Blue Sky Hotel — Hotel in Shanghai

We stayed here for eight days (two separate visits) seeing a family member attending Fudan University for a semester. The hotel is NOT close to downtown and the Bund, so don't believe the other review that says it is. But we knew that up front. We chose it because it's relatively close to Fudan and that has worked out fine. And it’s close to the Metro (the awesome and cheap subway).||||Here's what's good: 1) Breakfast is big and varied (coffee is lukewarm, but a minor annoyance). 2) Staff are all very nice. Almost no one speaks English, but there seems to always be one person at the main desk who can…sort of. 3) Room is large enough and acceptably clean. 4) Nice towels, accessories, and shower. Oh, and here’s a tip for the shower (at least the one in our room): if you want the water to come out of the shower instead of the spigot, reach underneath the area where you turn on the water and pull DOWN on the black ring that is there. The housekeeping staff had to show me that one.||||Here’s what’s bad: 1) Air conditioning is woefully set at an uncomfortable temperature. Usually around 27C degrees. That’s about 80-81F. Too darn hot in my opinion. We played with the thermostat as much as we could, but have come to the understanding that at many (most?) hotels in China, the temperature is set centrally by someone else. The thermostat is just for show except to get the fan higher (and I guess you could make it warmer if you wanted). 2) The safe deposit box in your room isn’t attached to anything. Their literature says they provide a safe deposit box for the rooms and they do (and their literature says there’s wifi in the room, but there’s not). But a piece of paper inside the box says it isn’t a safe deposit box and that you should put important things at the front desk. Sigh. Would it be so hard to drill some holes and attach the box to the wardrobe? Sheesh. 3) NO WIFI in your room! You can plug in an Ethernet cord to your computer and log on to their version of the internet, but (and I’m not over-stating this), you get logged off every 10 minutes and have to log back on. Really. You can get WIFI in the lobby and restaurant. 4) The bar is dark, deserted, and kind of foreboding. We almost never saw anyone in there. We never went into it although we would have liked to if it had been more inviting. I don’t know why they don’t have music or some inviting signs. Weird. 5) Virtually no Western channels on TV. No BBC or CNN like we saw in Beijing and Xian. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a movie in English with Chinese subtitles. Maybe a Food Channel.||Did I discuss the air conditioning and other issues with the staff? No, but only because communication is sometimes so difficult. We learned on our two week travel around China that even on the two air flights we took on Chinese carriers (Beijing to Xian and Xian to Shanghai), the temperature was amazingly high – at least by Western standards. We think the Chinese may just be more used to warmer temperatures (and maybe saving some energy).||||Would I recommend this hotel? Well, maybe, but only for the hardy traveler. If you’re a Westerner and expect a place where most everyone speaks English, you probably want a better known chain – Hilton or Hyatt. But Lan Tian worked OK for us. I’m not sure I’d stay here again. If I need to come back to Fudan U, I’ll look for something more...

We stayed for one night during an organised trip round China and then returned a few nights later for our last night in China. The location was OK – it was a few minutes’ walk away from Wujiaochang on Line 10 of the Metro which is only a few of stops down to East Nanjing Road. There were big shopping malls underneath and round the other side of a big roundabout 2 minutes’ away from the hotel, but they were quite expensive. There seemed to be plenty of restaurants in the area on the other side of the roundabout but we never got to use them because we went into the centre of Shanghai in the evening. ||The lobby and reception area is huge and check-in was fairly efficient by Chinese hotel standards. Few staff in the hotel can speak any English but we managed to make ourselves understood when necessary. ||Bedrooms are large and comfortable. The showers were excellent but I was the only one in our group who worked out how to turn them on – you need to divert the water from the bath taps by screwing a knob downwards and then turn a second knob further up round to divert the water from the hand-held shower to the big shower head. There’s a glass partition between the bedroom and bathroom, but if you don’t want to watch your partner’s ablutions, there is a blind. ||As is common with many decent Chinese hotels, toiletries were abundant, and there were also bath robes and slippers, an iron and ironing board and an electric kettle with coffee and tea. There’s an LCD TV with about 50 Chinese stations to choose from, and one English language news channel, CCTV News. Plenty of Chinese/Australian and European type plug sockets. Beds are big and comfortable.||Breakfast was a good selection of international and Chinese dishes with plenty of choices of fruit. It was probably the best breakfast we had in our three weeks in China. We didn’t use the restaurant otherwise. There’s a large bar on the ground floor and it closed fairly early (about 11pm), they don't do cocktails but they did do large pots of Pu-er tea which went down well. Language was a bit of an issue, but not...

We booked the hotel because of its location which is near shopping and dining areas, a metro (Wujiaochang) and Fudan University. We were expecting basic service for a Chinese hotel but we were very impressed with our stay. Communication was a bit difficult with only a few staff speaking English but we expected this and we were able to get along fine. We booked the deluxe suite to be sure we get a better accommodation than the basic but what we got was really a very big suite with a living area, a big room, a modern bathroom with separate bath tub and shower with overhead and hand held showers. There is also a second toilet for guests near the living room. Toiletries were abundant and there are bath robes and slippers to use. There is also an iron and ironing board inside the cabinet, a mini bar and ref and electric kettle with coffee and tea service. The bed is firm but not hard like many Chinese hotels. LCD tvs in the bedroom and living room with many channels but only 1 English news channel (CCTV). Plenty of electrical outlets around the room. Wi-fi is free.||||We stayed for 6 nights and the breakfast was basically the same with two or three selections being changed each day but the number of food choices are just right - not so many like American buffet but more than the basic bread, butter, cheese, ham and egg of European breakfasts. ||||There is a gym but it opens only at 10 am and closes at 10 pm. There is a foot massage service but it is expensive.||||The metro line 10 is just a few steps away (a minute walk) although the metro station underground access is quite big with exits leading to the different malls the biggest of which is Wanda Plaza (exit 2). Line 10 goes directly to the tourist areas of East Nanjing Road, Yuyuan Garden...