Mercure Chengdu North

I was quite surprised when I arrived at the hotel. The building and the surrounding looks abandoned and creepy. Indeed it was abandoned except the hotel. How can it be categorised as 4 star or 5 star hotel? The main door is faulty, there's no bellboy. The mini-mart at the back is not direct access, you have to walk from outside to the back in the dark alley. The reception has no idea about the operation hour of the mini-mart. There was one night we already walked to the mini-mart and saw that it was chained but lights still on. We walked back to the hotel and double confirmed of its operation time. The reception said it's opened and lead us again to the mini-mart using her key card through the hotel. She didn't even assist to check whether it's open or not for us and shut the door behind us. Indeed the mini-mart isn't open and we had to walk one round from the outside back to the hotel which was really frustrated! What kind of service is this? It is also a weird practice that they don't close the room doors that has already been cleaned. They were left opened with lights off, so was our room when we checked in. The only good here is that it's near to Kuan Zhai Alley that's all. But there are so many other options also with this rate, it's not cheap. Breakfast was also bad.

After 21 days in China, I booked this one largely because it said it had laundry facilities (self-service) available and also has a small fitness center next to the laundry. Had several staff (3-4) at front counter, but took about 10 minutes to check in. Rate was $108 a night without breakfast included. The room was nice, bed mattress was not too firm. Had a coffee machine and small fridge with 3-5 drinks that are free and that they refill every day. The nearest metro looked like it was The First Tunnel, but it appeared closed. Other than that, the one in Tianfu Square is the closest and is an easy 10 minute walk to the hotel. There is a McDonalds and Starbucks located diagonal to the hotel, and a good restaurant next to the hotel. It's about a 10 minute walk to Tianfu Square, Sichuan Museum, and Sichuan Science & Technology Museum (a big statue of Mao is in front), and about 15-20 minutes to The People's park. There is also Chunxi Pedestrian Road nearby with lots of shopping.

This Hotel was included on a China Tour. We didn't get much time to have a good look around the area, but the hotel itself was clean and the breakfast was good. Some of the hallways smelt of cigarette smoke which was not good for the asthmatics on tour, but this was mild compared to others on tour.