Baijiacun Youth Hotel - Xiamen

First, they took bookings via Ctrip even though they were in the midst of a renovation. We stayed in a half-finished room. It was no so bad but they should have warned about it. Second, the ladies staffing the reception spoke absolutely no English and were quite difficult to communicate with even using broken Chinese and a translator app. Our first night was booked via Ctrip and pre-paid using Ctrip "c-money". They refused to acknowledge it and just demanded a payment in cash without contacting Ctrip. Ctrip ignored our complaint e-mail as well. We were promised a price of 100 Y per night for our second stay a couple of days later, so we stayed there again. To our surprise on check-out they demanded 190 or so yuan per night. This we just refused to pay, showing them a sheet of paper they themselves had written with the agreed price. Finally they had to accept the initially agreed price of 100 yuan but the whole issue left a bad impression. On the upside - good location, very close to a nice park and walking distance to Zhongshan road. Anyway, it would be a better idea to stay somewhere more reliable,

I was excited to stay here from the reviews, but after arriving and staying...never again. We Checked into the queen room and immediately noticed the mold growing all over the walls. The wallpaper was peeling off due to the mold. Gave it a go and thought, we are only sleeping here and its a coastal city. Went to have a cocktail that night. We ordered mojito and margarita (both on menu). 15 minutes after we ordered, the bartender told us he couldn't make a margarita because he didn't have the ingredients. There were only 4 other people in the whole place by the way. Finally we got something that resembled cocktails, but really bad. The next morning we went for breakfast around 8:30am only to be told if we wanted coffee or juice, we would have to wait for the bartender to wake up. He was out late last night. We just decided to go to a local bakery for pastries and coffee instead. The hostel was not busy at all. I was surprised by the lack of service from the bar/kitchen areas. The location is great though. Maybe another room would have been better, but we later found another hostel closer to the beach that was cheaper and much cleaner! Great deal!

This hostel is just 10 minutes walk to the Botanical Gardens and 20 minutes to the ferry port for Gulangyu islet. The bar/dining room has comfy sofas and chairs for relaxing after a hard days sightseeing. Wifi available. I had a single deluxe ensuite room which was big, with a double bed and lots of windows, so plenty of natural light. The decor was quite feminine eg flowery wallpaper with pink bedding, guys be warned! The bed was quite firm but I did sleep well. Toilet paper, shampoo, toothbrushes etc had been placed in the drawer of the dressing table not in the ensuite bathroom which I found a little strange. The staff were friendly and helpful when I checked in at reception but I had been e-mailing the hostel for information about a trip to a tulou and they hadn't given me what I needed despite clear questions and timelines. Only negative - the bathroom was a little smelly but that's a fairly typical problem in China and relates to the drains!