H2O HOTEL — Hotel in Kaohsiung

Very nice hotel, seems like the building is only a couple of years old.||A 15 minutes taxi ride from Kaohsiung high speed rail station. Walking distance to the MRT and U bike station.||A 10 minutes walk to Kaohsiung arena connected to Hanshin department store.||The hotel is modern, well designed and very clean. Rooms are very nice. Mattress, duvet, pillows and bedlinen are of great quality. Bathroom with bath, separate shower and toilet. God size TV, free Wifi and Nespresso machine. Mini bar is complementary but only has once coke, one sprite, two tree tops and two bottles of water. I would prefer to have it fully stocked with a bigger variety including beer and wine. The soft drinks could remain complimentary and they could charge for alcoholic beverages. ||The rooftop bar and pool are very nice. However the pool opens from morning till 7 PM and the bar only opens at 7 PM. Doesn't make sense to me that you can not order a drink during the day. I wanted to order a bottle of wine only to be told I had to get it myself in the restaurant on the floor below. ||They offer a welcome drink (after 7 PM). I ordered a gloss of sauvignon blanc and was served a sweet moscato... ||Breakfast is served on the 20th floor lobby restaurant. You can order a main course and there is a semi buffet.||The items on the menu are not exactly what I have in mind for breakfast. Sandwich, steak, ....||The semi buffet only has precooked eggs. It would be nice to have an egg station where you can choose scrambled, sunny side up or omelettes. Seems they is a in house bakery however the bread is horrible. It was not fresh bread. Baguette, croissants, bread, it was all at least one or two days old. ||We stayed 2 days and on both days the bread was old. Orange juice was not fresh but make from some powder and almost tasted chemical.||Staff is friendly and they all do their best however some of them really need more training. I don't know what happened to the staffs uniform... they are wearing these long white jackets that are so wrinkled, it's almost funny.||On the way back we got a complimentary shuttle in a comfortable Toyota SUV. Free bottle of water and a professional driver.||Would I go back to this hotel. Yes but that is only because there are not so many options in Kaohsiung. With the opening of the Marriott hotel early 2021 this hotel will need to make some needed...

Very nice hotel, seems like the building is only a couple of years old.||A 15 minutes taxi ride from Kaohsiung high speed rail station. Walking distance to the MRT and U bike station.||A 10 minutes walk to Kaohsiung arena connected to Hanshin department store.||The hotel is modern, well designed and very clean. Rooms are very nice. Mattress, duvet, pillows and bedlinen are of great quality. Bathroom with bath, separate shower and toilet. God size TV, free Wifi and Nespresso machine. Mini bar is complementary but only has once coke, one sprite, two tree tops and two bottles of water. I would prefer to have it fully stocked with a bigger variety including beer and wine. The soft drinks could remain complimentary and they could charge for alcoholic beverages. ||The rooftop bar and pool are very nice. However the pool opens from morning till 7 PM and the bar only opens at 7 PM. Doesn't make sense to me that you can not order a drink during the day. I wanted to order a bottle of wine only to be told I had to get it myself in the restaurant on the floor below. ||They offer a welcome drink (after 7 PM). I ordered a gloss of sauvignon blanc and was served a sweet moscato... ||Breakfast is served on the 20th floor lobby restaurant. You can order a main course and there is a semi buffet.||The items on the menu are not exactly what I have in mind for breakfast. Sandwich, steak, ....||The semi buffet only has precooked eggs. It would be nice to have an egg station where you can choose scrambled, sunny side up or omelettes. Seems they is a in house bakery however the bread is horrible. It was not fresh bread. Baguette, croissants, bread, it was all at least one or two days old. ||We stayed 2 days and on both days the bread was old. Orange juice was not fresh but make from some powder and almost tasted chemical.||Staff is friendly and they all do their best however some of them really need more training. I don't know what happened to the staffs uniform... they are wearing these long white jackets that are so wrinkled, it's almost funny.||On the way back we got a complimentary shuttle in a comfortable Toyota SUV. Free bottle of water and a professional driver.||Would I go back to this hotel. Yes but that is only because there are not so many options in Kaohsiung. With the opening of the Marriott hotel early 2021 this hotel will need to make some needed...

This hotel is conveniently located on the metro. And if you're like me, unable to get a taxi at the airport, the metro is probably the quickest mode of transport to get to the hotel.

So, let's start off with the pros. The room is a good size, and the single beds are big too. You can actually sleep 2 people on it. There is a decent sized bath as well as a shower and one of those smart toilets (although this seem to have mind of its own). All the drinks and snacks are complimentary and are replenished each day. There is a kettle and a coffee machine with loads of bottled water. The hotel is called H2O after all.

On the roof, there is a swimming pool. We find that no one uses it during the day and we had this to ourselves. It's a good place to just relax and sunbathe.

Perhaps, the best thing about this hotel is the breakfast. As well as the breakfast buffet with all the usual stuff, you can specifically order steak, congee (with a single abalone), fish burger, laksa noodles, vegetable noddles as well as eggs and omelettes. You can also have cakes and ice-cream if you so fancy at breakfast.

The staff are generally polite and professional, as you'd expect from a 5 star hotel.

However, there are also some cons to this hotel. As pointed out from other reviews, it seems the room has not been properly cleaned for a long time. You can see stains on the floor which needed to be mopped. There are marks on the wall in the shower etc. It just generally feel quite dirty.

On the first night, I noticed a stale smell from the pillows. I requested these to be changed on the next day. But the fresh ones also had a smell. So, it could have been the duvet or the sheets. Or they just haven't washed the linen and pillow covers.

Likewise, similar to another review, my skin was itchy and irritated after the first night. I resorted to wearing the bathrobe to sleep. This feels much better.

If they can improve on their cleanliness and hygiene, this hotel would be one of the best...