In all my travels, I have never ever been even close to having such experience as I have with the Sariz International in Beijing. It was not just one incident, but many in just one night stay.
It started off as we turned up to check in around 7:30pm. No one at reception appeared to speak much english at all (which is fine, but we thought we were at an "international hotel"). Then they didn't have our bookings. After checking and double checking, then taking our passports and copying them (even without having a room), they still didn't have anything. I asked if I can borrow their phone to call wotif.com (the agents who booked us in the first place), they refused to let me use their phone, so I had to call with my mobile on international roaming rates. Wotif.com confirmed my booking and contacted them immediately. They seemed to speak English with Wotif (albeit broken) and told them that they did not receive the booking and that there were no rooms available for this evening. Wotif contacted me back and told me they had canceled the booking and then booked me into another hotel not far from this one.
And this is where the fireworks begin; I left my family behind at the lobby to find the other hotel Wotif had booked for me. I could not find it as it was dark, cold and did not speak a word of Mandarin. When I had returned to the Sariz International, my wife (who is normally a quiet person) was screaming at one of the girls. I quickly came and calmed her down to find out what happened.
Whilst I was away looking for this other hotel, they had a last minute cancellation, however, these rooms were near twice the rate we had originally booked at. They told my wife these rooms met our requirements. My wife asked them how they knew our "requirements" and on further probing, they revealed they they received a cancellation of our booking at 8:15pm (same time Wotif contacted me on getting another room). My wife was demanding to see their manager and suddenly, no one spoke English again. At this point, I had lost my own cool (with a screaming baby and another hungry child), I demanded to see their manager. Some stood frozen and did not move, others continued on with their business and answered phones making gestures to us to lower our voices. We refused to budge (as we had nowhere else to go) until their manager came. Finally, after speaking to each other quietly on their mobile, at 9pm, their manager showed up. He also did not speak English, but spoke to my elderly mother (who spoke a little Mandarin). He apologized and ask the staff book us in at a slightly higher rate than we had originally paid at wotif. (I was exhausted by then a did not want to argue further). He asked the Bellboy to take our baggage which the bellboy refused to. We finally arrived in our rooms and found that the air conditioner did not work, floors were dirty, there was no toilet paper and there was no drinking water.
That was not the end of the trouble, we went back down to buy food for my 4 year old, and a death threat was made to me by the bell boy. I walked up to him (the bellboy) and took his photograph as his name tag wasn't on. I will include the photo when I make a formal complaint to the upper management. I did not take this threat seriously, but it was enough to worry my mother, who in turn told my wife and Aunt. (My mother had reminded me that although he wont attack me inside the hotel, he could have his thug friends waiting outside). My wife called the Australian Consulate for advice, but was unable to contact them at that hour. Apart from kids, none of the us had slept that night, so we checked out early. The morning staff in contrast were nothing but nice and apologized for the previous evening episode. But that is not enough to wipe away the horrid experience my family had to go through the previous night.