Shatan Hotel Beijing

I stayed in Beijing Shatan Hotel for 5 days 4 nights on March 21-25, 2008. I booked 2 standard rooms, double bed, no window, each only costs me 398 yuan (around USD 61). Overall, we were satisfied with everything. This is a 3 star hotel but the facility is above the average of a 3 star hotel. I chose this hotel based on reviews on this site and I am so happy that my choice was right.

The bed, furnitures, TV, bathroom, all was in good condition, clean, and worked properly. Thank God they had HBO channel. Otherwise, we could not see the TV because all programs were in Chinese and China made their own programs. Unlike in Indonesia, none was adopted from abroad in here (i.e. National Geography, Grey's Anatomy, Oprah Winfrey etc).

I can see why some people complaint about ceiling and the bathroom because the ceiling was too low for them. For a person with heights of 2 metres and above, of course it feels like you are going into a cave. Also, the bath box was too small for Caucasian in average. For Asian like me (my height is 1.65 metres), the space is okay and enough.

I was also afraid because there was a comment about how hard the bed was (One of the reviewer in some internet sites said it was so hard as if you slept on the door) but I found that the bed was okay, nothing wrong, soft enough to have a good sleep. So, no worry about the bed.

The room we chose did not have a window so it is a bit strange for me. It was my first experience of staying in the room without window like that. But, on the other hand, I thought if we had windows, probably we would face a problem with noise coming from the street. So, maybe it is better not to have a window at all.

I agreed with other travellers about the carpet. It had stains here and there. It seems the cleaning service did not clean the carpet although every morning I saw a vacuum cleaner standing outside the rooms but I never heard it run.

I found all staffs has a limited English capability. When we told them about something, they just guessed what we want to say. Sometimes, they guessed wrongly. On the last day we stayed, the electricity was down in our room. So, my husband went down to the lobby to report that. In the lobby, instead of sending someone to fix the problem, the front desk just assumed that my husband wanted to check out. While he talked about the electricity, she kept repeating asking about "You want to check out?" "Do you want to check out?" over and over and she said "Okay, wait a moment" and then she process all the bills, ignoring my husband's intention of telling her about the electricity!
The bellboy could not speak English as well but the bell boy wearing the eyeglass was nice and always had a smile on his face.

The breakfast had many varieties enough for us to choose. As some reviewers said, the service was pretty slow in replenishing the empty plates. But, it did not bother us that much because so far we never in a situation where we were running out of everything. The taste was also great. Not spicy, tasteless, salty or whatever. It was just great.

The location was the greatest thing of this hotel. It was near a traditional market and a minimarket. If we need something, we just walked out from the hotel and bought everything easily. We loved to buy fruits from that market. The strawberries were big, red, sweet, fresh, and juicy. There was also some mangoes that were so tiny I wonder how to peel it off. If you wander along the street especially in the evening, you can feel the local atmosphere, the bustle of people, buyers and sellers made transactions, many things were displayed, and it was a nice experience for foreigners.

If you walked out the hotel and went left, you will find Jingshan Park in front of you. In Jingshan Park, you can climb the stairs to the top of the hill to see the whole Forbidden city. After go through Jingshan Park (paid 2 Yuan per adult and 1 Yuan per child above 2 yrs old), you can go on to Beihai Park (in adjacent to Jingshan Park) where there is a white Pagoda. From the hotel, you can also find Forbidden city easily by walking within 5 minutes. Just went left from the hotel untill you find a big road then turn left. There you go, the Forbidden city, North gate section; is in front of your face. Just cross the road and you can start your journey from there. So, you don't need to hire a tour and travel or taxi to go through this interesting places from the hotel. That would be saving money.

Well, I am sure that we will stay again in Beijing Shatan Hotel if we have a chance to visit Beijing again in the future. It was very value of money.