Sheraton Zhoushan Hotel

Wasn’t really expecting much from this hotel and hence the disappointment was lower. We arrived after 9 pm after almost 2.5 hrs on the train and car. On arrival , we were told that all restaurants were closed and so is the lounge. However , the associate that checked me in was really good. Rick or Ricky was his name and he offered to send some drinks to my room from the lounge and gave some hints on what to eat. The room though clean was designed like the 80s though the hotel opened in 2016. Very traditional grand Chinese hotel to be honest with a lot of red! My European colleagues were however fascinated. The room I was assigned too has a foul moldy smell and gave me the impression ventilation was really bad , given that it was just one night and being late, I shortly went to bed. The night was disturbed with fire crackers that went off at 4 am in the morning. Breakfast choices however were not bad for a traditional Chinese hotel of such. Overall no outstanding point about this hotel which is only 10 years old was designed at least 40 years dated !

Huge room with great facilities with equally great view overlooking the sea and outlying islands, as well as bridges with beautiful lights at night. I believe we have received a room upgrade to a corner room overlooking the sea by the receptionist who checked us in, Rick. From our room, we could also see Weng Pu Park, which was a lush park with plenty of flowers starting to bloom in spring and beautiful landscape. The park is less than 10-minute walk away from the hotel. Although this is an old hotel, with many parts of it seemingly dated, I would have given it a 5-star rating, because of its facilities and infrastructure. So impressed was I with the hotel's facilities, that I even made a video of it, and soon will be posting it on my YouTube travel channel where I post videos of hotels I have stayed at from all around the world. The reason I end up giving a 3-star rating is because the good infrastructure and facilities are not met by equally good manpower and services. I will explain why below. But before I go through the details of all the negative aspects of this hotel, I would like to give a shoutout to a very special employee who appeared to stand out from amongst all the mediocre employees I interacted with, during my 6-day/5-night stay at the hotel. The outstanding employee who rendered an impeccable service, despite our extremely brief one-time contact, was Rick at the Reception. Rick was the receptionist who checked us in and presumably upgraded our room to a corner room overlooking the sea and the beautiful bridges. Rick was very patient when I asked him a lot of questions about Zhoushan, where to dine, etc. He even added me on WeChat so that I could ask him any question later on. He wrote down on a piece of paper all the places he recommended me, then he sent me the location map on WeChat. He also gave me a set of maps of Zhoushan and the surrounding islands. What I don't like about this hotel are: 1. Guests are allowed to smoke at this hotel! Just like in many other hotels in China, guests are allowed to smoke here. There was a conference going on at the hotel during our stay, and the hallway to our room, lift lobby as well as the elevators, smell of smoke! China would have been much an attractive tourist destination if smoking is banned completely. Don't they know about the danger of first-hand, second-hand and third-hand smoke? Unlike in other countries where smoking is banned and people are generally more health conscious, in China you can see people smoking not only inside hotels and restaurants, but also at train stations and parks! I even spotted a man smoking at Kaihong Square Mall, but no one dared to say anything to him! I guess they are used to it. 2. Restaurant employees are unaware of the current on-going Marriott Bonvoy dining privileges for Greater China. I had to point this out to them. 3. Upon checking-out and scrutinizing my bill, I learned that although I had pointed out to the restaurant employees about the dining discounts and presented my Marriott Bonvoy membership card/app, the discount was not reflected in my final bill. 4. The receptionists handling my check-out showed displeasure when I requested them to print out itemized billing which showed the amounts I spent at the restaurants, to compare against my own records. Initially, I received an invoice which lumped all the 5-6 dining expenses together. Luckily, I kept a record of how much I spent at each restaurant. Although Rick gave me a very good first impression, my check-out experience left a very bad after taste. After settling payment, the 2 receptionists who handled my complaint about the dining discount, just walked away, leaving the invoice they had printed out for me on the reception desk. I found that extremely rude. I had to fold the 2-3 pages of invoice myself. No words were spoken at all by the receptionists after I settled payment. No thank you, no farewell, no please come again, no offer to even fold the invoices and put them in an envelope for me. It's all self-service, in a 5-star hotel. These 2 receptionists (1 male and 1 female) have a lot to learn from Rick! They should be made to shadow Rick and observe how he interacts with guests, before they are allowed to interact with guests themselves. What Rick had painstakingly done, to make a very good first impression, was completely ruined by these 2 receptionists by their awful attitude. All I asked was for them to call the restaurants and changed the amounts billed to me to reflect the discounts I was entitled to according to what Marriott Bonvoy had published on its website. But they showed such displeasure. No wonder when we dined at the Chinese restaurant, we were the only guests dining there. To be frank, the food is overpriced, compared to restaurants at the malls. But I don't mind paying more for the convenience of having meals inside the hotel. They made no effort to inform guests of the on-going Marriott Bonvoy Greater China dining discounts. Why would guests dine at your hotel and pay RMB 100 for a pizza when they could dine at Kaihong Square Mall and pay RMB 50 for a pot of fish and seafood? And when I informed them of this promotion, not only did they not give me the discount but also showed displeasure and gave me such bad attitude when I demanded for the discount upon check-out. For this, I give a 1-star rating. But because of the impeccable service which Rick rendered upon check-in and the great facilities of the hotel which earn 5-star, rating, the average becomes a 3-star rating.

Great hotel with indoor- and outdoor- pools, great gym and large very nice rooms. Unfortunately, the morning- and the dinner- buffet is not very good for westerners and the quality of the food is not so good. Furthermore, many of the "dishes" are not refilled and typical buffet dishes like bread and french frites is not there, or has already been taken. The hotel is located 1400meters from a mall where some western food can be purchased, incliding a pretty good italian restairant, McDonalds and Burger King. If the buffet had been better, it would have been 5 out of 5