Huangjia Grand

It was clean, elegant hotel with very good breakfast buffet and helpful staff. We asked for non-smoking room and we received it. Our room was on 15th floor - non-smoking floor. We paid 198RMB for double standard room with breakfast, which is a very good price. I highly reccommend you to buy a trip do DAZU grottes (the trip starts at about 7:30 in the morning and ends at about 5-6 p.m). It was amazing! We buyed this trip at Chongqing airport for 280 RMB per person. If you need to go by taxi (zoo, cikou old town, chiaotianmen port)ask the reception to write you down in Chinese the name of your destination and show it to taxi driver - it is very helpful.

The Huangjia Grand Hotel is located in a side-street of one of the major commercial roads about two kilometers away from the docks in Chongqing. Apart from us there were only Chinese guests in the hotel, which is no wonder, as probably only few western tourists stay overnight in Chongqing. As a consequence, the breakfast buffet was almost entirely Chinese style with dozens of warm Chinese dishes (among them no less than four different kinds of congee) and almost no western dishes. The restaurant also offers a good Chinese buffet dinner (RMB 68 per person including beer and other beverages). The hotel has a big, impressive lobby and seems to be a step up from the Chongking Guesthouse which we had originally booked but which was closed when we arrived. Our room was large and clean. In the bathroom there was a collection of accessories which, in addition to the usual shampoo, soap, etc. consisted of a number of seemingly adult-oriented things, such as condoms, strange "only for men" and "only for women" creams, pills(!), and other unidentifiable stuff. These weren't free of charge, though, so we didn't try any :-) The employees at the reception tried hard to answer our (simple) questions in English, although their English language skills were insufficient. But the very friendly hotel manager spoke English quite well. He was really helpful and came to our rescue when we wanted to have late lunch but found out that the hotel restaurant had just closed. He personally took us to a small Chinese hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the opposite side of the street and even ordered a couple of Chinese dishes for us (which we hadn't been able to do on our own without difficulties, as there was no English menu and nobody spoke any English).

Our room at this hotel looked clean and presentable. The only problem was it reeked of cigarette odors and although the staff was very nice, they said that was the only room available and sprayed our room with air freshener, which helped only a little. The location was not in the centralized business district and it looked a little seedy outside, but it only took 5 rmb to take a taxi to go the river dock or the business district. You can also walk to the business district by walking approx. 20 minutes. The best part of this hotel was the courteous and helpful staff. They greeted us everytime we walked in and out the door, helped carry our plates from the buffet to our table, and the doorman even ran to the main street to call a taxi for us when we left. One of the staff was exceptionally helpful after she saw us looking at a map and spent much time on her break telling us and writing in detail the places to go and how to get there The room rate was also very reasonable, only 390 rmb and included breakfast, which was good and above average. If it weren't for the strong cigar odors in our room, we would be very pleased staying in this hotel.