Century Hotel — Hotel in Kaohsiung

The Century Hotel is considered a typical Taiwanese hotel in that it's simple, small, and has a comfortable bed, air conditioning, mini fridge, TV with English speaking cable channels, a small closet, desk, wi-fi, great customer service (a few speak English fluently and most can understand the basics). With an affordable (cheap by U.S. standards) nightly rate, this small gem is packed with value. When you first arrive, grab several copies of their business card, as this will help taxi drivers bring you back to your hotel.||||Within a block or two from the hotel, there are several convenience stores for most needs you might have and there is also a lovely community park with a walking path for stretching your legs (see pics).||||On the same street, there is a mini night market (which is also open during the day) (see pics) with plenty of food kiosks and local restaurants offering traditional Taiwanese food fare, which can be interesting, but I found it easy to find foods that were familiar (pot stickers, dumplings, etc...) and within walking distance (less than a mile), you can find well-known chains like Starbucks, 7-Eleven, and Family Mart, and a short taxi ride can find you Costco, Ikea, Carrefour and several shopping malls.||||The hotel is located between two train stops (half a mile in either direction) although I do not recommend using this to go to your hotel from the airport, or you'll be hauling your luggage for half a mile by foot to your hotel door - give or take, but for many other destinations, it's quite convenient by train.||||I found the taxis to be very affordable, fast and convenient. Most destinations in Kaohsiung are quite close, within a 5 to 20 minute taxi ride, and the average cab fare is about $150 taiwanese dollars (about $5 U.S. dollars). None of my taxi rides exceeded $300 taiwanese dollars ($10 U.S. dollars).||||My international phone plan did not work once I arrived in Taiwan, but discovered my phone was unlocked and it was quite easy and affordable to visit a local telecom company and purchase a plan (and sim chip) with 2 GB data, and 150-300 minutes of local calling (used with local friends) all for like $10 US dollars. Simply switch your SIM chip with the local telecom's (save yours in a safe place for when you get back to the U.S.) It works beautifully. Note, you'll eat up your minutes for overseas calls, but with wi-fi and a data plan, a free calling app, like What's App made it easy to stay in touch back home with friends and family who also use the same app.||||Once I had a data plan, I made sure I had a good currency converter, language translator and Google GPS map app to find, communicate and navigate throughout the city with little or no difficulty. During daytime hours and right near the night market near the hotel, I felt completely safe and began to make friends with the locals as I moved about the city. That said, you are a stranger in a strange land, and caution, common sense and your wits are always wise.||||One last suggestion, and possibly do this before you leave the U.S.: Decide what destinations you wish to visit and print out in English (for your reference) and Chinese (including Chinese characters) the names and addresses. This will make it easier for you to simply show your taxi driver where you want to go. Many do not read the western letters/characters and unless you know someone there, you may not be able to find a place to print out this information once you arrive.|||| Note, any monetary currency rates mentioned here (April, 2016) are subject to...

They will call the police on you!!!

First I try to call them to take a reservation but no one was answering the phone. Arriving there the lady seem welcoming however the check-in wasn’t very clear and nothing mentioned about checkout.

It’s a bit overpriced (3k) for the kind of room you getting, lucky they had this promotion for the weekend wish went down to 1k, more reasonable.

For the checkout morning we got a bit late, and lady called us(normal). As I said ” we are almost ready “ and it was no problem. After that she couldn’t stop calling while we were trying to rush for the check out, so I ended up hanging up on her. When going down she asked us $100 for extra hour staying in the room and told us that police was on the way. She put us in a corner( no room for explanations, she just didn’t want to bother), charging extra money without being aware of the hotel rules. That’s racketeering for me. No one told us about this rules. They treat us like criminal without previously explaining clearly, especially just for $100. I’m from service industry and got myself in tricky solution but I understood that police isn’t a solution and will make my work place look bad. This place need to train they staff to put more respect on the customers as a value, not as a problem. It’s not that we refused to pay the extra charge. Police is very unnecessary for this situation.

Over my experience of being treated like a criminal and being shamed, I really won’t...

The good thing about this hotel is that it is located at the city center of Kaohsiung and within walking distance from MRT stations. A very nice and clean place for you to stay, especially for those who like to do backpacking. The hotel staff is friendly and the price is very reasonable as well.||||Around the hotel, there are many local descent dining areas and the environment is quite happening, a very perfect place if you would like to experience the local...