Beijing Shihao International Hotel

I go this hotel through RSI, I speak only English, and I went to this hotel for vacation. The location of this hotel was terrible. If you are interested in visiting Beijing, I strongly recommend that you get a hotel closer to the city center. This hotel is very far from all of the sites. Transportation from this location is very difficult. If you do not speak Mandarin Chinese, you will have a lot of difficulties in this area. The hotel in located in Miyun, a very quickly growing suburb of Beijing. The city has very few English speakers and very few of the signs are readable if you do not read Chinese. The staff was friendly, but only one of the staff members spoke even a little English. The room was nice but it was difficult to figure out how to work a lot of the features in the room, especially if you can't read Chinese. Transportation to Beijing is difficult. You have two options: Find a driver and pay him about Y500 to transport you for a day or take bus 980 into Beijing for Y15. The bus commute is long, even if you get the express bus (about two hours), which will end up taking about four hours out of every day your are there, minimum. It once took me about 3 1/2 hours to get a bus to Miyun! The restaurants in the hotel horrible. Overpriced and the food wasn't very good. The Japanese restaurant was the worst Japanese place I've eaten at in my entire life (and I've eaten at a lot of Japanese restaurants!) The sushi and sashimi were frozen! If you choose to get a driver, ask the front desk for help. (It may take a while to communicate it!) They will refer to it as a "taxi", but it will not be a licensed taxi driver. The drivers were actually very nice. They will drive you around the area for about Y500 a day and will wait for you at your destination between stops! A great value if you are willing to spend a little extra money. Arrange to get a phone that will work in China before you get there! The phone I got in China worked fine, if you read Chinese. Keep in mind that China will block many of your favorite apps and websites, like Google maps! If this hotel was located in the heart of Beijing, it would honestly get a very good rating, but the location almost ruined my vacation. Honestly, for Y500 a day, you can get a hotel in Beijing and not worry about three hours of travel time everyday! If I had to do it again, I would have taken this option! It would have saved me time and money, even though I got this room for free!

RCI accommodation - We called to inform the hotel about our late check-in, as we are to reach the hotel the following morning of the supposed arrival. It was a struggle to have the staff understand the late check-in over the phone, as they do not speak and understand English. When we reached the hotel, check-in process was smooth and outstanding. The person in-charge at the front desk just asked for the confirmation slip and we were escorted right away to our unit. The check-out process was a different story. It took a while for the staff to settle the check-out, perhaps because we incurred charges for the breakfast (that we never intended to get in the first place). We patiently waited until they handed us out the balance of what’s remaining in the deposit fee. We asked if they have smaller denomination but they did not bother. The room temperature during nights is very cold coming from the chilly winds of -4C outside. We were provided extra blankets, thanks to the helpful staff on the night shift. We already know from the RCI site that breakfast is not included in the exchange however, during a phone conversation with the only English speaking staff, we were told that it is absolutely free. When we decided to try it out, we were asked to sign a charge slip much to our surprise. We never expected that the hotel is way far from the city and no taxis are willing to take that route – not without a hefty premium. Tour companies are not taking us in their tours because of the location and there were no local tours coming from Miyun to the city. Nothing much that can be done (even the ski resorts nearby have their facilities shutdown because of snow) so we checked-out after staying only three nights of supposedly 7 nights. Amenities are chargeable, gym is well-equipped, bowling is cheap

This is not a review of the rooms in the hotel but of the timeshare units of Beijing Shihao which is at the back of the hotel. Location: 80 kms. to the city center (Forbidden City, Summer Palace & Temple of Heaven). If you're planning to join a seat-in tour group to visit the sites, they won't pick you up from here. Very inconvenient and not a good base for touring the sites. It takes about an hour or two to get to the city. Plus factor about the location: not polluted and chaotic; food is inexpensive (1 whole roast duck for RMB38!; 2 could very well eat for RMB30-40; ask Dony, the bell boy, for directions). The hotel is on a business area but there are many small shops nearby. We walked to the supermarket for food supplies. (Tip: if Beijing is your last stop before going home and you would like to bring home roast duck , you can buy frozen roast duck in the supermarket for RMB38!).There's also a spa a few blocks from the aparment (upon exiting the apartment, turn right and look or ask for Fang Xiang Bai He). We had foot and back massages for 1 hour for RMB50! Since we couldn't join a tour group originating in the city, I thought I would just arrange tours with the hotel once we got there. We were told that ( booked this hotel through RCI) there is a desk at the lobby where tours can be arranged. We were given the wrong info. No formal desk tour. You arrange the tours casually with the Concierge (we didn't see the Head Concierge during our entire stay there; we were only dealing with the Bell Boys - Dony, Mike and another fellow i forgot the name). In fairness, the 3 especially Dony, were wonderful. They booked the driver for us and told the driver where to go. At one time, Dony, even accompanied us to Beijing Zoo and the Mutianyu Great Wall. (The driver couldn't speak/understand english.) We were charged RMB500 for the car and driver per day. I cannot find anything really negative about the room. It was adequate. There's a tiny washing machine which requires a lot of patience from one but does its job. Yes, there's microwave oven and gas stove but no cooking and eating utensils - so no use. The microwave oven, ref, electric kettle will function once housekeeping gives you the extension cords etc. because as the reviewer before me said, the outlets are far from the mentioned appliances. You just have to ask them for everything. The young staff (the ones we interacted with) were extremely friendly and helpful. But the staff manning the front desk/reception were inaccessible. Nobody at the front desk understood and spoke english so I think the word "international" from the hotel's name should be dropped :). Since the hotel is not accessible from the airport, I arranged for a pick-up. Whew, I had to call them 4-5x before we finally understood each other. We didn't try eating at the hotel so cannot comment on the food at the hotel. But we discovered, albeit too late, that the unlimited internet access at the Business office is FREE! :) Overall, despite some problems, we actually enjoyed our stay at Beijing Shihao.