This hotel was much better than our expectations. The room was very big and spacious and even had a computer with internet included for free. The pictures on Expedia do not do the hotel justice ( either that or they renovated the hotel for the Olympics). We were in room 619 which was very spacious on the corner, included a narrow balcony and lots of light. Our only complaint is that the maid service showed up way too early in the morning - they would knock on the door and shout at 9AM, but they leave you alone if you push the "Do not disturb" button on the neat light panel clock by the bedside table. The location of this hotel was not bad either, the neighborhood felt safe enough with little shops on the sides of the street and there was a taxi stop right outside the hotel, which was extremely convenient as taxis are hard to stop in Beijing. Taxi fare starts at 10RMB (almost $1.50) and you get pretty much to most places such as Tiananmen/Forbidden Palace, Wangfujing, Beihai Park, Houhei Road, Temple of Heaven, etc under 20RMB. There is also a pool which is free but you have to bring a swimming cap. There are a bunch of other facilities as well, such as bowling alleys, 3 restaurants, a teahouse in the courtyard, badminton courts, and more, but you have to pay fees for all of this (the fees are cheap though). The last thing is that the hotel provides 2 one day tours, one to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs and another to a bunch of sights around the city. Each tour is 300RMB. I did not take either of these as we decided to try and find something cheaper outside, but in hindsight we would have been better off taking one of these tours or hiring a cab for 400RMB for the day. But then again, we did not try the hotel tours so cannot vouch for them.

If you are planning to go to the Great wall or Ming Tombs, then Read This!! We were scammed by one of the fake tour companies that pass out legitimate looking fliers by the Forbidden Palace. Avoid these at all costs and instead book a tour by going to the official Beijing tourist office or take the official city buses to the sights or negotiate a taxi for the day. The fake tour company that we went with pretended to be another company, CTS, picked us up at the hotel in a dilapidated van, took us to a small and tired looking tour bus parked on a side street, and then charged everyone on the bus an additional "mandatory supplement" which was more than the entire advertised price of the tour as soon as they had us on the highway and away from Beijing. They only gave us 1.5 hours at the Badaling site of the Great Wall and then took us to a bad lunch by a huge Jade store complex. After that, they proceeded to take us to a "100 Budda Cave" which only had 10-15 tired looking statues and ended with some Buddist sermon and the disciples taking each family one by one behind a curtain and offering to light candles and prey for them for anywhere from 90 to 1600RMB (the price varied based on how rich you looked), don't fall for it! The phony tour guides were extremely convincing and spoke very good mandarin and english, but that's part of the entire scam. They took us to 5-6 more stores varying from a chinese medicine hospital to dried local specialty markets to jewelery stores which were all in the middle of nowhere so you could not escape in a taxi. In the end they did not even take us to the Ming Tombs! The guide lied and said that there was nothing to see there except 3 fake red coffins and instead took us to more stores. They were just trying to save the 60RMB ticket and get more commission. It would not have been so bad if they had at least taken us to the Ming Tombs, but they just told lie after lie and scammed the entire bus of people who were basically captive the entire day. It was a waste of a day besides the Great Wall in the morning.