My wife and I were travelling on business, and a Chinese colleague booked this hotel because it was directly adjacent to the Design Institute where we had several days of meetings. This hotel is primarilly frequented by government & military personell who typically smoke very heavily, in all the rooms, hallways, elevators, & lobby. My wife has a very mild asthma condition, but within 10 minutes of arrival was gasping for air. Hotel staff was very kind (although none spoke english), and had us look at 4 different rooms, all of which reeked of smoke, a couple of which you could actually still see the cloud. We determined we could not stay the night, and the hotel staff arranged a room for us just down the street at the Grand Metro Park Hotel. It was about 50% more expensive, but had an actual non-smoking floor, and is a true 4 star hotel. As of July 07 renovations at the Golden Sun were underway, contributing to more dust and new carpet odor, but I'd say it should be settled down for the '08 olympics. This place is OK if you are a smoker. On a more positive note, they have a great resturant for lunch & dinner - best Chinese food I had while in Beijing.

My wife and I were travelling on business, and a Chinese colleague booked this hotel because it was directly adjacent to the Design Institute where we had several days of meetings. This hotel is primarilly frequented by government & military personell who typically smoke very heavily, in all the rooms, hallways, elevators, & lobby. My wife has a very mild asthma condition, but within 10 minutes of arrival was gasping for air. Hotel staff was very kind (although none spoke english), and had us look at 4 different rooms, all of which reeked of smoke, a couple of which you could actually still see the cloud. We determined we could not stay the night, and the hotel staff arranged a room for us just down the street at the Grand Metro Park Hotel. It was about 50% more expensive, but had an actual non-smoking floor, and is a true 4 star hotel. As of July 07 renovations at the Golden Sun were underway, contributing to more dust and new carpet odor, but I'd say it should be settled down for the '08 olympics. This place is OK if you are a smoker. On a more positive note, they have a great resturant for lunch & dinner - best Chinese food I had while in Beijing.

I stayed at this hotel on June 20-25, 2007. As you can see from the hotel map web site, this hotel is not in a central location as advertised. I requested a non-smoking room. According to the hotel my room was a non-smoking room and it was on a non-smoking floor. However, in the hallway was a floor ash tray. The room was also equipped with 3 ash trays with matchboxes, two in the bedroom and the other in the bathroom. There were cigarette burns on the carpet and a used match laying on the bathroom floor. The smell indicated that a lot of smoking had occurred in the room. After I first saw the room, I went back to front desk at once. Through the translation of our tour guide, the front desk person insisted that the room was non-smoking. I requested to get the room changed and was shown 2 additional rooms, which were in similar or worse condition than the one I was assigned. I had no choice but to stay at this hotel on the first night leaving the window open according to the hotel staff's suggestion. On the 2nd night, I requested a fan to help circulating the air in the room but was told that there was none available. After the second night, none of the rooms of the tour group that I went with were made and there were no clean towels (although they had been made on the previous night). Some of the people in the group who could speak Mandarin requested that the rooms be made and were told that it was the hotel policy to make the rooms upon the guest's request only and not automatically. We could not understand how the hotel policy could be changed overnight. On the good side, the breakfast buffet was good and the restaurant staff was courteous. Overall, the hotel staff seemed eager to help, although in reality they weren't really helpful at solving any problems. If I would compare this hotel to American hotels, Golden Sun would be comparable to the cheapest $25 a night motel chains.

I stayed at this hotel on June 20-25, 2007. As you can see from the hotel map web site, this hotel is not in a central location as advertised. I requested a non-smoking room. According to the hotel my room was a non-smoking room and it was on a non-smoking floor. However, in the hallway was a floor ash tray. The room was also equipped with 3 ash trays with matchboxes, two in the bedroom and the other in the bathroom. There were cigarette burns on the carpet and a used match laying on the bathroom floor. The smell indicated that a lot of smoking had occurred in the room. After I first saw the room, I went back to front desk at once. Through the translation of our tour guide, the front desk person insisted that the room was non-smoking. I requested to get the room changed and was shown 2 additional rooms, which were in similar or worse condition than the one I was assigned. I had no choice but to stay at this hotel on the first night leaving the window open according to the hotel staff's suggestion. On the 2nd night, I requested a fan to help circulating the air in the room but was told that there was none available. After the second night, none of the rooms of the tour group that I went with were made and there were no clean towels (although they had been made on the previous night). Some of the people in the group who could speak Mandarin requested that the rooms be made and were told that it was the hotel policy to make the rooms upon the guest's request only and not automatically. We could not understand how the hotel policy could be changed overnight. On the good side, the breakfast buffet was good and the restaurant staff was courteous. Overall, the hotel staff seemed eager to help, although in reality they weren't really helpful at solving any problems. If I would compare this hotel to American hotels, Golden Sun would be comparable to the cheapest $25 a night motel chains.