Guangdong Victory Hotel - Free shuttle bus to Canton Fair Venue

Location and front desk service is good. Room size. Comfortable. Pillow two. The price is a smoking room. Non-smoking rooms are more than 120 yuan. We just booked a 630 non-smoking room.

It's hard not to like and enjoy a hotel like this one; the other reviews explain why really well. But the reason I can't give it a four or five star is first, the breakfast buffet. It's actually pretty limited to what the average person in this city may have for breakfast. From a four star hotel I was expecting a much, much wider range of choices, and not only Western dishes. Being in Guangzhou, there is an emphasis on pork dishes; even the soup is pork rather than beef based. This limits many people, notably those of Islamic faith. To put things in perspective, there are many three-star hotels in Vietnam and Taiwan, for example, who have a much wider range of breakfast offerings than the Victory. The evening menu of the Western restaurant next to the lobby is also extremely limited. The second reason is that the hotel doesn't change money. Don't get caught out like I did on a Saturday morning. The only possibility was the White Swan hotel down the road; but even they refused to help me (as I wasn't their guest) and pointed me to a hard-to-use currency change machine on the next floor up – yikes. To really qualify for a four-star status, a hotel really needs to offer currency exchange services. The rooms are a little on the small size; if they had made the shower room not so ridiculously large, this would have made quite a difference in manoevering around the room comfortably. This may also be helpful: Most of the Guangzhou restaurants listed on Google maps don't even exist any more . Have the hotel call ahead to se if they exist and their exact location. G maps on roaming will give you a wrong location as well.

Always a pleasure to visit historic Shamian Island and the number one choice for stay is always the Victory. A beautiful hotel with charming and helpful staff, and good value too. A pleasant room, a comfortable bed and a satisfying breakfast.