Grand Metropark Yuantong

The fourth-floor restaurant was phenomenal, and the rest of that meal was top notch. It even served puffer fish, but after my experience with the hotel, I wasn’t willing to trust the chef with my life. The free breakfast on the third floor was mostly poor: the bacon was good, but the hash browns didn’t seem like potatoes, the scrambled eggs tasted like plastic, the fruit wasn’t worth trying, and the rolls were oily. I ate there once and went elsewhere for the rest of my trip. The exchange limit was another problem. In a country where getting cash or using cards can be difficult, I expected an international five-star hotel to have more US dollars available. They would exchange only $200 a day. We finally got the manager to raise it to $300 daily, but that was the limit. Without cash, getting more money meant going to the Bank of China on the same block. When we checked in, they charged my card for the whole stay, and the receipt showed my full card number and expiration date. That should never happen. We saw this at two locations on the trip; others at least hid the middle eight digits. It seems to be a broader banking problem in China, but hotels especially should know better. If you can afford a five-star hotel, you may spend more than $200 a day on activities and shopping, so the low exchange limit is a real issue. The room was dark even with every light on, and it had dust on the shelves, dirt along the walls, and black grit on the window sills that wiped off easily. The bed was good, but during our eight-day stay we had to ask them to change the sheets, not just make the bed. The place didn’t have the kind of clean-every-inch standard I expect of a five-star hotel. The shower had two heads, including a rain head that sprayed water from the top because it was broken. We couldn’t use it for the whole trip. The door didn’t seal, either, so each shower left a puddle on the bathroom floor for us to clean up. I don’t want to think about the possible mold under that floor. So, despite calling itself five-star, Grand Metropark Yuantong didn’t come close. The 3.5 rating other users gave it seems more accurate.