Wenjin Hotel Beijing

Typically a university hotel, often used for university guests, in Haidian. The compound and facade look offputting, but inside it's quite good, especially the rooms. There is lots of space, and while a classic Second World look prevails, the only deficit my colleagues had - not me - is that during the transition times between summer and winter (or vv), the aircon is switched off, yet rooms get suffocatingly hot from the sun and quite cold at night. Breakfast is above average, especially the fresh stuffed pancakes. No swimming pool, unfortunately. Location is very good for the purpose, right next to the Tsinghua science park which has a lot of cafes and restaurants. Didi finds the place easily, both for pickup and dropoff. Leaving luggage after checkout (which is anyway only at noon) was not a problem and well-managed. In sum, if you stay here and read this, you're likely a non-Chinese university guest, and in this case, it is only advisable to check which side of the hotel your room is on if you're here during the transition period.

I stayed here for two months and it was the worst experience I have ever encountered in all my years of travel. I had to pay extra for the room wifi, but was given my neighbors password to use, the TV only had one channel working and the room was extremely dusty. And to make matters worse, it has been over 8 weeks since I checked out and they still haven't returned my security deposit. I have been in contact with the local police and the Beijing hospitality complaints hotline with no success. After doing some research online it turns out this hotel is infamous for stealing the security deposits of foreigners in hopes they give up fighting for it once they return back to their own country. I am now in the process of commencing legal action. I strongly recommend you don't stay here..

You're undoubtedly staying at this hotel because you're visiting the universities and its absolutely ideally located for that. It is a bit tatty around the edges in the rooms, but all things you might end up finding in a European chain hotel as well. The corner Executive rooms are huge - I was upgraded to one of these because they couldn't immediately accommodate me with an early check in. The a/c was still on in September and it just about coped, room maybe ~23C. The staff had quite enough English for me to check in / out, order some food and drink, find the gym, what more are people after? The gym is small, 3 treadmills, one bike, some weights, and you get to it via a mystery tour through various conference rooms and the spa. Beware the slight freaky attendant who closely supervises you getting changed... All a bit comical,.