Lin Yuan Bicycle Homestay

The price was absolutely fine, and breakfast was good. Everyone was so friendly, too. Really nice place. I'd book it again if I come back to Taitung.

My allergic child started sneezing soon after we entered the room. I can't say whether it was poor cleaning, but the room was dim and had no windows. It also didn't match the description on Booking.com. The guesthouse had clearly listed the room on Booking.com, then made excuses to push us to cancel and give up the platform fee. It was a very bad experience.

The owner replied quickly to messages and was very nice. The next morning they said they'd prepared bread or cake, but we'd already checked out before seeing that. Still, the stay was awful. It felt like an Airbnb charging guesthouse prices, and was dirtier than my own home and any guesthouse I've stayed in. Outside Chinese New Year, 6500 yuan could have paid for a five-star hotel. I waited to write this review in hopes things would improve, but the reviews suggest they haven't, so I'm sharing what happened for other travelers. We paid 6500 yuan per night for a four-person room with an extra bed during Chinese New Year this year. I'd struggled to find a place, then someone in a group chat contacted me about using a taxi. That was the start of a nightmare. Both beds already had a small handful of hair on the sheets and pillowcases when we checked in. We asked the owner to change them right away, but the replacement bedding was full of hair too. How could that much hair go unnoticed while making the beds? 😅 The toiletries were opened sample packs, which felt disgusting. There was slippery grime on the toilet floor, as if it hadn't been cleaned in years, and the toiletries hadn't been checked. Exposed pipes in the toilet carried noise and vibrations whenever the upstairs neighbor flushed.

There was no properly hot shower at night. The water pressure was very weak, and even with the faucet turned all the way left, the water was only lukewarm. Everyone in our group had to shower that way. In the fourth-floor room, the air conditioner only worked at a low setting of 16 degrees Celsius. At 26 or higher it was either freezing or unbearably hot. We gave up trying to sort things out with the owner and just wanted to leave that appalling place first thing the next morning. We'd booked three rooms and arrived at 3 PM as agreed, following the room numbers the guesthouse sent through LINE. One room was next to the kitchen and had terrible soundproofing. The air conditioner in another began dripping after only 10 minutes. The owner said she didn't know about it, but then what were the water marks on the wall? In the third room, an extra mattress was propped against the wall. We immediately messaged the owner on LINE, but she didn't answer. Our companions called from their phones and eventually reached her. When we raised the problems, she said, "If you don't like it, you can cancel!" She repeatedly told us to cancel through the booking site. We worried the charge would still go to our credit card if we cancelled, so who would cover that cost? The guesthouse seemed unwilling to address anything. Even though we brought it up first and there were other rooms vacant, they wouldn't move us and expected us to accept the quality as it was. Weekends in Taitung are hard for finding a place to stay. After some discussion, we only got the owner to move the room with the leaking air conditioner and move the mattress in another room. The room beside the kitchen was left as it was. Worst accommodation experience ever. At this price, there are much better choices.