Lake Hotel

We liked the location near the river and the suspension pedestrian bridge - a lovely, green location - walking distance from Xindian MRT station, which is less then half an hour from the old center of Taipei, as well as from a bus stop for a trip to Wulai hot spring spa town. The hotel was easy to find and the check-in was OK (though they asked for a 500 NTD deposit for the second room card, was returned on check-out) , the room was large, including both a shower and a bath ( but see negatives below) , the bed was comfortable, there was a desk for writing, kettle, fridge, sofa, wardrobe, coffee table, bedside lamps, sockets. The room looked clean, though unfortunately it didn´t smell fresh - see negatives below. The breakfast was in a pleasant restaurant room, the usual Asian breakfast dishes, as well as some bread, butter, jam, cereals to cater for the Western taste, coffee and teas quite good. Despite the negatives mentioned below, we enjoyed our 2-night stay, though I would hesitate to recommend this hotel for a longer stay. Also, the value for the money wasn´ t so great, compared to our other stays in Taiwan.

The first impression of the room was a musty smell, especially from the bathroom, which we couldn´t get rid of - it´s not possible to air the room, only through the air-conditioning. It wasn´t too bad to sleep in after spending the day out sight-seeing, but you probably wouldn´t be satisfied spending much time there or being there with small children. There were some issues with electricity - the jacuzzi started running really noisily and mysteriously after the bath tub was emptied, we managed to turn it off by trial and error; same for the really useless and inefficiient hairdryer, which kept switching off after a minute of use and then when hung in the holder it started running again all of a sudden. They didn´t tell us that a shuttle to the station, which they offer, has to be ordered an hour in advance.