Gophoe Hotel

SWMBO and I stayed at this hotel for one night as part of a two-day bus trip from Guangzhou to the seaside at both Huangbu Town and Shanwei. A very efficient reception for booking in, not even scrutinizing or copying my passport, or SWMBO’s id card. We were on the 11th floor, room 8. The room was clean and spacious with two big beds, a desk, built-in wardrobes with bath robes, slippers, a big wall mounted TV etc, the usual kettle but surprisingly no tea or coffee. I must admit we didn’t have time to investigate the content of all the draws. WiFi was free and quick. The bathroom lived up to its name with a bath and a very good shower, and a separate WC. Plenty of towels etc. There was a glass panel between the bath and bedroom. A strange feature which I’ve come across before, SWMBO assures me it’s for other guests and their ‘clients’. However, there was a blind for the more us modest guests. Dinner in the restaurant on the first or ground floor was very good, but beware this is a 5* hotel and prices are not budget friendly, but the trip organizer did us a good deal for the 30 or so travellers. However, couple of small bottles of Blue Girl Pilsner beer to slake my raging thirst was 40 Yuan extra, twice the price of anywhere else. After dinner, SWMBO suggested a walk around the neighbourhood, but the door man said we were in the shoe making district and unless that was our interest there was nothing to see. In the morning, we could see from the coach he was right. I didn’t fancy the karaoke on the third floor nor the gym and swimming pool, so we took the lift to our room and relaxed before enjoying the room’s comfortable beds as we’d left Guangzhou at 7 o’clock in the morning and in Huidong we had visited two beaches, sea-salt pans, and had a boat trip for an extra 50RMB each. The room was quiet and cool as SWMBO has mastered adjusting hotel air conditioning controllers, but we were up at 7 o’clock and down to the restaurant for a nothing special breakfast, but it was included the trip price of 300RMB each. Overall, a very nice hotel. We were on the coach at 8:15 for a one-hour journey to a brilliant sandy beach at Shanwei, a seafood retail experience, lunch and then a four-hour drive back to GuangZhou.