Chimelong Hotel
View prices for your travel dates
About
See why so many travellers make Chimelong Hotel their hotel of choice when visiting Guangzhou. Providing an ideal mix of value, comfort and convenience, it offers a family-friendly setting with an array of amenities designed for travellers like you.
For those interested in checking out Panyu Bridge (2.9 mi) while visiting Guangzhou, Chimelong Hotel is a short distance away.
Chimelong Hotel offers guests an array of room amenities including a flat screen TV and air conditioning, and getting online is possible, as free wifi is available.
The hotel offers a concierge and room service, to make your visit even more pleasant. The property also features a pool and a lounge. Guests arriving by vehicle have access to free parking.
If you like Asian restaurants, Chimelong Hotel is conveniently located near BaiHu Buffet and Lao Yang's Dumplings.
Guangzhou is also home to Leona Craig Art Gallery, a popular art gallery that is not too far from Chimelong Hotel.
At Chimelong Hotel, your comfort and satisfaction come first, and they look forward to welcoming you to Guangzhou.
Location
Reviews
- 530
- 631
- 110
- 22
- 15
- Filter
- English
We spent a total of 3 days and 2 nights at Chimelong as we did not want to rush our trip - as it turns out, it was probably the right move.
The resort consists of the main Chimelong Hotel and the surrounding theme parks and facilities. We did not visit them all, so I will just comment on the facilities we used.
We took the ferry from Hong Kong to Linhuashan harbour in Panyu. The journey took approximately 2 hours and was fairly comfortable. Upon arriving at the pier, there is a free shuttle bus which links the harbour to the hotel and the journey takes approximately 40 mins.
First impressions of the hotel is that it is very grand and clean. We reserved a "Hunter Room" requesting a non-smoking floor and double bed, both of which the hotel was able to arrange without issue. The check-in queue was quite long, but to the hotel's credit, they handled the guests very efficiently and we got our card key very soon. The distribution of bottled drinking water during the queueing by hotel staff was also a nice little touch. The room was very spacious, with a large balcony, chic themed deco, with a large bath tub, shower area and washroom. The bed was king-sized and the television had a decent selection of channels. Overall, we were very satisfied with the room.
In conclusion, we visited the circus and the zoo, and used the swimming pool as well as the restaurants. To make this review more succinct, I will provide a summary of the above:
General hotel facilities and amenities:
- The hotel is very self-sufficient and has its own restaurants, shopping centre and a convenience store. The range of restaurants both in terms of price and variety is good.
- The only minor grudge is that there are no 'independent' shops, supermarkets or convenience stores located nearby as the resort is situated in a fairly remote area in Panyu. The convenience store operating in the hotel itself has decent operating hours, although it does not open through the early hours, the selection is fairly limited and the prices are fairly steep.
- The hotel is well-designed, with good signage throughout and ramps at all parts of the hotel, which makes it exellent for those with strollers or with wheelchairs. The hotel staff are polite and well trained and were helpful throughout.
- One word of advice, however; DO NOT rely on timetable information provided on printed material, be it inside the rooms, or those in the lobby or eveb those on the website. Bus timetables, show schedules and opening and closing hours are ALL subject to change, as we learnt, and the safest bet is to enquire with the information desk in advance of your activities.
- The only big issue we had was the buffet breakfast at the white tiger restaurant, where there was no seating assistance or system so there were literally hundreds of people charging around looking for available seats and it got quite chaotic at one stage.
- I used the outdoor pool, although I am aware that there is also an indoor pool. It was quite big and quiet - the temperature was good, but the water a little murky. Decent, but not illuminating.
The Circus:
- The Circus is just across the road from the hotel. There are now 2 showing times, one at 5:30 p.m. and the other at 8:00 p.m. We chose the earlier show and thought this worked better for us with a young child as the show finished earlier and thus we could rest earlier. There were also fewer people which made it more comfortable. It is noteworthy that hotel guests have their own reserved area and avoid the first five rows if you don't want to get wet!
- Overall, its no Cirque Du Soleil, but it was still extremely entertaining and well worth the visit. Unfortunately, as with most circuses however, animal welfare is not their strong point.
The Zoo:
- This requires a short shuttle bus ride from the hotel. The outbound journey was fairly harmless.
- The zoo itself is quite big with a very respectable range of animals. They make a half decent attempt at wildlife education, but at times the conditions for some animals was still found wanting.
- Surprisingly, the price of the food and drinks inside the zoo was comparatively very cheap, and would recommend hotel guests 'stocking up' before they returned to their rooms;
- I would recommend hotel guests to take a taxi back to the hotel after they finish at the zoo. The outbound shuttle bus drops the guests off at the South Gate of the zoo, but due to the design of the zoo, most visitors leave at the zoo's north gate. While there is a free shuttle bus taking guests back, this takes them as far as the south gate and then guests are required to change buses. In short, there is a huge shortage of both buses during peak hours and having viewed the buses from the taxi as we drove by, they were ridiculously crammed, making rush hour mtr in Hong Kong look like child's play. A cheap taxi ride back cannot be missed.
But, this is also a pretty good business hotel. Internet is free and steadiest from the rooms closest to the new lobby. The business center is very helpful, and can book you tickets, get your printing job done, and will follow through on whatever you might need. There is a small grocery store onsite that sells beer/wine/liquor. Cash exchange machines are readily available, as are a one day laundry service, cocktail lounges, a medic, and even an excellent cheeseburger and fries! (Believe me, after a couple of weeks in China you will crave this.)
There are several restaurant choices, depending upon your mood - from a gigantic buffet, to traditional Chinese dim sum, sushi bar/restaurant, to upscale steak/chophouse.
The pool is a Polynesian themed family fun zone, and very large, with sun bathing all around.
A real adult treat is a session at the exercise facilities - Olympic sized pool, spring fed hot baths, weight room, plenty of treadmills and cardio equipment.
Or book a message - very reasonably priced, and oh soooooo relaxing after a hard day of herding kiddies at the theme park, or negotiating a deal with your Asian customers.
Room service is quick and good. The cleaning staff is careful, thorough, and honest. The smoking seems to have been relegated to outside only now that there is a government crack down. Buses shuttle you everywhere, and subway transport into Guangzhou proper is right on property.
But, be aware that this is China. For western guests you must realize that extended families often book several rooms on one floor and spend most of the night going back and forth between them and chatting loudly in the halls. The "one child" policy has resulted in a generation of very indulged little people who seem to get the run of the house with their full "scream" on. That said the staff is very helpful in visiting the floors and trying to contain the noise, or locating you away from floors full of children. Beds are hard, like everywhere in China. But the rooms are very nicely decorated, and each afternoon you will find a basket of fruit, and often some little stuffed animals upon your arrival.
The staff does a great job at trying to deliver western style service to a Chinese crowd. Sometime the staff doesn't quite get why we "Guilos" want things a certain way, but they will accommodate you and learn from the experience. And you'll see them try to "westernize" their Chinese clientele, who often seem to resist at every turn. Sometimes everything is lost in translation, but it is a fun experience to see these two cultures bumping up against each other in a family environment.
I always enjoy my time here, and have spent a total of 6 months here through out the years doing business. So, if anyone has questions, I'd be more than happy to help.
There was ONE pool and ONE gym room for the whole hotel, and these actually belonged to the original complex so no new gym rooms or pools were constructed as part of the lavish extension block.
The rooms were OK, but given the price of our package, you could have enjoyed a lot more for a better price in CBD Guangzhou or add a little more for Thailand/Hainan etc.
Rooms are clean, big and well lit. There is no free stuff in the room however. The only thing they give for free is 2 bottles of water everyday As we needed a lot of water we had to pay 20 RMB for 2 small bottles. You may get them free in the lobby though which is a rip off.
The Circus there is pretty good and well worth the money. We enjoyed a lot there. Some acts were unbelievable and highly professional.
The main issue in the whole resort is they don' speak English at all. I was just trying to get Bread Butter in my room but they did not understand what I said. Plain refusal of anything they dont understand. Even the staff in the Restaurant Areas dont speak English at all.
Buffet Breakfast was awesome and had plenty of choices.
1 Tip: Go to Breakfast as early as 7:30 - 8:00 AM on Weekends otherwise you will stand in queue and wait approx 30 mins for eating. This 1000 seater restaurant also gets packed usually. We were lucky as we ran in around 8 AM and got the best White Tiger View Seats around.
I would suggest international tourists to get Chinese Printouts of everything they want to ask people as no one speaks good English.
We purchased a combo deal which had a night accommodation, breakfast, lunch and access to one of the parks as VIP. This gave us 8 rides with fast pass.
The room, located on the top floor of the older part of he hotel was beautiful and massive!! The bed and bathroom was huge and even had some English tv channels on tv! They had thought of everything, even the bathroom products were beautifully crafted and some fresh fruit on arrival was a nice touch too.
We thought the buffet breakfast and lunch would be average but it’s was actually amazing. Every food you could want and more! If you get lunch - you get a massive dessert spread! We got to breakfast early on opening and got a great seat next to the white tigers.
The staff are so helpful and I will be back! Recommend!
At the lobby is a view of the white tigers, while the resto had flamingos.
Wifi is very erratic all over the hotel grounds. I checked the signal in the room, bathroom, lobby, restaurant. All areas had issues and its not because certain websites are restrictes. At best, speed is 2.8mbps, but most of the times i checked, was as low as 0.4 mbs to 1.4mbps.
Maybe if i went during off peak, i may give one extra star/bubble but no way they deserve 4 or more.
Bedrooms were big, beds were very firm almost stiff. Bathrooms were nice and fully supplied.
Myself, did check in and check out at odd timings, and that's why I couldn't find any problem in these. But I could see real crowds at the front desk during peak times. Room service took 1 hour to get me an adaptor to charge my phone, that too after 3-4 reminders.
I needed to pay for my break fast as it was not included in my room rent. It was too expensive in my point, around 25 USD. In the break fast hall, it was too crowded in real, you have to sometimes run for a table if you are alone. It was really funny thing, that I had to find another table after finishing my first set. When I went to take my second plate another group captured my table...ha ha...
Let me point out certain good things too...My room was big with all things kept in place...Big cupboard, big LCD, big toilet and a big balcony too. Daily you get 2 bottles of water, fruits, toys for your kids as complimentary. The wi fi was full free and it was too strong too. I could get the signal even 100 meters away from the hotel...
After all, what I can say, it's not a hotel worth spending USD 140+ a night for a business traveler like me...But if you consider all the factors like nearby safari park and amusement park and you are here for a complete leisure trip with your family, this is your destination for sure !!!!
Reservation and Check-in (score 3 out of 5):
We only booked the day before arrival and hence our choice of rooms was limited, making us pay 2,000 RMB for one of the top end suites. That wasn't easy though because when calling the hotel reservation desk, we were told that this specific available room would be 3,600 RMB and "the price advertised online on the Chimelong hotel website is not valid and cannot be booked". Nevertheless we went ahead with the online booking and got a confirmation for the suite for 2,000 RMB. Calling back to the reservation desk once more to confirm, yielded a "we usually honor the website bookings but can only guarantee the room availability upon check-in". Not exactly 5* service.
Actual check-in at the hotel the day after was fairly smooth despite the long queues. So no issues there.
Room (3 out of 5):
As mentioned above, our room was a top end suite with a large dining/living room and an adjacent bedroom with large bathroom. It had the usual hardware like flatscreen TV, etc. Some people might like a dimly lit room and the dark colors chosen, but we felt it was too dark as we could not light up any additional lamps to make the room more airy. The whole color scheme was something that i would call 'grandma style' i.e. brown/beige carpet, brown pillows, old-fashioned wallpaper, etc. Not exciting and especially not great for a suite.
However the most intriguing thing was that the room sorely lacked on accessories which you would consider normal for a suite in such a hotel: Hair conditioner? Some fruits? A sewing set (which we happened to need)? The basics were all there but certainly nothing more.
Restaurants (3 out of 5):
We saw the White Tiger Restaurant and were not enticed by it. In the end we went to the Butterfly Gourmet restaurant which served Sichuan cuisine. The look and feel is more like a big canteen (noisy, spacious, waiters running around the whole time) but the food was pretty good! We liked almost every dish that we chose - not perfect but still very solid. The annoying thing was the 15% service charge which was imposed on us without providing much service, e.g. we needed some tissues -> 3RMB extra.
Taxi Service (1 out of 5);
From the hotel taxi queue we took a taxi to the city center of Guangzhou. As soon as we drove off, the taxi driver stopped the meter and asked us what we pay. His opening bid was 150 RMB, which sounded ridiculous to us. Annoyed by having the meter turned off but not wanting the whole family including baby to get dropped off in nowhereland (which we reached by then) my wife went along and negotiated with the driver in Chinese. We were willing to pay 100 RMB which was our best bet of what the true cost should be. After a while the driver asked 130 and we offered 120. Annoyed by the whole episode, my wife called the hotel reception desk only to be told that 120 RMB is the right price. We paid 120 RMB in the end and since the hotel confirmed the price, we felt nothing special. The taxi driver went on to tell us how the hotel used to employ corrupt staff at the taxi desk who would take a cut from the taxi drivers who then had to overcharge the passengers. Fortunately the bad guys were let go and now passengers pay the ‘real price’. Well, great.
The only bad thing was that upon return from the city center to Chimelong hotel, we paid exactly half, i.e. 60 RMB for a trip that was measured in a regular meter. So the first taxi overcharged us by 60 RMB and the hotel confirmed such a price! It should be more than obvious that the hotel still employs and accepts corrupt practices.
Check-out (1 out of 5):
Unfortunately our experience did not get better from there. The next day morning 10am we wanted to see whether we could check out late (4pm) and hence visit the zoo and return to our room to freshen up before returning to Hong Kong. The lady from the front desk offered 1pm but did share with us that the room has not been booked the day after. We asked whether we can speak to the Assistant Manager to discuss an arrangement that is more suitable for us, and the front desk lady promised that he will call us back ‘shortly’.
Come 11am, we still hadn’t heard from the Assistant Manager so we called again. After some negotiation, the front desk again promised that he will call back ‘shortly’. 11.30am we called again as we hadn’t heard anything (and were ready to leave for the zoo). First our call was not being picked up anymore even after repeatedly calling the front desk. Then it was picked up but we got hung up as soon as we mentioned our room number. Slightly frustrated, we called the operator and asked to be put through to the Assistant Manager. That did not go through either, but 5 minutes later, the Assistant Manager, Ivan Chan, finally called back. I repeated our request for a free late check-out at 4pm since the room was not used. He went through the usual arguments (‘room could be used by someone booking late’, etc.) upon which I shared with him our frustration of the expensive room with lacking amenities, 15% service charge at the restaurant and his lack of calling us back for 1.5 hours. I also highlighted the corruption at the hotel taxi desk upon which his answer was that ‘there are always some bad staff, we can’t do anything about it’. Generally he brushed us off with one-word answers and said ‘3pm’, which probably meant that we could check out at 3pm at best.
Don’t get me wrong: A friendly but firm answer saying that a 4pm free checkout is not possible would not be unexpected for us as I can fully understand the reasons why hotels cannot do this under normal circumstances. It was really the staff attitude including Assistant Manager Ivan Chan that made the whole experience so much worse and really left us with a sour aftertaste.
We left it with Ivan Chan and tried to call back to speak to his manager. That was entirely impossible from the hotel room phone, as our number was by then blocked by the staff (we tried about 20 times). Hence we used our mobile phone and called the general hotel number from where we asked through to the manager of Ivan Chan, a Mr Chen. We didn’t reach him but were asked to share our issues once more.
2 hours later Mr Chen indeed called and gave the very first impression of basic customer service skills for this hotel. In a soft voice he apologized for the behavior of his staff and promised to take remedy action on our issues (taxi stand, restaurant fees, etc.). Another 2 hours later, he called again and shared two news: Ivan Chan had received a ‘warning letter’ for his behavior and the taxi company has been warned on the behavior of their driver. We reminded Mr Chen that this was all fine but not really to make us happy, upon which we offered a 25% discount voucher for one of their restaurants. Nice but meaningless since we had already checked out…
Last but not least, we learned that the hotel lost its 5* and is now officially a 4* hotel only. My view would be that for service, it’s probably more like 2 or 3*.
"Ask for a non-smoking room if you are a non-smoker as it doesn't come by default in China."Read full review
"Ask for a room that is not too far from the lobby and dining area so you don't have to walk too much."Read full review
"Ask for a room near the main building entrance if you have young children or elderly, to minimise long walks to the restaurants etc"Read full review
Own or manage this property? Claim your listing for free to respond to reviews, update your profile and much more.
Claim Your Listing