Hotel PaPa Whale — Hotel in Taipei

For a 4-star hotel, we expected better. We booked a room for our 8-day stay. This was the most frustrating stay I've had in my entire hotel experience from all my travels (local and international). From poor room condition and amenities to the WORST personnel service we've ever encountered (both hotel and dining).

Room- it was small but fortunately clean and tidy. However walls are thin. We could hear the other rooms' dragging of chair and whatnot. Even conversations from people far away along the hallway. When we are in bed, we can hear clicking sounds which made us a bit skeptical if there were hidden cameras or something or prolly just the pipes making sounds (?)

Buffet breakfast-the WORST! We stayed for 8 days and the SAME menu is presented. At least alternate menu options. Served the same bland and weird breakfast spread.

Cleaning of Rooms- it's a standard for them to clean the rooms each day so we make sure we tidy up and lodge all our stuff back in our luggage as if we've unpacked. To our dismay, not only are the toiletries inconsistently replenished (i.e. coffee, hotel slippers), it's frustrating to see that the toilet roll replenished was almost always already halfway used. It clearly looks like it was taken from another room and replenished to our room. We also noticed one time that the floor towel was just rearranged and not replaced since the towel clearly had shoeprints and smudges. On our 4th day, we noticed that the bedsheets were not even replaced since we saw the same stains upon checking in. I had to leave a note to request for the sheets to be replaced which they eventually complied.

STAFF: Receptionists- should go through customer service workshops! Could not even get a smile or a greeting upon arrival. They all seem irritated or annoyed when approached.

I asked for a favor to have a couple of days from our stay to have our breakfast to go since they serve breakfast starting 7am while our booked tour leaves at 6am.Receptionist said that I only get to choose lunchbox or buffet during our whole stay.I answered back that she can't make me choose when we are only asking for a couple of days during our tours. She seemed annoyed and said she'll check with the restaurant. Then when I followed up that same night re the bfast arrangement from a different receptionist, the same attitude and aura.. condescending and uninterested.. they really do not seem to like assisting. (Lunchbox was a sandwhich consisting of 1 pc ham, floss,1 pc lettuce,tomato,sliced hardboiled egg plus juice box and jelly ace.Same usullal preparation.Expected at least a little variation)

Housekeeping: Although 1 HK was nice enough to converse with us when we asked for extra toiletries. However there was one male attendant who refused to speak and seemed irritated to assist and turned his back on me since he says he doesn't speak English.

Dining personnel: For the waiters/staff in the buffet area, same aura and attitude as those of the receptionists. No smiles, no warmth..upon arrival, they would directly seat you next to another stranger in a long high table just coz you are 1 or 2 pax. As if that's not awkward enough. I asked if we can choose another seat that's not from a high chair, they insisted for 2pax that's where we should be. Then I noticed a couple of young chinese-looking Asian girls seated in a booth near the buffet area. This made me question why they get to choose their seats while us Filipinos (yes there were even Filipino groups tabled in the high chairs) were not allowed to choose from the empty booths. The following days I chose to be seated in the lower tables and although disgruntled, took us to our seat. It's as if we came to eat for free.

We used to stay in Finders Hotel (3-star hotel) in Zhongzheng district last Dec 2023 and we had the BEST experience there. The rooms were small yet SERVICE WAS EXCEPTIONAL! We tried to book a 4-star hotel this time since it's our wedding anniversary and wanted to try a more upscale hotel. Wrong decision, bad service,...

This is my second time staying at Hotel Papa Whale.Normally, I stay at Midtown Richardson, but this time I wanted my friend to try this hotel. Unfortunately, we ended up disappointed with the service.The check-in staff seemed normal, though not very friendly or welcoming. I understand—it might be because we didn’t choose an expensive room, or maybe because we didn’t speak Chinese (we spoke English). Still, during the check-in process, they should have asked, “Did you book directly or through an app?” because the hotel uses a self-check-in system that requires a booking number.If you book through an app, the booking number won’t work with the kiosk, and although the staff clearly knew this, they didn’t bother asking us first.No one provided us with information about the Wi-Fi or other amenities. The only thing emphasized was the check-out time and the penalty fee if we left the room late (check-out is at 11:00 AM).We received two rooms, both similarly decorated. However, one room had a bidet spray while the other did not. We asked a staff member who appeared to be the front office manager whether the two rooms were the same room type, since one lacked that fixture. He looked like he didn’t care and simply asked if he could send a technician to check, of course no sorry word out from his mouth. That wasn’t the point—we already knew the spray was missing. We just wanted to know if the rooms were supposed to be the same type. If not, and we had been mistakenly assigned different categories, we could request a proper room change.In the end, we didn’t allow anyone to check the room because my friend was showering and it was inconvenient. The staff avoided answering the actual question and changed the topic.I had brought a pain relief cream, which went missing after our first night. At first, I didn’t think housekeeping would take it, so I waited until we returned late at night to search the room again—but it was nowhere to be found. I suspect it was taken by housekeeping. As a result, I had no cream to use for the rest of the trip. I had just purchased it before flying to Taiwan for about 300 baht, and it’s not available for purchase in Taiwan. The thief may have thought I wouldn’t notice, but I knew!The towel basket next to the sink was rusty, and the towel ends were fraying and looked unpleasant.The breakfast was bland and tasteless. Worse, it caused both me and my friend to have stomach problems. So we had to be very careful about what we chose to eat each day.I’m not sure how many rooms this hotel has, but the lobby had only around 30 chairs available for seating, which seemed very limited.The public restroom in the lobby was extremely dirty. The edge of the toilet seat had visible fecal stains.During check-out, I accidentally left one of the room keys in the room. The front office manager spoke loudly and bluntly, saying, “You must go back and return both keys to the staff.” In most other hotels, they would have said something more polite, such as “Could you please bring the second key back to us from the room?” But at this hotel, even the manager lacked basic hospitality and communication skills when speaking to guests.If you’re looking for an honest experience-based review, I hope this gives you some useful insight for choosing your accommodation and I still need my pain relief cream back from a thief...

We think this is a good location and worth the price, but once you are in Taipei, there are much better hotels in Ximending at cheaper prices. I think many people got tricked into booking this place.||The loft-style room may seem fun, but you don’t realize how close your head will be to the toilet when you sleep!! That’s probably why they don’t show the room layout on their website. During the stay, you would hear the movement of your neighbors and the noise from the hotel’s piping system.||There are so many rooms packed onto one floor. I’m not sure if other rooms have windows, but ours didn’t. So if you expect to wake up to sunlight or want to check the weather before getting dressed, you can’t — you’ll have to rely on your phone instead.||The hotel Wi-Fi was completely unusable during our stay — at any time, on any day. So not only do you need to bring your own amenities, but you should also prepare to get an unlimited data package if you plan to stay here.||Speaking of amenities, they only provide soap and shampoo. They seem to expect travelers coming from abroad to carry their own cotton pads, lotion, and other basics.||The service from the five receptionists we encountered was honestly the worst part of the entire experience. They weren’t very hospitable or helpful. It took over two hours just to get a small towel. We understand and respect their environmental policy of not changing towels daily, but when we returned from our first day trip, one of our small towels was missing from where we had hung it. We went to the front desk to request a replacement, but instead of helping, the receptionist started an investigation — first questioning me, then the housekeeper. He told me to return to the room because the housekeeper insisted they didn’t take any towel. I was confused and wondered if they had some kind of RFID tracker in the towels or what. I even offered for them to search our bags, but he refused and insisted I just return to the room.||I went to cool off at the bar, which, surprisingly, had much better service, hoping they would discuss it further and solve the problem. When we returned to the room, the small towel was still missing. We called the front desk again, and another receptionist said she checked the system and confirmed no towel had been removed. By then, we realized explaining more was pointless, so we simply restated that we were missing one small towel and needed a replacement. Thankfully, she seemed more reasonable, and a housekeeper finally showed up with a new towel.||Breakfast is served at their restaurant, and it’s a DIY hotpot. It’s a fun idea, but be aware that the restaurant staff don’t speak much English, which could make communication a bit difficult for...