China Great Hall Hotel

I enjoyed my stay at the hotel during the FOCAC 2018 forum , the hotel was up to the event and I liked the variety of restaurants and the band in the lobby , the rooms are pretty much affordable around 1000 RMB (special rate) , I will definitely stay there again soon.

We chose this hotel based off its proximity to Tianamen Square. It is not a four star hotel, more like a two or three star. The staff was great. The room was dingy and small. The bathroom was moldy and very small. I paid for a three person occupancy and still had to pay for a third breakfast. Restaurants and bars do not exist close to the hotel. Walking about a kilometer gets you in to the restaurant area. The beds are typical Chinese style. Very hard and uncomfortable compared to western standards. The condominium rack in the bathroom was a bit disconcerting.

This hotel caters to Chinese tourists and business travellers more than Westerners. This has some pluses and minuses. First the the positives: + You will get big rooms with good beds for much less than a hotel catering to Westerners + The bathrooms are nice, the showers are good. + The location is unbeatable. 100 meters from Tiananmen square is great if you are in Beijing to see the square, the forbidden city etc etc. Then some negatives: - They don't have non-smoking rooms. Our rooms were not too bad but you could smell the old cigarette smoke. - They cannot help you organize trips to the Great Wall (not a big problem, since we found a guy on Tiananmen square who sold us a trip at an OK price) - Breakfast is mostly Chinese food. The only Western food was toast with butter and eggs. So if Western breakfast is important to you, you should probably pay more for a Western hotel.