英迪格酒店 — Hotel in Xiamen

Heard much about this hotel which stands on the old site of Foo Sing Hotel that I must taste a revival of nostalgia, even for one night whilst on business.

Pros:

1. Arty hotel with fusion of Chinese and western abstract art (but not a complete revival of the Foo Sing days atmosphere)
2. Located along harbourside of Lujiang Road where one can find nice tea shops
3. Boutique hotel for those wanting a change of flavour
4. Comfortable bed, spacious room and washroom, nice view of Gulangyu if you pay
5. Breakfast at 4th floor Quay Café was cozy with balanced spread. One can get Xiamen satay noodles which you do not get elsewhere in China
6. A particular cheerful and helpful waiter at the 4th floor Quay Café
7. Attentive housekeeper
8. Neither a business nor traditional hotel, which tickles one's curiosity to try to stay at least an night 9# Harbourside jogging tips #track card in wardrobe# and bicycles at entrance caters to the fitness buff 10# Well-equipped washroom and bedroom amenities
9. Electronic toilet system #be careful which button you press !)
10. Walking distance to nearby restaurants, Starbucks, Subway and Breaktalk shops

Cons:

1. Limited English or afraid to use by some of the staff; thus they look unhelpful or rude which may not be the actual case. It is important to draw in and gain more experience in catering to western/international guests or it may end up like one of many "Chinese-style" hotels.
2. This is an IHG hotel but did not have the same offerings for Platinum Ambassador member such as international newspapers. welcome drinks and fruits or room upgrade; need to fix the inconsistencies. The front counter staff did not even know how to use the standard IHG greeting #need more customer service training !)
3. Thin walls - I could hear next door's chatter
4. Some idiot smoked and the odour passed through the common air-con system; the hotel management and staff must remind guests and the guests should be conscientious
5. Weak wifi
6. Away from the main guests areas, the corridor to the carpark is very run down. This is common throughout China. What is not visible is given less priority and shove away.
7. It will be excellent if the ground floor vacant shops can host a convenience store or gelato shop especially for the hot summer.
8. No Xiamen city map at the concierge. You get a couple of entrance security officers and taxi drivers milling around the front. Image is important to sync the impression of an arty hotel !
9. When I arrived, I smelled an overpowering marble floor polish. This throws me off the arty feel and experience.

Overall, the pros out-weighs the cons and you pay a little more for a taste of this 4-star arty hotel to enjoy the novelty. I am not sure if there will be repeat guests if the customer service part or limited use of English is not fixed. Still, I recommend travellers to give this hotel at...

We had a quite bad experience at Xiamen Indigo Hotel.

For family re-union, our big family will travel to Xiamen once a year. We used to stay at Crowne Plaza Paragon. We love it very much, but the hotel has become other brand now. As a big fans of IHG, this time we booked Xiamen Indigo. We have reserved 5 city-view rooms and 1 suite. Being a spire member, one of the city-view rooms has been upgraded to a sea-view room. Below are the problematic issues.

I booked a suite, but it was not a suite at all. It is just a slightly larger room with a sofa. I never stay at a suite like this. I was totally cheated. The price of a suite is around fifty percent higher than a standard room, but the space is just twenty percentage more. Xiamen Indigo should call it "Premier room" instead of a "Suite". I talked to the hotel front desk and the staff told me impolitely that when I reserved the suite, I should go to the hotel website to check the photo. The hotel staff seems blamed me I was doing wrong.

We checked in at 8pm. When my brother entered his room, the housekeeping seems not finished. My brother's room has something very sticky everywhere on the floor and asked front desk to take a look. In the beginning, the front desk insisted that they know the problem and the sticky stuff could not be cleaned. We begged again and again, and they eventually arranged one hotel staff to check my brother's room. The hotel staff checked that it was a cleanable sticky stuff, but didn't know why it appeared everywhere in the room. He said he will arrange housekeeping to clean it. When we went out and came back at 12am, the sticky stuff was still there. My brother finally cleaned it by himself. It is totally unacceptable.

In the second evening, I ordered room service. It almost took one and half a hour! It broke the room service record that I have experienced before. I asked what happened. They said they don't have enough people in the kitchen.

Don't be happy that if your room is upgraded to sea-view. We found that the size of a sea-view room is smaller than a standard city-view room.

In short, Xiamen Indigo is the worst Indigo that I have stayed worldwide. The breakfast quality is also below average. All our family members were very disappointed. We will definitely return to the other brand hotel in Plaza...

I used to stay at the Crowne Plaza, but I thought I'd choose this hotel. I'm so glad I did:

the deco is wonderful the view to Gulangyu is amazing the restaurant for breakfast is unbelievably. In addition to standard hotel breakfast, they have Xiamen specialities that was the highlight of my stay at the hotel the lobby offers free plum juice which was great while waiting for check-in/out or while you wait for your guests staffs are very considerate, and if you couldn't stay for breakfast, they would offer to pack one for you.

You MUST stay at this hotel if you visit Xiamen.

The only issues I encountered were: I was travelling with a non-Chinese speaking companion. The check-in staffs kept speaking to me in Chinese expecting me to translate. The check-in staffs should've spoken directly to my friend in English. I should not be treated like an interpreter for their convenience.

during check-out, the hotel staff made mistakes twice. Firstly, our hotel was pre-paid; but they forgot and gave us an invoice with the room fares. We reminded them that it's pre-paid, and it took them 15 minutes to get the bill sorted; and we were rushing to the airport. Then we paid for the incidentals, and got on a taxi. The hotel staff came out of the hotel and told us that she "forgot" to add a bill for my friend (who bought a beer and smoke); and wanted us to get out of the taxi to pay that bill. I was furious as we were already running late to the airport, and she got the bills wrong twice; and the first time she got it wrong, it took her 15 minutes to fix it. We simply do not have the time. She then had to get a supervisor who agreed to waive it. It is not that my friend didn't want to pay for what he spent, it was just that we did not have another 15...