby is beautiful and so is the entire hotel. Really liked our big tub in our room, automatic curtains, lake view, and rainfall shower. There is an outdoor pool, but it was still cold season so it wasn’t open, but I imagine it would have been great. We used the indoor pool, which was heated and had a nice view of the lake.We ordered room service dinner the first night. The prices were the same as the restaurant and arrived in about 30 minutes. Nice job! The taste was ok, not amazing but for the price I won’t complain too much. The staff was super helpful and friendly. They always tried to give me staff who could speak English even though I didn’t need it. They gave us a tour of our room when we checked in and whenever I called the front desk to ask for anything, they brought it to our room immediately. Absolutely wonderful service The only negative I have is about the food itself at the hotel buffet restaurant (the other restaurants were closed at the time so we only ate at the buffet in the lobby). The buffet dinner is roughly 300rmb per person on a weekday and includes alcohol. The choice of food and quality was honestly not even worth 100rmb in my opinion, but I also hold the hotel at high standards. I’ve never seen an international dinner buffet with no bread before. Though to be fair, the majority of guests were Chinese ayi’s at the time and it was off season, so perhaps they adjusted the food to their taste, not that of a foreigner.Lastly, the hot spring facility was good. It’s actually at the neighboring hotel, but they give you a free golf cart ride there and back. There’s changing rooms. The hot springs are actually indoor with a glass ceiling (that you can’t see through). There are a TON of hot springs, definitely more than usual. I didn’t count but I think I saw more than 15 or 20 different pools. My only complaint, and it’s a big one, is people were smoking in the hot springs and it really...