The Regal Plaza in Hangzhou is supposed to be a "5-star Deluxe" decorated business hotel and the decoration is a bit of a joke. We stayed on the 20th floor and while the room was nice enough and the view was good, the decor in the corridors was appalling! Wallpaper was peeling off the walls and a couple of large walls had been stripped bare and were badly water damaged and it looked like they had been left that way for months. We found the hotel staff unfriendly and very reluctant to help at all. The porter at first refused to take our luggage to the room and looked very put out when he was finally told to. We tried to order a taxi to take us to the bus station and were told that we would have to come down to reception first and then they would have one stand by because taxis don't like to wait. When we got to reception and went outside to get a taxi, the driver said that he couldn't take us because he was waiting for someone and that we should have asked the hotel to reserve a taxi for us! That aside, the room was OK, the view was good, the breakfast was good and it was convenient being central, but for a 5-star hotel to be so unfriendly and so unhelpful and for the decor to be in such a state, I definitely wouldn't stay there again. My advice would be to pay a bit extra and stay at the Radisson opposite.

I booked this hotel through a well known asian online hotel reservation service, and the room was pre-paid, (for the very reasonable rate of $65/nt complete) so perhaps the fact that the room was pre-paid is why I was able to avoid the problems mentioned by a couple of earlier reviewers. Frankly, I was surprised with those poor reviews, because I felt that the Regal Plaza was more than satisfactory - certainly a legit 3.5-4* hotel by international standards - comparable to a typical American big city Marriott or Hilton. The room was fairly small, but quite beautifully appointed - with none of the ergonomic problems complained about by the earlier reviewers, and an extremely comfortable bed and stylish but small bathroom. It was a pleasant ~1.5 km walk to west lake, in the heart of Hangzhou's downtown shopping district. I found the buffet in the 2nd floor restaurant to be OK, and entirely uneventful. I had to catch a very early flight, and they concierge arranged my very early morning taxi with no hiccups at all.

Was provided a suite upon checking in. The room had a separate living room, bedroom, two televisions and two bathrooms. The king size bed was round in shape, and the bedding was very comfortable. Had cocktails at the bar, and ate dinner at the buffet. The buffet was average at best, but decent western food for a Chinese hotel. The bathroom was nice with a pedestal bathtub, but there was no stand up shower or shower curtain in the tub, similar to many European hotels. Needless to say, I made a huge mess after showering, and needed 3 towels to soak up the water on the floor. Staff did not speak very good English. Would possibly stay again if in Hangzhou, but I may consider the Radisson across the street that looked a little better.

We stayed here on business, there were 4 of us - two rooms were booked. We called to confirm that we would be late arriving that evening (we had friends also staying who phoned to say they would arrive late, were told okay and then when they arrived found their rooms cancelled). That should of warned us - when we arrived, luckily we had rooms, but they wanted to give us different rooms from those booked, despite having just confirmed that our booking was all okay. Eventually we got to our rooms - we had an excutive studio - the room was nice, spacious etc The food is terrible in general - our friends had dinner on the 2nd floor resturant and told us quite strongly to give it a miss. The next morning we had breakfast, coffee was watery, food was very, very average and overall the staff just do not know what to do with you or even how to answer your questions. The simplest question can often involve you explaining and re-explaining yourself to 3 or more different people. Like the rooms but the staff service and attiude is not up to the standard of the rooms.

They call themselves a 5 star hotels, I say a couple of the stars burned out! Like the reviewer before me who is my friend, we encountered numerous problems with the service. We were traveling with our 2 children and booked adjoining rooms so the girls could have their own. We too called to confirm our late arrival and the adjoining rooms, and were assured all was ok, but upon arrival found our rooms cancelled. They came up with an unsatisfactory solution of putting the girls at one end of the hall and us at the other. They finally came up with 2 rooms that were down the hall from each other and insisted they were all that there was left. We took them as we had no choice. Meanwhile I decided to call my friend (see her review) who was also arriving late with a party of 4. We had to negotiate rooms for her even though she too had already confirmed her booking. They finally came up with a solution for her. They said they could give them two rooms, an executive suite and a standard room that were side by side, they should be happy with that. We were appauled because that is exactly what we needed and had spent 45 minutes asking for. We asked to take those rooms as my friend's party were all adults and being down the hall from each other was no big deal. They reluctantly agreed after some discussion. That is not it though! We had an incident in the 2nd floor buffet resturaunt where someone took my wife's chair while she was getting some food and put a cigarette out in her plate in the process. When she and I returned to our table we were shocked at the discovery. After finding the culprit an argument occured. The hotel staff stood by completely paralyzed and offered no assistance. Like I said, Lower Your Expectations if you want to stay at this "5 star" hotel.