Friends took us to the Bishuiwan Hot Spring Holiday Inn last weekend and I was blown away. It was a wonderful experience, the springs were awesome - clean and inviting - and the staff could not have been friendlier or more professional. It won Best Hotel for Tourism in the whole of China in 2008, and I'm not surprised.

The springs themselves are well worth a visit. We arrived in the evening and I was pleased and surprised that the springs were open until 1am, so we spent the evening enjoying the huge number of pools with different (allegedly!) therapeutic values, such as the tea pool, the coffee pool, the wine (yes, wine!) pool and many many many more. There were 2 fish pools that we found, 1 with Indonesian fish and one with Turkish fish, both there to nibble the dry hard skin from your feel. Sounds disgusting (!), but once you get past how much their nibbling tickles, it's surprisingly enjoyable!

The massages were great, they are an extra cost but worth it in my opinion. You can opt for short 20-30 minute massages on your head, or legs, or neck, back and shoulders, and so on. They are about 38-48 RMB per massage. Longer, deeper Thai or other massages for 90 minutes cost around 250 RMB.

We stayed in the most basic room, which still cost around 1180 RMB for 1 night. But the room was great - clean, full of complimentary toiletries and fruit. The large, flat-screen TV has lots of channels, but be warned as with most hotels, they are almost all in Chinese. On a few channels they have some English language programmes and movies, so you'll have to keep flicking through until you find something worth watching!

We went to bed around 1am and unfortunately the room next door held some very happy, noisy people so I couldn't get to sleep until around 3am. I didn't bother calling the reception, because I wasn't sure if they would understand what I was saying (a previous experience in another hotel in Guangzhou meant I am loathe to use the telephone to convey a problem to reception). I mentioned it to my friends in the morning and they told the reception staff. We checked out after breakfast as checkout time is before 12pm, and we wanted to use the hot pools again until ready to leave mid-afternoon (if you stay at the hotel you can use the facilities all day on the day you checkout) and as we were leaving the room, one reception staff member arrived with apology teddies for us, which I have given to my delighted daughters! I was amazed at the care and concern they showed toward us and just left me with such a positive experience of this hotel that I would love to go back when I next visit Guangzhou. The reception manager even gave me a little card (in Chinese), addressed to me and handwritten by her, thanking us for staying and hoping that we had enjoyed ourselves and would return soon. Little touches like that are the difference between a good hotel and a fabulous one, in my opinion.