Centrally located at 20mins drive from Xiaoshan International Airport, close to the textile city of Hangzhou/Shaoxing, this is a very comfortable hotel to live into. Since you are in China do not expect any more English for conversation than the regular Good Mornings and Good Evenings. I was out of luck because the Italian restaurant was under renovation and for the american diner Chef was on leave. However the rooms are very comfortable and if you are on the higher floors you can expect to see the best skyline of Hangzhou.

Beware Rm 1017 (a business suite) at this hotel (see pictures)!

I traveled to China last week as the result of a speaking invitation. It was my first time in the country and our first two days in Shanghai could not have been better (I also rated the Shangri-La in Shanghai). However, it made us ill-prepared for what we faced at the New Century Hotel in Xiaoshan. The pictures that we had seen on line made it appear to be as nice as the "5 star" rating that it has on TripAdvisor, but our experience was quite different.

Our host (a Chinese consulting company) graciously booked a Business Suite so that my colleague/traveling companion could share my room on a roll-away bed and not have to pay for her own room. When we arrived at the hotel, we were pleased with the look of the hotel lobby and in fact, all of the common areas. They were very nicely decorated and maintained -- very clean and shiney. This in no way prepared us for the room that they were about to escort us to and leave us in. No sooner had the bell captain closed the door to my room, I turned to my colleague and said "They can't possibly expect us to stay in this room." Business Suite #1017 had absolutely no redeeming qualities, unless you count to the two very large boxes of wrapped condoms on the bathroom counter. Really!?!

That could only be topped by the open condom wrappers that we found in the bedside table drawers while we were hunting for the "Guest Services" guide. Despite having turned on every light, both rooms had a seedy, dingy look to them. On the other hand, if you review the pictures I posted with this review, you might agree that it was probably a blessing that the lights weren't any brighter. The room also positvely reeked of stale smoke odor.

We were traveling with a vendor-partner who is based in Singapore and has traveled to China several times. We asked him to come and take a look at our room to see if it was "standard fare" for the hotel and for China. Once he got a look, he admitted that although his own room was not great, it was about what he expected and certainly much better than ours. My primary panic at that moment was that if this hotel not only received 5 stars on TripAdvisor, BUT was also rated the #1 hotel in Hangzhou on TripAdvisor, what other options did we have?

I called downstairs for assistance and after several broken chinese/english minutes was transferred to the Assistant Manager. To her credit, she immediately came upstairs to see what our concerns were. I can't believe she could have been very surprised at what she found, as I would expect an Asst Mgr to be familiarized with his/her own guest rooms, particularly the 4 "Business Suites." She seemed to appreciate our concerns and asked if I would give her some time to see what else they had available.

I was almost positive at that point that the hotel would not be able to find anything we would be comfortable with, especially since some further investigating turned up a list of guest policies including guidelines for: using rooms by the hour, taking items from the room (full price list for each item in the room) and prohibiting card playing, etc.

About 10 minutes later, the Asst Mgr called from the 16th Floor and asked us to come and take a look at Room 1617. Happily, the difference between the two rooms was night and day. Although the condoms were still on the bathroom counter and the carpet would have benefitted from a good cleaning, the room had been significantly updated. In fact the creepy walk-in closet in Rm 1017 was actually a guest bath in Rm 1617.

One final word of caution...the "No Smoking Floor" on 16 is apparently more of a suggestion than a rule. As we were leaving the 16th floor with the Asst Manager to go and retrieve our luggage, a maintenance man got off the elevator with a cigarette and continued to smoke it as he walked down the hall and right past the Asst Mgr, who didn't say a word. We could also smell the smoke coming from a few other rooms from time to time. Still much better accommodations than the first room. I'd give our second room a solid "3."

In short, the common areas in the hotel were very nice, the service at the hotel was pretty good, the food was okay, but beware the guest room they put you in!