Our check-in experience was extremely disappointing and frustrating.
We arrived after 4pm, and at that time only my friend and I arrived first to check in for 2 of the 3 rooms we had booked. We expected to check in and start enjoying our trip, but the rooms were still not ready.
We ended up spending around 2–3 hours waiting at the hotel for the rooms to be ready. What made it even more frustrating was that after waiting for so long, the rooms we were given were not even the room type we had booked and paid for.
We had booked 3 rooms of the same room type — South Island with a big sofa, which was also the more expensive room type. However, we were initially told that only 2 rooms of this type were available.
The staff later suggested that we upgrade the room so that we could stay together and asked us to pay an additional RMB 50 per night. They try convince us that it will be a better facing of window. However, it seemed that the hotel had actually run out of the room type we booked. Instead of clearly admitting this, they tried to arrange an upgrade with an additional charge.
We insisted that we were willing to wait for the room we had originally booked. Eventually, they offered to upgrade 1 room for free after multiple communication.
When the rooms were finally ready, the rooms we were given did not have the Lshape big sofa we had booked and were located near the lift lobby, where renovation work was ongoing. The renovation noise was extremely loud and disturbing.
We even saw a repeat customer returning to the counter to request a room change because of the renovation noise. This made us wonder why guests were still being assigned rooms in such a noisy area when the hotel was already aware of the problem.
After making a fuss at the counter, the second room was eventually changed to the correct big-sofa room.
However, the third room still could not be changed. We were told to stay in the wrong room for one night and that they could only change it to the correct room type the next day.
As a gesture of goodwill, the hotel offered us some complimentary fruit. Unfortunately, it was just a whole pear and a small amount of grapes, and the fruit wasn't particularly tasty. After spending 2–3 hours waiting and dealing with the room issues, it felt more like a token gesture than a meaningful solution.
The breakfast was also quite disappointing, with a relatively limited selection of food. There wasn't much variety, so we did not feel that the breakfast offered very good value compared with what we expected from the hotel.
The most frustrating part was that we had already paid for the more expensive room type, yet we had to spend 2–3 hours waiting, repeatedly negotiate with the hotel staff, and still did not get what we had booked immediately.
We understand that rooms may sometimes be delayed, but this situation wasted a significant amount of our holiday time. We could have been out sightseeing or enjoying our trip instead of spending several hours at the hotel trying to sort out rooms that we had already paid for.
Overall, the poor room management, delayed check-in, inconsistent communication, attempted extra charge, incorrect room allocation, loud renovation noise, limited breakfast and underwhelming goodwill gesture made the stay quite disappointing. The hotel really needs to improve its room preparation, communication and handling of renovation works, especially when guests have already paid for a specific room type.
