DDiana AldereiWe recently stayed at this hotel with my husband and had quite a mixed experience – some parts were truly lovely, while others left us a bit disappointed.
First of all, the villa itself was absolutely beautiful and incredibly spacious. The natural hot spring water was one of the highlights of our stay — such a relaxing and unique experience. The surrounding territory is also well-maintained and very peaceful, perfect for disconnecting and enjoying nature.
However, it’s important to note that the location is quite remote — it took us around an hour to get to places where we could eat or enjoy a cup of coffee. This is understandable considering the mountain setting and access to hot springs.
The afternoon tea was decent, and although lunch wasn’t included in our stay, we tried the local mixian noodles and they were absolutely delicious! Must try! Unfortunately, breakfast was disappointing, especially for guests like us who don’t eat pork or pork oil - there were very few options.
A few maintenance and cleanliness issues also affected our stay. The outdoor pool was not super clean, some insects were swimming there. While we really loved the hot spring bathtub in the villa, the facilities could use a bit more upkeep. The toilet setup was quite basic — a minimum upgrade like a bidet spray or shower toilet would make a big difference, especially for international or Muslim guests.
A more distressing part of our stay was that we found dead insects under the blanket in our bed after returning to our room one evening 🥲 I do appreciate the staff’s polite and kind response – they offered tea and explained it may have fallen from the ceiling – but for someone with a strong phobia of insects, this made it difficult to sleep and really affected my comfort. I do believe this is something that should be taken more seriously, especially in a hotel of this level.
Despite these issues, the staff was very polite, cute and extremely helpful & friendly, and I can see the potential for a truly magical experience here with just a few improvements. I really wanted to love everything — and part of me did — but I was also happy to go back home, just to feel more comfortable and relaxed.
PPsymondDespite the convenient location, comfortable beds, and all-important quiet sleep we managed to get, the hotel's communication to arrange our pick up from the train station at night and what turned out to be a self-check-in was just dismal, clearly needing more training to ensure better organisation for future guests. The following constructive advice is to help the hotel improve and for (particularly foreign) guests to note:
1. Ask for guests' phone number and inform the driver well in advance of our arrival, instead of waiting till the very last minute to do so. We reached out to the hotel via WeChat the day before and rightfully received detailed instructions (in Chinese) to find the driver (the pick up service is actually outsourced to a separate company using 3 different vans), but once we found the van, the driver angrily insisted we call the hotel to identify us by confirming our phone number - we were not allowed to board without the hotel's confirmation, which should have been done directly with the driver well in advance of our arrival.
2. This hotel is not manned after hours, let alone 24 hours, so please make it known well beforehand that we will have to check in ourselves if arriving after hours, and provide clear instructions on how to do so instead of communicating them through the phone while guiding us using the security cameras. It is not the guests' responsibility to do your administrative work (to report ourselves to the authorities by scanning the police QR code and filling out our details) at 11 o'clock at night when we have an early morning train to catch the following day. The hotel should allow guests to enter the room as soon as possible upon arrival, not have us wait half an hour while they struggle with what was clearly their first time checking in foreign guests - worse still over the phone - insisting that this be done before we could enter our room.
3. If the hotel truly wants the patronage of foreign guests, they will have to prioritise our convenience and comfort over theirs by actually having someone check us in in-person. Remotely doing so to save costs is as absurd as expecting foreign guests to communicate our details over the phone, sending photos of ourselves, our passport details etc. via WeChat, and then finding our room card and the room by talking to someone over the phone in Chinese. At the very least, these requirements and instructions should be clearly produced and communicated beforehand so that nothing is improvised.
We hope the above experience helps improve what is a decent hotel providing good value for money.