Hanting Hotel Shanghai Zhongshan West Road

The building looks beautiful when you arrive, and its location beside Line 2 is the best part. The rooms are decent, though not especially clean, and the hotel feels very old, right down to the cathode-ray TV. Breakfast was okay from a Western perspective. Staff English was also very limited.

Breakfast was really good, with a huge selection, and everything was clean. The entrance looks amazing too. The rooms, though, are old and in pretty poor shape. It's not a bad place, but it needs renovations soon.

Getting around is easy, with the metro right outside, and there are late-night street food stalls and restaurants about a three-minute walk to the left. The spa pool at 40 degrees was lovely for relaxing, even though the spa area itself looks dated. For a work trip, the hotel has everything I needed and more. For a leisure stay, I'd pick a different area. My room on the eighth floor faced the back of the hotel. It was spacious, the bed was comfortable, and housekeeping did a great job. There was a kettle, black and green tea, coffee, and one litre of complimentary water each day. The breakfast buffet had lots of choices, including Japanese, Chinese, pasta, continental food, and Danish baked goods. The cooked dishes were very oily and mostly cold, though I don't know if they were meant to be served that way, so I skipped breakfast on three of the six mornings. Most staff spoke English quite well for China, but room service was a problem. They got my order wrong once, and I paid for and ate a dish I hadn't wanted, which wasn't very good. Communication with room service was terrible, as neither the server nor the phone line staff spoke English well.

The room was clean and cozy, and I liked the breakfast, but the price felt high for the quality. Also, the hotel's location is listed incorrectly. It's at Exit 7 of Shanghai indoor stadium station. The man at reception on the tower floor worked very slowly. I saw two guests complain about his pace. He seemed to think he could speak English, but he couldn't. If a guest asks for a twin-bed room next time, just provide two beds. Saying “twin-size bed room” refers to bed size, not the number of beds.