First of all, I cannot believe the pictures representing this hotel online. They are completely unrealistic. The rooms are alright, with the usual dirty walls and dirty carpets that are customary in most Chinese hotels in big cities, and the bathroom ceilings were rusty. This was not so bad, I had already become accustomed to this after spending a month travelling across China. It was the staff and service that made it fun.

We arrived very late and very tired, and gave the girls at the front desk three different credit cards, including Union Pay and VISA, which they do accept at the desk but which they all rejected because they apparently didn't work. When we gave them written instructions on how to use the credit cards, in Chinese, they suddenly repented and asked for the VISA back, as if it now magically worked. Then it turned out, their machine didn't work. They wanted cash, a very large amount which we now lost because they said online that they accepted credit cards. The girls at the desk kept giggling and making fun of us (they thought we didn't understand any Chinese at all), but after spending 10 hours travelling in rundown buses and planes it wasn't so amusing for us. One woman was trying to "help" but she ignored and cut off everybody who spoke except the person whose card we were using. The next morning, the credit card machine miraculously healed itself.

The manager of the hotel didn't allow us to sit anywhere else in the lobby because all the chairs were taken (they have something like two small couches and an armchair in the lobby); unfortunately, the lobby is the only place with the internet. So if you need to use it and there are no seats, the manager personally tells you to get out. They blocked our room key three times, for some reason; fortunately the cleaning lady was there to help us open our room. They also blocked it twenty minutes before check-out, and when we were just finishing with our luggage, they kept knocking on the door or opening it and coming in, rushing us out of there, even though it wasn't check-out time yet. Another funny moment was when one of the girls at the desk looked at our computer and then said to the other girl in plain, audible Chinese: "That computer is so cheap!" Thank you, that was a nice complement.

But yes, the location is great. Right in the downtown. Awesome. Aside from that, it was ridiculously expensive for the quality of rooms and for the service. All in all, it was a sweet rip off with lots of inconveniences sprinkled all over it like chocolate chips. Yummy.

There are only 2 pros that I can attribute to this hotel: the location and the black-out curtains that do a great job of blocking out the morning sunlight.

I have stayed in a lot of hotels as I travel a lot for both business and pleasure. I can honestly say that this is the worst hotel I have ever stayed in - even for a budget hotel. The rooms, hallways and elevators of this hotel are completely run down and outdated. The carpets are soiled and look to be decades old. The walls and ceiling of the room we stayed in were cracked, spotted with soot-like material, and in desperate need of a couple coats of paint. The shower was cracked and discolored and I do not recommend using it without a pair of flip flops between your feet and the shower floor. The air conditioning was decent at best. My husband found a hair in the bedding and we noticed several stains on it as well. The mattresses were hard as rocks. I found one English TV channel, but the sound was so poor and disoriented, that we ended up turning off the TV. In addition, the staff spoke very little English. To top it all off, all night you can hear honking, shouting, music, etc. outside because it is a very busy street and the windows are of poor quality. Maybe this is why it is called the "Melody" Hotel. One night my husband and I woke up to a competition between motorists in parked cars who could honk the most and try to compose the best song. We were also awakened to Jingle Bells one morning. Brilliant.

Overall, I do NOT recommend this hotel at all. For an additional US$20 (or less) per night, you can stay at a much better hotel down the street. Try the Bell Tower Hotel instead.

I stayed at this hotel for 2 nights because it was included in our tour package. The hotel is well located, but the front desk clerks barely speak any English, they will ignore you if you are not chinese. I chose a room to the front of the building..what a mistake..noisy, horns, drunk people shouting all night. Air condition very poor, breakfast at the Star Ferry cafe next door was the worst I ever had. The second night I moved to the back of the building, bathroom was backing up, dirty, and forget about calling the front desk for wake up calls. No english spoken. I would not recommend this hotel.

We chose the hotel due to its great discount rates for midweek and off season. It's location is excellent and the airport shuttle drops you off right outside. The rooms themselves were quite nice and provided a lot of amenities although there is only Wifi and not internet in the hotel. There is also a considerable level of traffic noise at all hours give the central location.

On arrival, the hotel required us to put 300 yuen a night deposit down for the room as well as 300 for the room key which is quite excessive (given that we have been quoted a rate of 280 a night) compared with other hotels in china which would only ask for 100 deposit for the key or a percentage of the room rate in case you use the mini bar.

There was also a misunderstanding as to the number of days we were staying, even though we had both emailed the dates to the hotel when confirming our reservation and reconfirmed at check in when we were querying why such a high deposit was required. This meant that we were locked out of our room on our last night and the reception were not willing to let us back in until we had paid a further 300 yuen deposit even though we would be checking out in 12 hours time. We were only let back in after I pointed out that my credit card was locked inside the room. After that, reception phoned our room wanting us to come down and pay the additional deposit.

Aside from the obsessive issue with the deposit, we generally found the staff to be quite rude and unhelpful - if they didn't speak english, they would ignore you when you spoke to them and phone someone else to come and deal with you. Reception also dealt with other Chinese guests when they were in the process of dealing with us, as Chinese speakers appeared to have priority. Another member of reception also looked over my hand covering the credit card machine to read my pin number as I was keying it in which I found quite an invasion of privacy and very rude and unprofessional.