Holiday Inn Express Shanghai Gubei — Hotel in Shanghai

First time in China so a little apprehensive - the hotel was great. Room and bathroom decent size, clean, comfortable beds, quiet, good heating / air con and good shower unit. View not much - a very small courtyard type thing.

Lobby is small. The only place you could sit during the day is the breakfast room but this is kind of closed up after breakfast so your room is only place to chill and a small seating area on each floor at elevators. One English language cgtn Chinese news channel on TV.

Only meal provided was breakfast - slightly odd offerings when you are used to western breakfast buffet - but you quickly kind of get to like noodles, dumplings, wok friend green veg etc for brekkie - also some more western stuff like cereal, toast and coffee reasonable as long as you remember to turn up the strength "dial".

There is a good supermarket next door to hotel for water etc and a few restaurants nearby - the one we went to you could scan using alipay to get an English menu - enough on the menu that westerners can tolerate. It's a nice neighbourhood with a local Chinese vibe and felt safe..

Number 10 metro station is about 10 mins walk and from there about 30 mins / 10 stops to Nanjing road east station gets you within a short walk of the bund etc.

Getting to hotel from Pudong airport - it's about an hour's drive if traffic is ok and 20 pound sterling equivalent..We got maglev train to it's terminus in Shanghai (10 mins, 300 km/h) and then picked up a taxi on road outside station (may need to get directions to taxi stand) 30 mins and 12 quid from there to hotel. Negotiate the fare before leaving (using translation app if necessary) - but we found taxi drivers good. We had called a Didi but it didn't come so we canceled and WeChat / didi refunded fare immediately when we texted

(WeChat has 2 way translate function so you can write in English and translate the message sent back).

On subject of WeChat pay / alipay we had a UK phone number and uk bank account. If you domt have chinese sim.card and / or bank account the payment apps can be hit or miss and frustrating - best to have some cash as backup - there are cash machines in airport - stick to the big banks away from airport eg icbc ) - some smaller bank ATM won't take visa / MC. Hotel takes visa directly thankfully.

Last but not least the staff in the hotel were great - friendly, very willing to help - including answering questions about various things we emailed about before we arrived in china. Most speak some English but will use translating apps to make sure they understand you and are understood.

I would stay...

In Shanghai for medical work, I booked this as a cost efficient option near the hospital and was pleasantly surprised to find the facility to be comfortably outfitted. Renovations appear to be rather recent so furniture and fixtures are in good condition. Best of all, rooms have been soundproofed so even though your window faces a busy four-lane road, you won’t hear any of it. Not a peep. Good internet, plenty of outlets for plugging in laptops or phones, electric toilet seat, plenty of hot water, and comfortable bed. Unfortunately, there is no bathtub, linen looked a bit worn, and breakfast was not what you might call delectable (though sufficient in variety and quantity). From a tourist point of view, what makes this hotel quite interesting is that it’s located in a residential area of west Shanghai that affords a people’s view of the city. There are no tourist facilities nearby. No shopping malls, no western fast-food restaurants, no trendy international cuisine, just the stuff middle-class Shanghai residents might like or need – produce, noodles, dumplings, pastries, seamstress, household goods, appliance repair, and the like. The hotel is located in a building that also houses a supermarket. As the Japanese consulate is nearby, there are a number of Japanese bars and restaurants in the blocks just to the west of the hotel. If you continue walking west, you can find a Buddhist temple and Catholic church. Altogether an interesting pocket of Shanghai and a comfortable, reasonably priced hotel for...

This is a nice hotel in a nice area. It's 9 mins walk from the local station (on the 10 line) and very close to local shops and convenience stores. The staff were very pleasant and although spoke little English, were happy to communicate via app. The hotel is also very convenient for those visiting Chabad (although beware the toilets are electric). ||My room overlooked the road and a very pretty lake - I always ask for a nice view, and this was one. I would say ask for a view on to the road - the other views are unlikely to be anywhere near as nice.||On the negative side, at 4am each morning there began a series of thumping noises from somewhere outside my room which continued until I was forced to get up then continued until I left around 9am. This occurred on both weekend nights I stayed. ||I concluded these were from the floor below. I was in Room 209 and the hotel actually does not own the space below the rooms. I think this is a vegetable market and it sounded like they were working. Thump, thump, thump. I heard it at points during the day as well. I raised this issue with the front desk. ||Also, not that I had very much, I thought the breakfast was quite poor and also poorly displayed. ||Overall I'd recommend the hotel if they could sort...