Hotel Initial-Taichung

Personal thoughts: My friends and I were happy with the food and bars in Tainan, but our stay at Le Bonheur - Hop Inn was truly terrible. It’s not that travel within Taiwan is inherently bad, it’s that we didn’t feel cared for. The brown-stained towels horrified us, and we couldn’t get a good night’s sleep because we worried the rest of the hygiene standards might be just as poor.

It was okay for the price, with no frills. The location was good, but the rooms were average and dusty in some spots. The corridors looked tatty, with old labels still on the walls and dust around. Breakfast on the first day was cold, and on the second day it was a very average Bento box.

We stayed at Hotel Initial-Taichung for four nights, and housekeeping repeatedly failed to clean our room. On the first day, we asked for it to be cleaned while we were out. When we came back at night, nothing had been done, so we asked the front desk for clean towels because we were exhausted and just wanted to shower and sleep. The next morning, we told reception what had happened and asked them to make sure the room was cleaned that day. They apologized and assured us it would be. We came back in the afternoon to put away our shopping, but the room still hadn’t been cleaned. The front desk again promised to send housekeeping. By the time we returned at night, they had only replaced the towels. The bed wasn’t made and the floor wasn’t cleaned.

The room was clean and comfortable, with all the amenities I needed, and check-in and check-out were straightforward. It’s close to Gancheng bus station, which is convenient if you’re taking the tourist shuttle bus to sun moon lake.