摩登水晶ホテル(鉄道駅直隸總督署)

The Modern Crystal Hotel in Baoding is only a 2 minute walk to & from Baoding Railway Station and there are lots of small shops and places to eat, as well as a shopping mall nearby which includes an Apple store! The hotel is quite old and some parts of the rooms I saw were badly in need of refurbishing, but the customer service is excellent. Every staff member I dealt with during my 3 night stay was wonderful …. the Reception staff, and the lovely ladies who clean the rooms and work in the dining room were all consistently and naturally extremely helpful and friendly to me ☺️ The Reception staff ask if you use WeChat, which is great, because you can message them if you need to ask anything and they respond immediately. One of the young guys on Reception went out of his way to help me when the sole of my shoe came away from my shoe, by trying to find a shoe repair shop (there wasn’t one) and then finding & ordering shoe repair glue on Amazon China for me and delivering it to me in my room an hour later! That kind of service is really heartwarming to a foreign traveller 💜 There is a hotel laundry available for guests to use, which was great! BYO laundry detergent. The only real issue - and it’s a major issue - was that smoking is allowed (and encouraged) in the hotel, which, as an Australian, I find shocking and quite unacceptable in this day & age of global “no smoking” health laws. The first room I was allocated smelt so badly of cigarette smoke, I couldn’t stay in it and requested a clean smelling room. The Reception staff complied immediately, and the 2nd room was much better, although it also had a very faint cigarette smell which was not ideal because it spoils the enjoyment of the room, and a No Smoking room should not smell of cigarette smoke at all, but I assume that every room was probably the same. Even the lifts & foyers on each floor smelt badly of cigarette smoke, and it wasn’t nice to see ashtrays everywhere. I have found the same problem in other hotels in China on this visit, more than ever before, and it’s really not pleasant for those of us who hate the smell of cigarette smoke and also get headaches from the horrible smell. It’s a shame, because no matter how excellent the customer service is, the cigarette smoking would prevent me from booking there again, or recommending it to anyone. Pity 😟

Excellent location, satisfying service. Highly recommend!