Leofoo Resort Guanshi

Came here for a daytime activity. This hotel has amusement park rides and a mini zoo, so that’s good for families and kids. Food hit and miss. An overnight stay is not cheap, TWD10,000 7/10

It's highly likely that people who book this hotel have children in tow. And that they book for at least two nights. In such a case, Leofoo should get 5 stars, nothing less. What a unique business model. First, create a theme park with lots of thrill rides for older kids but also safer rides for the younger set. Then add a tiny zoo plus a safari train ride, and add in a touch of danger with a ride in cages through man-eating felines. So Taiwanese within a hundred kilometers can bring their families on the weekends. Then, build a theme hotel inside the park where, if you're a guest, you automatically get a free pass to the theme park. But make sure your hotel also has animals - Leofoo is a hotel with three sides and in the center are different wild animals on full display. The stars are the two large white rhinos, but they also have three zebras, two ostriches, two gray-crowned cranes, a dozen each of meerkats and lemurs, and several dozen flamingos, plus three tortoises we never saw. It's a 24-hour show - and most of it viewable from your hotel window! Wow! a boardwalk travels from the central reception-dining area to the two wings of guest rooms - and whatever time of day, play school-age guests walking to or from their rooms just tend to stop for long periods to watch whatever animals are in sight. My two grandkids couldn't get enough. They also couldn't get enough of the African Animal Kingdom section of the park. Aside from that, closer to the hotel, they built an activity center, a kids' recreation center, and a stage for animal shows. How do you top that? It's the kids who will insist they they stay another day! The rooms aren't bad either. I was surprised that there were two shower stalls and two wash basins. Also, there were three beds - two singles and one queen. Again, they anticipate two parents and 2-3 children checking in. There's no space for a sofa but they do have a highball table and four fixed bar stools, and everything is themed in giraffe triangles or zebra stripes or leopard spots. The dining hall isn't exactly classy - tables close together to accommodate the hundreds on the weekends. But the food is very varied - you'd be spoiled for choice, including lots of ice cream and tons of noodle soup options.

PROS 1) Our room was sizeable, clean and offered a close up view of the ducks and capybaras enclosure. The bridge leading to the rooms also offered a great view of the exotic animals (eg. Lemurs, rhinoceros, ostriches, zebras) housed in a sizeable outdoor enclosure in the middle of the hotel. 2) Our room rate included both dinner and breakfast. Dinner was a premium affair with abalone, crabs, beef, scallops and haagen dazs ice cream. Breakfast was a more mundane affair but variety was still good. Do note that you will have to reserve a time slot for both dinner and breakfast during busy periods. 3) Service was helpful and friendly even though the resort seemed really busy. 4) Our room rate included entrance to Leofoo Theme Park (~5-10mins walk from the resort) as well as complimentary access to the kids indoor playground. CONS 1) The room's floor tiles were very cold in winter (even though we had set the aircon/heater temperature to the maximum) and no bedroom slippers were provided, which made it very uncomfortable to walk around the room. 2) We found the pillows way too soft for our liking (there was no option to have them changed as well) and the Euro/Continental pillows were more of a white elephant than anything. 3) We could make out rather loud footstep noises from our surroundings even late into the night. Not too sure if it came from upstairs or god knows where but it was mildly annoying especially when we were trying to sleep. 4) The resort is rather secluded and no delivery is allowed so you have to make do with dining at the hotel restaurants or eateries within the theme park. Overall still a good stay but prices can be a tad pricey (~NTD 13K per night).