City Suites Gateway

We had a good stay. The room for our group of three was spacious, clean, and had two comfortable beds. The hotel feels a little dated, but the interiors are well maintained. The facade is currently being renovated. There’s a bathtub and shower, though older travelers should take care stepping into the tub. It’s conveniently placed for people traveling to or from Taoyuan airport. Dinner was only available as a buffet on the second floor, in the same restaurant as breakfast, for about NTD 400 per person. Breakfast was good too.

For an airport hotel, this was the worst one I’ve stayed at. Without a car, getting here is awkward: take the commuter train, not the rapid one, to Dayuan station, then walk through a dirty neighborhood on an unpaved path. It’s about 10 minutes from the terminals, but there’s no shuttle. The place is bare-bones, with no amenities like a gym, though for some reason it does have a banquet hall. Breakfast was quite bad, and I saw a large fly on the fruit. This hotel needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

If you enjoy hearing tents flap on a mountainside, this place might suit you. Some rooms have no windows, just plywood boards over them. The building was under construction with no notice, and the carpet in my room was disgusting, with brown tiles bunching up and gaps down to the floor. No iron either. If it hadn’t been so late, I wouldn’t have stayed for even three seconds. It’s not convenient for the airport or train station, and there’s no working sidewalk to get there. The lobby portico barely keeps the rain off. I skipped breakfast, which probably says enough.

The rooms are decent enough, but the staff didn’t seem very interested in helping. It feels set up for tour groups. Its main draw is being near the airport, though getting there isn’t especially convenient: it’s an 8-minute walk to the MRT and then a short ride, or you can take a NTD200 taxi. From the HSR, it’s several MRT stops.