Gubei Garden Hotel Shanghai

The room's huge, and Gubei station is close by.

Takashimaya is beside the subway station, so it's handy for food and picking up souvenirs. Line 10 is nearby too, with great access to Hongqiao Airport. The hotel rooms are clean and comfortable.

Getting to the station is easy, and there's direct access via Nanjing East Road, so the hotel could be worth considering if you can live with some quirks. Room quality varies a lot. I booked a standard double, and the staff kindly let me check in ahead of schedule. The room was spacious but awkward to use. In the bathroom, which had both the toilet and sink, one little bulb barely lit the place. I carried in the desk lamp to bathe, but it was still nearly pitch black. They moved me the next day, and the new room was so clean it seemed like a different hotel. When booking, I'd ask for a renovated room with "City View" or "Garden" in its name, though even those can have problems such as a leaking shower. Some rooms have shower toilets that aren't TOTO, and I wouldn't use those. The nozzle is so bad it'll make you faint. There's wired LAN, while Wi-Fi requires a password from the front desk. The old Sanyo TV sometimes doesn't work right. Channel 1 gets NHK's international broadcast, but static comes through too.

Yili Road Station on Metro Line 10 and Takashimaya are both under a five-minute walk away, which is the main plus here. There are lots of facilities for Japanese people in this area, and Japanese guests often stay at this hotel. It's reassuring that some staff speak Japanese. The rooms are about the size of slightly larger Japanese business hotel rooms, and perfectly adequate. Breakfast is simple.