Like many hotels in Beijing, this one is starting to get old and tired, and is in need of a refurbishment. That said, service is decent, the rooms are clean and functional and the food is good.

Location

The hotel is very well located. The Chongwenmen metro station (line 2/5) is directly outside the hotel’s front doors. The hotel is within walking distance to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace, and lies two metro stops away from the Temple of Heaven.

By metro, the hotel is one metro station away from Beijing Railway Station (slow trains) and six metro stations (with one interchange) away from Beijing South Railway Station (fast trains). It is also possible to take the metro to the airport, which requires only a single interchange from Line 2 to the Airport Express line.

Check In

I was granted a check in two hours prior to actual check in time. I lined up in the priority lane and a member of staff clarified whether I was a member or not. Good to see that they take the priority lane seriously here.

Check in was fast and, in line with previous stays at the hotel, no preauthorisation was taken, likely due to loyalty status. On a previous trip, this resulted in my room having no credit (unable to post any charges to room). I did not attempt to charge anything to the room for this stay, so I cannot comment on this.

I was given two drink vouchers and informed I had received a room upgrade.

Room

I was given a two-category room upgrade; I booked a Superior Room and received a Suite (bypassing the Premier Room category). The suite is split between two levels, separated by a winding staircase that is very difficult to carry anything up. The lower level is on level 15 and this is as high as the elevators go. There is a door on the upstairs level that exits into a hallway, but there is only stair access to go downstairs – no elevator. This was a little frustrating, because it meant all suitcases had to left on the lower level, and involved a lot of going up and down the very narrow stairs to get things. The stairs did make an excellent place to hang clothes after doing a sink-wash, especially with the downstairs heater turned on. A total of four 600ml bottles of water are provided, two upstairs and two downstairs.

Downstairs has a living area with a sofa, coffee table, dining table with two chairs, an ancient TV (DVI inputs!), a fully equipped bathroom and a closet with only clothes hangers and the ironing board in it.

Upstairs has a very wide king bed, working desk with chair, fully equipped bathroom and a closet with bathrobes, spare blankets, slippers, safe box and hangers. As with the other hotels I have recently reviewed, available bedside power points were non-existent.

There are two wings to the hotel. The rooms in A wing have shower-over-bath and the B wing have standalone showers. All rooms have water supplied from hot springs below the hotel.

A welcome letter was hand delivered to the room shortly after check in, which contained two more drink vouchers. The issue was that the welcome letter did not include any information about breakfast and happy hour times in the lounge, which was pretty inconvenient.

I went out for the afternoon, returning at about 5pm. During this time, the welcome gift had been placed in the room.

Wi-Fi in the room was decent during the afternoon but has extremely slow in the evening.

The room has a view over the Chongwenmen Road below. A little bit of street noise bled through into the room, but not enough to have a negative impact on sleep quality.

Welcome Drinks

Drink vouchers can be redeemed in either the lobby bar or in the restaurant on the ground floor. There was not a drinks list, but I was told that I could have soft drink, juice, beer and wine. I chose the red wine, which was actually not too bad. I believe it was from Chile, but I could be mistaken.

Dining

This lounge pales in comparison to the one at the Novotel Beijing Peace. While the Peace hotel’s lounge takes up a large portion of the floor and uses large spaces, feeling like a lounge – the Xin Qiao’s lounge is made up of three small rooms with three or four tables in each room. It is a bit of a weird design. All staff in the lounge speak decent English.

The breakfast spread was decent, though smaller than the one at the Peace. There is no menu to order food from. Instead, there is a tiny area in the corner where the chef cooks eggs to order, which were very tasty. For some reason, they only had English breakfast and Earl Grey tea available. What kind of hotel outlet does not have green or jasmine tea in the nation’s capital?

The happy hour runs from 6-8pm. The meat selections here were better than those at the Peace hotel, but the Peace hotel’s cooked vegetables were divine, while the Xin Qiao’s selection was small and only OK. The alcohol selection was pitifully small.  

I did not dine in the restaurants on this occasion, but I have dined in both the Chinese restaurant and international restaurant in the past and the food has been decent. Interestingly, it appears that the international restaurant is open 24 hours, which makes sense if the hotel gets lots of guests coming in on the late night flights that require a 90 minute drive to the hotel.

Overall

In comparing this hotel to the Novotel Beijing Peace, I think that I prefer the rooms here. However, the lounge at the Peace hotel is leagues ahead of what this hotel offers. The location on Line 2/5 is a bit more convenient than the Peace hotel on Line 5 for metro access, but the Peace’s location is better for nearby shopping and restaurants.

In closing, if lounge access is not a prerequisite for your stay, I would recommend this hotel. If lounge access is an important consideration for you, I would recommend the Novotel Peace hotel, but make sure you ask for a newly renovated room.