Novotel Beijing Xin Qiao, Beijing

Good location but really few associates are able to speak English!

Good location. Improvements are needed to become a real 4-start hotel in room decorations and settings. More ventilations would help air quality.

Overall not a bad place to stay in this price range. Very convenient to subway line 2 which basically is right outside the door. Other than that not much in the immediate area. The bed is quite hard and the AC does not work in the middle of the night. More specifically their AC is shut down for the entire building between 10pm -10am. Not sure if this is true during the summer, but make sure to inquire.

Caution: The advertisement for this hotel is not accurate and several key amenities are missing. It's an older building but has been maintained well and is very clean. The age shows in areas like the bathroom that could use updating as the tiling in areas is quite worn. The location is excellent with close proximity to the Chongwenmen subway stop and within walking distance of many attractions. Unfortunately there is a big downside. This hotel advertises air conditioning but they don't turn it on until sometime in the summer. We stayed there in mid-April and it was constantly 25-26C (77-79F) in our room and extremely humid. We had payed extra to stay here versus some of the cheaper options in particular because we wanted to be able to sleep in a comfortable and cool environment since opening the windows was not an option with the air quality. We were told by the service desk that despite our attempts at turning on the AC in our room that the entire hotel had it disabled and would not turn it on by our request until they determined it was time to do so. The ad also says that bottled water is available for free. This was not the case. They had bottles available for purchase in the mini bar area. The wording of the hot springs and sauna make it sound like these amenities are included but this also is not the case. There is a (very expensive) spa in the basement that segregates by gender and you have to pay per person to soak in the hot tub or use facilities.

It was very good. The staff was very friendly. The buffet for breakfast was very good, however, the one for dinner was excellent!.