MMarijnGreat place. The hotel is located right in the heart of the ancient town, so there are lots of restaurants and shops around. Owner is very friendly and amicable, and gives great recommendations on where to go and what to do. I would stay again if I visit Shangri-La again.
CClaudiaVERY DISAPPOINTING!
Overall: The inn is nice and confortable but the service is terrible. Service made us feel very unwelcome and ruined the experience.
Room: humble but comfortable room. You can ask for a heater, which is very needed in the winter months (we stayed here in late November). Be aware that some rooms are marked as “Mountain View” but in fact you’re in a covered area so won’t really have a view (pictures attached) - we booked one of these rooms but since it was low season we were lucky to get a free upgrade and get one of the few rooms with a nice view.
Cleanliness: the rooms are relatively clean, but we had a mouldy shower curtain (see pictures).
Amenities: the restaurant / front desk area is very nice and cosy.
Service: terrible! Every time we needed their assistance it felt as if we were disturbing them from sitting by the fire (even though they barely had any customers and it seemed as if they were not busy at all). We are international traveler’s that don’t speak Chinese and the service was unhelpful and not welcoming. We’ve had no issues anywhere else in our trip in China, this was definitely the worst we have experienced. After reading other reviews it seems that the boss is very helpful, but he wasn’t there when we stayed at the inn and it appears that the workers don’t do a good job when he is not around. The workers didn’t advise us that we needed crampons for one of the hikes we did (hikers from other inns told us that these were a must) so we had to reluctantly stay one more night to complete the hike.
When we booked another night, one service member told us a price and another service person told us a different (lower, almost 100cny lower) price. We were then charged the first (higher) price, which made us feel quite uncomfortable. The day after when we tried to rent crampons from the inn the lady told us that it was 20 cny to rent per day, and that in other places it was 40 cny per day. We decided not to rent them because they looked in very bad condition. We later found out that you can buy them brand new at “meets meili snow mountain” for 35cny and use them for the 2 hikes. We also had to rent hiking poles even though they provide them for free at the hotel given that the ones they had didn’t look in good condition and weren’t tall enough for us (the lady at the desk got frustrated with us because of this).
Overall, very unhelpful, impatient service - we felt extremely uncomfortable because of it. If you’re an international traveller and don’t speak much Chinese stay away!!
Food: was good but small portions compared to other places. We ended up eating most of our meals elsewhere because the service made us feel very unwelcome. Limited breakfast options, there’s many more options at “meets meili snow mountain”.
ゲゲストThe best thing about this hotel is the view from the room. Unfortunately, that's as good as it gets! I really don't understand why it has such good reviews as I don't think it deserves them. Our room was really dirty - the first thing I saw when I walked in was dirt on the floor and clumps of hair in the corner by the furniture as well as hair on the floor. The most revolting thing was the bath mat on the floor - the parts of it that should have been white were a very dirty brown - it obviously hadn't been washed in many months. The ”fitted” sheets on the bed had bleach stains on them and they didn't fit the bed properly as they didn't tuck under the mattress which meant it came loose during the night. The mattress was very uncomfortable (hard and lumpy) - there was no mattress protector on the bed or protectors on the pillows. The walls are paper thin and, unfortunately, we had three very loud and excitable young women next door to us who talked and laughed very loudly until after midnight on all three nights we were there. The room wasn't serviced for the 3 nights we were there and we had to ask for extra toilet paper and water as they didn't put any in on the first day. We also had to empty our own bins and ask them to come and collect them from outside our door. The staff were friendly enough, but they seemed to spend all day on their phones lounging around in the rather untidy and dirty looking reception area. All the common areas were dirty too - the staircase hadn't been vacuumed any time recently as there was dirt on every stair. The place has a very neglected and uncared for feel about it which is a real pity as it could be lovely if some time and effort was put into making it clean and tidy and updating the furniture and bedding. It seems that the staff are very bored with their jobs and have no interest in keeping the place nice for customers.
AAnthrobGorgeous view, helpful staff, very good rooftop cafe, great restaurant with some good unique dishes. Try the Naxi breakfast “sandwich.” Overall, it exceeds the expectations of any reasonable person for a place as remote as this. Accommodations are basic but functional. We were there in November and the only sources of heat in our room were slightly hot water and a heating pad on the bed, and that was enough.