Holiday Garden Hotel - Beijing

I've stayed here several times - and likely will again - because I have a client with an office nearby. Given the traffic in Beijing, anything to avoid driving is a great big plus. But I doubt if I would stay here as a tourist. First, the location is great for my purposes but it would be terribly out of the way for most tourist activities - although it has very easy access to the Tian'anmen Square area via the metro line 1. But the surroundings are very convenient with a ton of good restaurants, from noodle shops to a pizza place and top end restaurants, along Jintai liu (which becomes Dawang liu when goes south) just a block west of the hotel and good jian bing stalls both a block or so east of the hotel and above the Dawang liu metro stop - next to the pastry stall.There's lots of small shops with fruit and everything else you might need right along the street and a department store south along Jiantai liu. The metro stop is about a 15 minute walk away. It is on Line 1 and the change to Line 10 is the next stop. The hotel is actually on a small street or alley off of Chaoyang liu just west of the Fourth Ring Road. So it is fairly quiet. The facility itself is rather nice -- the lobby decorations are amusingly over the top. You'll notice the picture of the entry way, which seems to have a medallion of a Roman emperor. Well, once you are inside you'll see the Egyptian motif decorations of a large sphinx, an Egyptian god, etc. All a bit much and always good for a chuckle. I've stayed in both the standard queen and the standard twin rooms. They are just what you would expect in an average 4 star hotel. Adequate in size. The beds are China hard but comfy. Nothing to complain about. There is a fridge in the room but be careful about using anything in it except for the simple bottle of water because the (well hidden) price list is quite high. Although they are uniformly nice folks, I've never found anyone at the front desk with any English skills. The one time when I really did need assistance that went beyond my sketchy Mandarin they got the manager, whose English was better than my Mandarin and between the two we solved the problem. The morning breakfast is plain and hopelessly overpriced. They offer a steam table selection of buns, noodles, tea eggs, corn-on-the-cob or yams, watermelon, congee and pickled veggies to mix into your congee, If you want tea you need to bring it down from your room. Skip it and go get a jian bing. The biggest problem is the housekeeping staff. They are just downright lazy. They do throw the bed covers up, pick up used towels and keep it generally clean, but that is about it. I'm annoyed enough by them that I have to be very conscious about smiling and being nice to them. That is what ends up moving down my overall rating for the hotel. The restaurant that is attached to the hotel does not belong to the hotel so you can't but a meal on your hotel room tab. The restaurant is just your average hotel Chinese restaurant, useful for a meal when you don't want or it is too late to go wandering the street. Wide menu selection but kon't expect great quality, just "good enough". Oh, and look for the funny bit of Chinglish sign at the front desk.

I was in room 509 in mid October 2011, the hotel is clean but there is a night club with dancing room at first floor. This implies a very loud music up to 01.30 AM, in room 509 it was very difficult to get asleep with such a loud music. If you are in Beijing for business and need to wake up at 06 AM this is not very pleasant. Internet in the room was very slow, no WiFi but Ethernet cable. I