City Hotel Xi'An

City Hotel Xi'An is in a great location. It's a five minute walk from the Bell Tower, and a 10 minute walk from the Muslim Quarter/Great Mosque and the Drum Tower. There are plenty of restaurants nearby, and a Starbucks for those caffeine addicted people. The hotel does have two restaurants (didn't go to either though), and a beauty salon (didn't visit it either). There is a complitmentary breakfast, but for those not up to standard Chinese breakfasts, the pickin's are a little slim. I am one of those, and I managed to eat well. The room came with TV (all stations in Chinese though) and a fridge, though the fridge didn't work if the keycard wasn't in the wall slot, so when I wasn't in the room, the fridge didn't work.

The problem we (my friends and I) had with the hotel was the service. We paid cash up front upon check-in, and we found out that one of our rooms had been canceled (and we found out later it was the hotel's fault). Then they kept calling us to say that we needed to pay for one thing or another.

Since we were taking the night train back to Beijing, we had most of the day to spend in the city, and we thought it would be best to keep the room for the half day. Well, upon checkout, they claimed that we never made arrangements for the halfday (we did, that's how we know the cost), and tried charging us for an extra day. It got to be a big fight since they were trying to cheat us out of about 300 yuan. We ended up getting our money, but we had to endure a lot of frustration too.

There is a tour service out of the hotel, and we did take two of their tours. Both had their good and bad points, but these are also group tours as well.