Royal City Hotel Guiyang

The hotel was clean and the bed was reasonably firm (as opposed to the normal brick hard bed found in many Chinese hotels). The bathroom was clean and roomy. The hotel looked upscale for the price RMB 428 ($50 US). To my surprise however, I was charged by the hour ( around $5 per) for the use of the lovely swimming pool and gym, a fact I was not aware of until I tried to leave. However, the charge was dropped without argument upon checkout. The massage service was unprofessional and a rip off. I do not recommend it. Overall, the hotel was acceptable and the breakfast was good. The restaurant was also nice and had an English menu that was translated reasonably well. There were several staff members who spoke reasonable English. My one huge complaint is not exclusive to this hotel. China smokes. The nonsmoking room on the nonsmoking 22nd floor had the stench of stale smoke in every fiber. They moved me to another room which was much better and to their credit they did it quickly. However, during the night I was hot so I turned off the a/c heat. Without the positive pressure in the room, smoke from somewhere nearby was drawn into my room and I woke up gasping at 3 am. They quickly came to my room and opened my locked window, but the street noise was too much. I lined the door with a wet towel and turned the heat back on and the air quality improved. Most of these hotels don't have individual heat and air. They have a building chiller unit that provides only one temperature of heat in the winter and a/c in the summer and your choice is high, medium , low and off even if there appears to be a thermostat. The management did their best to be responsive and was better than many places I have been. For your information, in many of these "smaller" cities, the hotel does not operate the restaurant, recreation center or massage services. That is why there may be hidden charges. They are leased to independent operators and may not be up to the standard of the star rating for the hotel. You should also drop a star when there is a Chinese star rating. This hotel was rated 5 star on their system but a fair 4 star by Western standards. Shopping was accessible by walking a few blocks to an outside market street. However, if you are limited on time and don't want the hassle (or the joy) of price negotiations, then a quick taxi ride to to a huge shop with an excellent selection of local handmade art, clothing and gifts is in order. You don't have to speak the language and everything is priced as marked and very reasonable at Qian Cui Hang. Over the last three years I have negotiated prices in China street markets for hours and achieved only slightly less than their marked prices in most cases. The hotel should be able to direct you and the website might have the address on it...www.qch.net.cn I cannot read the address on my package or I would list it. I was very pleased. Also, for your information, a 2 hour photo-op bus ride to Kaili City (about 65 RMB) will put you close to the heart of Miao minority culture. The Minority Cultural Handicrafts and Arts building is a place where the mountain townspeople come to sell antiques and crafts on the weekends. Some of the handiwork is stunning, but most speak no English and a few cannot even read a calculator. Careful here, take mostly pictures or they will take your money and when you get back to GuiYang you will find that you paid too much. Do your research first at the Qian Cui Hang store in GuiYang and you will know what to offer. Also, about an hour and half drive down a hazardous mountain road, there is an ethnic Miao Village that is a local tourist attraction. You will get fabulous photos here. The scenery and costumes are worth the ride! Hurry before it gets too commercialized! You can find it in the local guide book and they are fabulous dancers and performers in an outdoor show. But don't go in January, there weren't many tourist which was nice, but it was freezing cold! I apologize but I have forgotten the name of the place. By the way, if you stay in Kaile and you want to go cheaply, the GuoTai Hotel on the downtown traffic circle was clean. For RMB 230 I got a small living room and bedroom with two hard oversized twin beds that we pushed together. Don't take a room facing the traffic circle though. It was very noisy at night. Breakfast was ok if you got there around 7 when it was hot and the coffee was fair.