University Business

This is by far the most convenient place to stay if you have business with the University, and even the nearby Aloft hotel (which is very comfortable) is annoyingly distant from the University offices and getting a taxi on the island is hard. So there is very strong incentive for people like me who work with the University to stay here. I stayed here for the first time about 18 months ago and it was awful. Dirty, old, uncomfortable, and with an extremely inefficient staff (it took us literally hours to check in). However, the entire place has been remodeled (I was unable to stay there on my last visit because of the construction, but the managment very kindly allowed me to see a couple of completed rooms. The hotel is completely transformed, and my colleagues who have stayed in the new rooms since the renovation report that not only the facilities, but also the staff, have undergone a transformation for the good. I'll be staying there again in a couple of months and am looking forward to it much more than on my previous trips.

This hotel is both good and bad. Good: * Clean room * Very cheap (~260Y) * Parts of the hotel where aparently recently remade, so you get brand-new TVs, bathroom, beds, etc. * The staff is very friendly and does speak English Bad: * There is no swimming pool, contrary to what Opodo, Booking.com et al. state * No breakfast * The room I had (4119), had no window, but only a small terrace behind a corner, which means the room gets no sunshine, even in the middle of the day * The shops around it are largely closed * The taxi was not able to find the hotel, and drove back and forth several times asking local people (students), who did not know either. In the end, I managed to see it >>myself<< by looking out the window. Had I not called this out, we'd probably still be driving around

I’ve stayed here twice in the past year (October 2012, April 2013) for the Canton Trade Fair with last month’s visit being my final one. The list of negatives for this 18-year old property far outweigh its positives. To its credit, it is located in the leafy midst of this immense university and runs a shuttle bus to/from the Guangzhou fair each morning and evening. Interested readers might now note that this hotel’s positive attributes end now. For both visits, I arrived late at night (11PM) and was shown to a cluster of rooms overlooking a courtyard of outdoor tables for students. You will NOT sleep until the students leave this courtyard so avoid these rooms. For both visits, the first room I was ‘offered’ had multiple cigarette butt burns in the carpet or bedding. One cannot expect high hotel service standards in China but at US$100/night, I insisted on a room less reminiscent of an ashtray. For both visits, the rooms’ wallpaper was partially or completely peeling off from the wall. There appears to be little or no effort in refurbishing 18-year old rooms. For both visits, if you needed simple things like linen changed or restaurant options, the front desk staff speaks only the two major Chinese dialects. They are indifferent to helping customers and clearly are not hired for any customer service benefit to guests. For both visits, the hotel provides NO RESTAURANT FACILITIES at all for breakfast but gives you a meal voucher for an adjoining KFC’s breakfast fast food. For both visits, there are only student type restaurants or shops within walking distance of the hotel. The deal breaker of deal breakers for me (and other guests on the daily hotel bus to the Canton Fair) was the utter lack of public transportation options. NO TAXIs park near or frequent this hotel and obviously the hotel doesn’t contract with a company to provide this. The hotel is 6-8km from the nearest subway stop and good luck finding a taxi later in any evening to take you from the subway stop back to the hotel. This hotel has lots of opportunity to shine but is poorly and indifferently managed. It has all of the negatives of a government run and managed hotel.