Beijing Leo Courtyard - Hostel

I liked getting to experience the hutongs, and the location was great. The room was a good size, and this place was cleaner than the other two hotels I stayed at in China. Breakfast was disappointing, though, with no coffee or tea. I also didn't like having my bags searched every time I came in. The staff were generally nice and helpful, and their English was adequate. The beds felt a bit hard but weren't terrible. Smoking in the courtyard bothered me, and there was a cat walking around with poop hanging off its bum.

The staff were really helpful, even though they didn't speak much English and we had to translate back and forth on our phones. I had a shower and a fairly good bed, but the room was a complete surprise. I thought I'd booked this place and ended up in a different kind of room.

The Great Wall tour was excellent, and I'd definitely recommend doing it. The room itself was nice, but the thin walls meant it wasn't a quiet place to sleep. What really let me down was the night staff. At midnight a man knocked on my door, then used a keycard to enter when I didn't answer because I was asleep. I was naked at the time. That was very odd behavior.

The staff were polite, and the place is close to the center, but the room was very dirty. The white pillows had turned yellow, and we killed a few cockroaches. The shower water was either hot or cold, with no way to get it warm. The Wi-Fi was bad, basically no Wi-Fi.