Being the fancy dude I am, I would never stay at a hotel if it weren’t four or five stars! Well, my dreams came true in China, for our weeklong trip around Gansu Province was full of fancy dinner, hotels, people (me in particular), and visits! Below you will find a personal scale of different aspects and qualities to judge a Chinese hotel by:
1. Can the Hotel spell ’extinguisher’ correctly?
Through out my journey I have learned many different spellings for the word(s) fire extinguisher. Usually the Chinese seem to think that ‘extinguisher’ is actually two or sometimes three words. Example: Fire Extin Guisher. This is an easy mistake to make, but when the simplest words are misspelled such as ‘water’ (often spelled Watel – I doubt any of you would drink cold watel), then that is bad news bears.
2. Ice availability.
Ice is such a luxury good in China. For some reason the Chinese are weird about eating, drinking, or creating anything that is cold (Maybe because they aren’t as ‘cool’ as the US). Something about ice being bad for the body or carrying germs (Who knows why, really?). Ice in the hotel you are staying at has ice then you have really found a good one. Don’t be fooled though, many of the hotels will have ice containers, but it may just be a trick to make you think they have ice. Example: When I sprained my ankle on the trip the doctor recommended that I put ice on my foot. I called the reception desk and asked for ice, to which I was told that they didn’t have ice just cold water.
3. Bedside weather report.
Whenever you visit a city don’t you always want to know what the next day’s weather report is going to be? Well, in China only the god hotels give you a little note card on your bedside table with a detailed weather report. It should include temperature highs and lows, sun forecast, wind speed, and rain chance. The catch to whether your hotel is five star of not is whether you see the attendant slip the note card into your room. If you do, then that is bad, but if it seems to magically appear in your room without you noticing then that is five-star-service.
4. Internet access.
There are four types of hotels when it comes to Internet access and I stayed at all four. One, no Internet, two, Internet that you must pay for, three, Internet access that is free, and four, Internet access and a full on computer in your room! You can probably decide for yourself, which is the five-star hotel!
5. Fifth and final - amenities.
Is there a pool, a bar, gym, spa, massage room, ping pong room and VIP massage room. The catch is to look for what is free cause most of the three star (or below) hotels will charge for all of these things. We thought we had hit the jackpot in JiuQuan City because there was a pool (and then the Foreign Affairs Office convinced then to keep it open late for us), but little did we know that there was a catch. One, we had to wear a swim cap (which meant that we had to buy it from them, 30 yuan), two, you have to pay to swim! Yes, 68 yuan per person for an hour of swimming. Ridiculous!
So there you go, next time you travel to China and are looking for a hotel make sure to check this list to ensure your stay is five star!
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