The Overseas Chinese Building Hotel — Hotel in Shenzhen

I owe most of my travel mistakes to lack of adequate research, specifically via the marvelous new service called internet. Thus, when I had thought escorting my 84-year old mother on an overseas odyssey was going to be only mildly challenging, my s-i-l raised her eyebrows and questioned my common sense. And right she was; don't get me wrong, I love my mother and this is an excellent way for me to honor her and I am certainly the best person to undertake such a task--I have enormous experience travelling, domestic and overeseas. It was relatively easy--until formally entering China proper. You see, Hong Kong is a special administrative region (01JUL2014, a full suffrage demonstration was held; the similar demand for democracy on Tianamen Square held some two decades ago was throttled) and one must go through a rather exhaustive customs/immigration/inspection/formal border crossing with passports/visas into Shenzhen if you want to go further into China by land. In my case, we were taking train 586 to Chengdu (that is another great/terrible story I'll post in the forum) for which I had tickets waiting. As always when in an unfuamiliar place, I do a dry run. I couldn't believe how difficult it was for us to cross; it reminded me of when I and my two children were crossing from Mongolia into Russia on the Trans-Mongolian. Anyway, I soon realized the time required meant eliminating a third overnight in Hong Kong and staying in Shenzhen instead, close to the train station. The closest hotel was this fine establishment. ||It was an phenomenal difficulty to book a room here--my Catonese (you use Mandarin in the North) is seriously limited--and virtually no English was spoken by any staff. But the motions are all pretty much the same anywhere around the World in most hotels. Despite the friendliness of the staff, it took me, literally, hours to not only book the room (#817), but then to try to reverse that because I didn't want the room immediately, only for the the following night. It was extremely frustrating, but I did finally make headway. When we returned the next day, they were ready.||Much to my mother's pleasure, this room had a Western style toilet in the bathroom with ample hot & cold water. Both beds were the way I like them: rock hard. You'll appreciate that if you've ever been on a spongy/soft mattress (like the one I have at home, which I hate and frequently spend my nights on the floor) because your back will hurt. Anyway, there was an odor in the room, perhaps that of aerasol treated smoke, which was kind of given away by the fag burns on carpet & furniture. ||Since my mother has limited mobility--uses a cane and wheelchair at times--the lift was more than appreciated. In fact, the presence of an elevator is often the sole determining factor in my choice of overnight location.||I won't argue with the other reviews, but his hotel turned out to be a tripsaver for us. Had we not been able to stay here and kept my original plan of entering from Hong Kong the morning of our Train 568 departure from Shezhen Railway station West, we would have missed not only the train, but would have put a servious cramp into further planned travel inside China as well as having lost significant amounts of money already put toward ticket purchases, overnight stays, etc. I am thankful this hotel was available and we were able to get in. Thank you, Overseas...

Firstly this hotel does not give you details how to get there. I asked everywhere and finally got an answer. It was 10pm at night and al the escalators had been turned off so here I was trying to drag my suitcase up 2 fights of a turned off escalator then down two flights to the hotel. At the desk no one spoke English, the hotel shops were shut and no bottled water was available or food for that matter. ||I don't know how of the hotel was but however old it was no one had ever vacuumed or cleaned the carpet or anything else since its opening. ||The bed was like a mortuary slab but after travelling for 14 hours I had to sleep but my back felt like I would never walk again the following morning. Absolutely the worst ||bed ever. Also the mould in the bathroom triggered my asthma as it had never seen mould removal either.||What bothers me is that I booked this hotel on the Qantas site thinking that if it was on there it was OK. It gave three stars - well are you kidding me? If anything it should have been minus 3 stars.||My tag key would not open my room so I gave it to the housemaid to get another one for me when she opened my door but I did not receive one so when I checked out there was a great problem that I didn't have the key - they were not going to refund my 200 yuan which they had taken off my credit card ( NB I had refused to leave a cash deposit because you are at the border and if you are going to Hong Kong you are stuck with 200 yuan you don't want) No one could speak English and a Mexican standoff ensued because the desk person was copying down all my cc information into a book - I grabbed my card and the information and got out of that Hotel quick smart. Now, for what it is worth, the hotel is next to the huge shopping centre which people go to Shenzhen for and within it and around it there would be at least 1 Million people who speak English, I know this because I have been there about 8 times so I don't believe for one moment my Hotel could not find anyone to speak English - because the man who ran a shop in the hotel spoke English to me. It is a disgusting hotel with equally disgusting people working there. Stay a ong way away...

I stay at this hotel only one night on march 2012, by the photo from web, the rooms looks very modern, clean and tidy. But the time that we are arrived, I saw the room like a nitemare. The Carpet was so..so..hundreds years I even wouldn't dare to took off my slippers, I have to sleep with my socks on and all over my body I affraid to touch the sheet. It was many stains on it and I found a human hair (well, I didn't want to think further from which part of their body). The colour was not white it was crême and thin. The bathroom also dirty and the closet was stained, I had to applied my liquid sanitizer before I sat down. They dont provides any bath or shower gel and shampoo, for instead I found some oils product which wrote to increase the power of man, condoms, and all the things that they put in the bathroom which look like the hotel was provides things for One nite stand couples. It didn't matter for us, thou. But please do clean up the residue of guests before new guest coming or else, just change the sheet. I dont think they have much sheet to change every day for every room. And the towel so awful I even could bare to touch it. ||Above all, the staff were lack of English so we have to talk like a Tarzan to them, and still didn't help. Also they have no manner and shout out to talk each other also to talk to guests, they don't want to bother walk few steps to come in front of us to talk, they talked to us from the cross of the reception table. ||It was a disaster to spent one nite there, but if u want to stay for something else that no one cares about your need during your stay there, then this one a good...