Sheraton Wuxi Binhu Hotel

I’ve never written a hotel review before, but this stay deserves a mention. One of my USA students left a wallet in the room after checkout while I was bringing a group to visit Wuxi, China. By the time the hotel told our tour guide, we were already in Shanghai. The team quickly worked out how to get the wallet and money to our Shanghai hotel. I’m grateful to the honest cleaning lady and the professional, friendly staff member who helped. This was my second stay here. The room was clean and nice, the buffet breakfast was awesome, and we all had a great time in Wuxi after visiting Nanchang Street at night.

The room was great, the staff had a good attitude, and having a big mall right beside the hotel made things very convenient. My complaint is the club lounge. It was the worst I’ve experienced, with little to say for the food or options. The only other Sheraton lounge I’d compare it with is the one in Kuala Lumpur, which was really poor too.

The location is very convenient, right by Wanda mall and a subway station. Still, I expected more from a Sheraton. My room didn’t have a coffee set, and although breakfast and dinner offered lots of choices, the food quality suffered. Most cooked dishes were already cold.

Breakfast was the only thing I liked. Over a week, the room kept getting hotter, from 23°C to 26.5°C, even though I’d set the thermostat to 10°C. Like at other hotels in China, it seemed to be there for show. I had to ask for a fan or cooler, which they provided. The room also had a broken ethernet cable and terrible internet speed, so connecting to my company’s VPN was difficult. The telephone by the bed badly needed repair or replacement. When a call came in, I had to get up and cross the room to answer it. The light switches were idiotic, as I’ve found in other Sheraton hotels. Cheap-looking, dated wood panelling and an open access panel below the bathtub, with shoddy work inside, made the room look worse.