Shengtai International Hotel

Comentarios destacados

• yatsing

  22 junio 2015
  Looks good on the outside but poor on the details

  The hotel looks world class on the exterior appearance. It has the decor and facilities of many international hotels, yet fail in many small areas. Dislike: 1) Mosquitoes - not too sure where they come from, but they seem to exist throughout the hotel. On 1 night, i was bitten so badly that i couldn't sleep, and had to request to change rooms. 2) Air conditioning - the controller is a sham. You can only adjust the fan speed and turn it on / off. The temperature thermostat is fake. You can set your air conditioning to 5 degrees celcius, yet it is centrally controlled by the hotel. Room temperature will not change no matter what you set it to. Best thing? The hotel would switch it off in the middle of the night, leaving you all warm and sweaty with the fan that's still blowing. 3) Customer service - extremely poor. Remember the mosquito incident that required me to change rooms? I called the front desk and the guy claimed that the hotel is fully booked. B.S. i say. How would i know? Because the hotel has an indication on every room, if it is occupied, it would like up, allowing you to ring the door bell. If it is empty, the indicator would not be lighted. After i was bitten till 2am, i walked down to the lobby, found the security guard and the front desk guy sleeping. I awoke them both to request for a change of room. Sheepishly, the front desk guy changed my room for me. 4) Hot water shower - it was almost non-existent in the 2nd room i changed to. Again, the front desk recommended me to let the water run in order to clear the cold water in the pipes in order to let the hot water come through. When i said i've already let it run 5 - 10 mins, the front desk asked me to continue to let the water run. Ran for another 10 mins, it was still the same. Only lukewarm water. I asked how long do i need to let it run, 20 - 30 mins? The staff could tell me it was like that and yes, let it run for 30 mins or more! Ridiculous! :O 5) Details - clearly, the hotel lacked paying attention to details. In the 3 rooms that i stayed (yes, i had to change rooms twice), i had encountered lights that weren't working, missing desk lamp, mini bar not sufficiently cold, air conditioning not cold enough, shower had a sewage smell when turned on, hole in the wall, cabinet fixture fell out, tv showed an expiry message throughout on 1 night (indicating their subscription was due), etc. 6) Sound-proofing - on one of the nights, my colleague and i were standing outside his room and we could hear love making sounds from his neighbours. That's just by standing along the corridors. Need we say more? Overall, i wouldn't recommend this hotel to anyone looking for a peaceful rest. There needs to be a lot more done and details to be fine tuned before this hotel is worthy of anyone considering to stay here.

  

• w0rldtraveler0710

  22 diciembre 2015
  Typical Chinese 5-Star Hotel

  This hotel just celebrated their 4-year anniversary this year (2015). This hotel looks like it is about 20+ years old, however On the outside and from a distance, the hotel looks great. Upon entering the hotel, you will notice a very grand and elaborate lobby. If you've ever been to Chinese hotels (or, non-Western brand hotels) before, this is not uncommon. If you pay attention to the details, the hotel is much less appealing. This hotel has a lot of problems, and I find it difficult to think of many pluses. I stayed here for several months, so I am quite familiar with all the hotel has to offer. Let's start with the advantages: 1.)The location of the hotel is quite remote relative for China. It's nice to be away from all the congestion and people of a Chinese town/city, so the location of the hotel is somewhat peaceful and relaxing. However, inside the hotel is not peaceful AT ALL. The hotel guests were mostly rude, obnoxious, and completely unaware of their ridiculous behaviour. 2.)There is an indoor hot springs water park which was free for me during my stay. I am not sure if this water park is free for all hotel guests, however. 3.)While I do not golf, the golf course looked acceptable. But, I couldnt get anywhere near the greens without paying for rounds. And disadvantages: 1.)Internet speed! When the hotel is about 25% full, the internet speed slows dramatically. When about 50% full, dont even bother relying on consistent internet speed -- it pretty much stops working. Needless to say, the internet was overloaded during the golden week in October (from 1-7 October). The internet speed in the lobby is marginally better, but still poor. I regularly connect to a VPN located outside of China (for, eh hem, obvious reasons) and the download speed was typically < 100 KB/sec and sometimes close to 1 KB/sec!!! 2.)Fitness center, if you want to call it that. There is one bike, one treadmill, one elliptical machine, one bench, and dumbbells varying in weight from 5 lb to 50 lb. Considering the condition of the rest of the hotel, I was surprised there was even a gym. The gym is located on the first floor and tucked away near the massage roomsalmost like its hidden for some reason. Some complaints: it smells moldy, looks like the gym is never cleaned, and I felt like I was in a cage at a zoo for all the other guests to look at. 3.)Service cleaning ladies (wanted me to pay for a washcloth that they couldnt clean), front desk staff, restaurant staff, water park staff. They dont deserve to call themselves an international hotel when the staff cannot speak any languages besides Mandarin. THIS IS NOT AN INTERNATIONAL HOTEL. This hotel is catered for the locals, not for people from other countries. Also, I dont appreciate being told that I cannot change rooms because the hotel is full when actually it definitely was not. (You can tell if people are staying in a room because an indicator appears in the hallway when the keycard is inserted into the slot which allows power to be supplied to the room.). Also, the cleaning ladies often forget to change towels, change the garbage, provide water bottles, etc. They dont really seem to be following any sort of checklist, just whatever they think needs to be cleaned. 4.)Breakfast. Its pretty much a standard Western style breakfast from a Chinese hotel. The food is almost always the same every day. In addition to the Chinese food, the Western food consists of the following: fried eggs, bread (with a Chinese toaster), salad, banana bread (most days), coffee, milk (served hot), some random domestic dry cereals which were always stale, French fries, fried chicken fingers, hard boiled eggs (sometimes tea eggs are served instead), and yogurt. The breakfast is generally not horrible, but it gets boring after a few months. Oh, and the coffee is terriblethe coffee pot sits on the boiler and just boils and boils for hoursI tried to add as much milk as possible to dilute the burned taste. Eventually, they stopped putting out coffee (since no one was drinking it) and made a pot especially for the foreignersit was also bad. That one tasted like they added powdered chocolate to instant coffee. 5.)Hot springs water park. While it was interesting to find a hotel with such a relatively large indoor water park attached, it was generally packed with other guests and very dirty and smelly (sometimes even smelled like a toilet) during the summer. During October, they stopped cleaning the outdoor pool and it became a putrid dark green color; and yet, they still allowed some guests to swim in the pool. It was finally drained and cleaned in mid-October. Furthermore, the indoor section frequently smelled like mold and a toilet. I went to the waterpark three times, and the third time of the horrible smells was my last visit. 6.)Cleanliness carpet stains; water spots on ceilings; cracked walls; transmitted a foot bacterial and fungal infection (from either walking around their room barefoot or from using the hot springs water park) and went to Beijing for immediate treatment; towels sometimes smell like smoke; etc. I found a lizard under my chair that looked like it had been there for several months and eaten by bugsthat would explain the increased amount of bugs in my room 7.)Non-smoking section is basically one hallway on the third floor near rooms 3001 to 3030. All other areas have smoking rooms. However, Ive seen and smelled other guests people smoking in the non-smoking section so I suppose this is a moot point. The other guests smoke wherever they want and the hotel managers do not enforce their own rules. 8.)Air conditioning and heating. Ive encountered air conditioning and heating systems similar to this before in China. The Chinese have a habit of controlling the minimum cooling temperature or maximum heating temperature at the central unit for the entire hotel. For example, the minimum cooling temperature is set at 25ºC by management and therefore each hotel room cannot cool lower than 25ºC. Also, the Chinese like to turn off the heating and cooling systems and random periods during the year, especially during the fall and spring when the ambient air temperature is fluctuating between cold and hot. I suspect this is another way for the hotel management to save money. If you complain enough, they will just suggest that you change rooms; but, that doesnt solve anything. During the summer, they offered to change to a room on the north side of the hotel with less sun exposure instead of turning on the air conditioningworthless. It didnt bother me until I started losing sleep because it was too hot. I understand the need to save the environment. If the managers would have simply told me that was what they were trying to do, I wouldnt have cared. But instead, they just lied about it. 9.)Bathroom hot/cold water is temperamental, the shower door and windows constantly leak, and the hot water is sometimes turned off. Literally. When the hot water is off, nothing but air comes out of the faucet. The water pressure was generally low, especially in the bathtub shower. 10.)Sound-proofing. You can easily hear guests in the adjacent rooms (having sex, playing cards, drinking and smoking, etc.). Sometimes, the other guests would leave their doors open and yell to each other from different rooms. I felt that I was back in a college dormitory When I complained to the hotel management, they did nothing but apologize and offer to change rooms. That solves nothing. 11.)Charging for everything! The hotel required that I pay for several items which were of miniscule value compared to the amount of money that I spent at the hotel over the course of almost 1 year For example: a.Do Not Disturb sign broke and the manager charged 80 RMB to replace it b.A hand towel became too dirty and manager tried charging to replace it. Seriously? A person can easily buy a hand towel for less than 10 RMB in Huanghua. 12.)General bad condition. Minibar fridge was not cold; cracks in the walls; random lights were burned out; the shower broke on several occasions; the shower doors did not close all the way leaving a pool of water in the bathroom after showering; there were sometimes panels missing from inside the closet walls which exposed wiring; in one room, all of the rooms lights randomly turned on in the middle of the night and would not turn off; heated mirror got too hot; the local circuit breaker in the room (hidden in the closet) frequently tripped just from using the water kettle; cabinet drawers did not stay closed and were falling apart; many stains and cigarette burns on the carpeting and furniture (even in non-smoking rooms); there were two foreign channels [France 24 (in English) and Russia ORT] which randomly stopped working my guess is they either stopped paying their bills or got caught pirating the channels The hotel management knew about most of these problems but usually didnt fix them. During the first several months of my stay, I stayed in about a half dozen rooms (including smoking and non-smoking rooms). They all had a lot of the same issues, but some problems were unique. Im a pretty tolerable and humble person. I could have tolerated everything except for the internet speed. It was atrocious. In a more and more digital and connected world, it was sad that this international hotel failed to have good internet speed. I felt like it was the 90s with dial-up internet all over again If you use Chinese websites, the speed seemed satisfactory. Good luck trying to get on websites outside of China. The only solution the hotel managers had suggested was to try to find a different room with faster internet. I spent a few hours checking about 5-6 rooms and found that the speed was virtually the same everywhereif you pay for a VPN hosted outside of China, the speed moderately increases, but is still slow. The closest city with any sort of infrastructure and basic amenities is Huanghua, which is a 10- to 15-minute taxi ride. The hotel is pretty much located on converted farmland which has been slated for development. It seems like a significant amount of money has been pumped into the local economy to spur growth and develop local businesses. The hotel appears to have been built to accommodate this growth. However, there is nothing around this hotel for many, many kilometers On a side note, I dont understand the hotel rating system. The only way they can justify their rating system is if it is city-by-city; i.e., if all the hotels in one city are compared to each other. For example, the 5-star hotels in Beijing are NOT the same as this 5-star hotel in Huanghua. Or, if this hotels rating scale was out of 10, then 5 stars is suitable. This hotel has cornered the market for 5-star Chinese hotels in the area. There is nothing better for many, many kilometers and the hotel management knows it -- they are apathetic about making any significant changes. I had spoken to several managers about all of the issues listed above and they simply acknowledge the problem and give you a blank stare with no solutions. Advice: Stay near the center of the hotel where there seems to be better internet speed. Also, the rooms on floors 5 and 6 are quieter and with less guests. This hotel is terrible. Dont be fooled by their 5-star rating. You have been warned.

  

• LudekH

  12 marzo 2018
  Zhongjie industrial zone

  The hotel is located in the area of the Zhongjie Development Area in Cangzhou. I chose it for visiting the China-Czech Friendship Farm. The rooms are big and comfortable with pleasant staff. The breakafst is rich and with choice of traditional and European food. Very pleasant stay!