Fairyland Hotel Kunming Nanping Pedestrian Street Baida

The Fairyland Express (Baida) goes by several additional names including New Era Hotel apartments and its Chinese name. It is attached/next to the New Era Hotel but it is not part of the hotel. Several reviews here clearly have mixed up the New Era Hotel with the New Era apartments. The rooms are serviced apartments rather than hotel rooms. Finding it: You have a better chance of your taxi driver finding the New Era Hotel. Once you have found the New Era hotel, the Fairyland Express apartments are next door. The New Era hotel has two entrances: from a pedestrian only mall and another one diagonally behind the mall entrance on the block. If you are coming by taxi, you will most likely arrive at the second entrance, that is the street entrance. This is the entrance you want to find the Fairyland Express. Stand in front of the New Era hotel entrance facing the hotel. Turn right and follow the block around the corner for about 10 meters. You will be standing in front of the entrance of the New Era Hotel apartments aka. Fairyland Express. The front desk is set deep in the lobby near the lifts to the right. It doesn't look like much of a hotel. The good: Big rooms with a view out on to the street. Big bathrooms with reasonable water pressure and hot water. Clean and basic toiletries provided. Our room had two main bedrooms with queen beds conjoined at the bathroom with minimal privacy for users of the bathroom. Very swinging. Cheap. Much cheaper than the hotel right next door. Bang smack in the center of Kunming with plenty of food, bars, malls, night markets and Starbucks within easy walking distance of the hotel. The staff are friendly and efficient but you will need some Mandarin to make requests and get information. There is 100 yuan deposit at check in. You can use international credit cards here but the staff might accidentally try to process your card as a Chinese credit card at first. You will know this has happened when they offer you the keypad to enter your PIN. Get them to process the transaction using your signature rather than the PIN. The bad: No air con. The hotel claims this is because it participates in Kunming's Green City initiatives. Based on the other reviewers here, this is clearly croc and a conveniently made up excuse for an air con system that has long stopped working. Ironically, you need to run the hot water for about 5 minutes to come through, thereby, in terms of environmental impact, offsetting carbon output minimization saved through the no air con policy with pure water wastage. Swings and roundabouts... The ugly: It's noisy at night, even up 17 floors. The noise comes from the street mall below. Music and signing and general revelry mixed in with a bit of traffic. I doubt the New Era Hotel next door is much better for noise pollution levels so this is what you get for a central city stay. There is strange petroleum product smell permeating the lift well. I think it is the lube they have used on the lift cables. Don't be put off: the smell doesn't reach the rooms. Overall: For a couple of nights stay in the center of town, this perfectly adequate clean accommodation. You won't get any of the services you get with a proper hotel but neither will you pay for it either. I would happily stay here again if I came to Kunming for the central location and save my RMB even more happily for other things.