Starway Hotel (Xining Shuijing Lane Wangfujing Branch)

We found the hotel easily. The lobby seems to be shared with another hotel. Check-in was possible even late at night. The reception staff upgraded us into a room with a window which was nice. The room in itself is small but functional. The bed is small but comfy. The TV worked well. There's a laundry room that you can use for free but the dryer mode doesn't work. The amenities are outdated and cleanliness is really not what you would expect. Our toilet seat was broken, the sink was dirty (we removed some stains with just water and toilet paper) and it was leaking. The walls have some very nasty stains on it and there's dust and stains on many things inside the room (bedside tables, fan, wardrobe, bedside lights, etc). One very annoying thing is that when you don't close your door properly, there's a loud alarm that quickly starts ringing. Unfortunately, when it's breakfast time, many people don't care and will leave that to ring until they come back, and it's very annoying. Breakfast is Chinese food only and not that great. Plus it is served in a very small room where there's definitely not enough space for everybody so you might have to wait. On the second day, housekeeping took our bath mat and didn't replace it, so we had to use another towel. On the third day, despite putting the "do not disturb sign" on the door, housekeeping knocked several times until told that we didn't need anything. I mean it's nice of them, but the point of having the sign is not to be disturbed. Depending on when you take your shower, the water can be a bit dodgy (fine at night, but in the morning, it goes from burning to barely hot to burning again which can be annoying). The layout of the bathroom is weird as well as the toilet protrudes in the middle of the bathroom making it complicated to move around, exit the shower or even use the sink (especially since ours was leaking all over). Shower glass doors also don't close properly so lots of water is coming out. Our laundry string was broken so we had to find another way to dry our laundry. I think it's important to note as well that as foreigners, we have been followed to our door by some other guests, and were stared at by others until we entered our room and closed the door which didn't feel safe for my girlfriend. All in all, if you don't care about cleanliness, then it's ok as it's well located.

EXCELLENT