Beijing Ningxia Hotel

100 yards off the main road, we found it ok, walked 1km from Beinxingqiao subway which is where the Capital Airport Express stops. Vibrant local area with lots of cafes and restaurants. Hotel looks grand and swish, I think it's been refurbished recently. We were allowed to check in at 9am for which we were incredibly grateful after a long flight, thank you! Only a few words of English spoken at reception but online translation helped on both sides. Mainly used by business people when we were there, breakfast was ok if you get down there early, no concessions to Western palates but 8.30 onwards felt a bit sparse, things were running out. The bed was rock solid and creaky. All in all, it felt a bit impersonal in the hotel itself but clean and efficient, and a great location. Our suite had a view over the hutong with local life going on on the street outside. 15 mins walk from Nanluoguxiang, and 10 mins from Andingmen subway.

This hotel is located in the old hutong area, which is a very residential district and its tough as no one communicates in english. There are alot of restaurants nearby the hotel and also a few muslims restaurants. Supermarket is near to get the amenities. Location: it is 10mins walk to line 2 andingmen station, 15mins walk to Lama temple station and 20mins walk to shinchaichai station, which is bearable to get to everywhere considering the places we wanted to go are located in the central. Its quite a distance from airport, and traffic is terrible there, it took us 2 hours to get from airport to hotel. The hotel is old and furnishings can do with a little more polishing or upgrade. The bathroom is not clean properly as you can see some dirt in the bathtub. Heater in the room is not adjustable although there is a thermostat, water heater is by far my favourite in the room. Room can do with a little more lights as it can get quite dark during sundown. We packed our luggages with our phone torchlight on. The hotel staff are generally friendly, but communication in english is tough, with a translation app it will do you good. I feel that this hotel is very catered to locals as there are a few signs or information given in english. Overall we had a pleasant stay but if we were to return to Beijing, we will not pick this hotel and neither would we recommend the hotel to friends or family visiting, considering the location. Note that there is deposit payment required even though you have made full payment via any website. Our deposit was 200yuan. Deposit prices may be different.

I stayed one night on a business trip because it was close to my meeting. The room was quite big but smelled of stale smoke. The bed was very hard. The breakfast -- especially the coffee -- was disappointing. The Hutong is certainly interesting. The narrow streets defeated our taxi driver's GPS and we ended up walking a fair way through it to find the hotel.