Westin Xian is open now. Just returning from a 3 week stay through the end of March.

The hotel is physically only 5 floors (actually 4 stories since floor 4 does not exist in China). The hotel is wide through; takes up the entire block southwest of the Large Wild Goose Pagoda (Dayanta). The overall hotel style/decor I would describe as clean and modern.

The single rooms have the nicest large working desks I've seen. The corner rooms have a living room, bedroom, guest bath and master bath. Depends on your needs - I almost liked the single room layout better since I usually never use the living room, and I like the larger desk. The rooms on the north side have a very nice view of the Pagoda. There is one lift so you may be walking back and forth a bit to get to the room, but it's probably less than 90 seconds total from lift to the room worst case.

The restaurant is open on the ground floor. Breakfast there is very nice. Western selections, eggs and noodles cooked to order, hot vegetables, congee, juices, cereals, fruit and so on.

The executive lounge is on floor 5 facing north with a great view of the pagoda. The food in the exec lounge was very good. Canapes, cheeses, breads, 4-5 hot selections, 5-6 desserts, fruit, beer, wine, liquor. The staff in the exec lounge is warm, friendly and professional. The exec lounge also has an outdoor patio where smoking is allowed.

Staff and Management went out of their way to provide great service and generate a warm and welcome atmospehere. The executive lounge, front desk, concierge, doormen, bellboys and restaurant staff could all speak english, some very well. Many come from other Xian hotels. The staff was always happy to talk to me and provide tips about about the local area or Xian in general.

There is construction going on and street noise on the north and east facing rooms. Since the hotel only has 5 floors it is audible at all times of day and night, except between about 4 and 7 AM. The quieter rooms are south or west facing, but no view. The pool is not available yet and they need to work on the room temperature control. The AC was not on yet since it was still early spring so I turned off the thermostat and opened up all the windows. That worked fairly well to cool off the room. They will need to switch on AC soon since the rooms are hot.

The Large Wild Goose Pagoda area is south of the main wall. The area is newer and upscale. It's a long hike to get to the Xian south wall (45 minutes maybe). Taxis are plentiful most of the time. Get the concierge to write the address in Chinese. And get a hotel card. Since the hotel is new, the taxis have a hard time getting there sometimes. Take the bus if you want, those work well or even better than taxis sometimes. The area surrounding the pagoda is very nice though and deserves a walk through.

In summary I believe that Westin has a good product in a good area of Xian. Aside from a few growing pains of the opening, this hotel is a great place to stay and will only get better as all of the facilities open up and the hotel and area surrounding the hotel matures.