Review: Stay Home
This trip was like an encounter with prehistoric man and a case study of a failed business combined.
If you book a standard room, you will be taken away from the five star reception area to another building which has the decor and standards of a thirty year old hotel. Faded carpets, peeling walls, smelly interiors, uncleaned floors and rooms which are impossible to heat. But it was just about liveable, in that it had a bed and hot water. What totally failed to impress were the amenities. We'd come for the children's stuff, the little zoo, water park and others. The price of these are not included in the hotel, and for each experience they charge adults and baby to the tune of 80rmb, meaning you will spend quite a bit to use it all. As soon as I saw the children's rides I became depressed, they were rusting and looked murderous, as if the nuts and bolts would be dislodged and explode fatally in all directions if a kid shook too heavily on the things. To even use anything suggested you'd become unclean as well. Then you attempt to ask staff something but stop when you realise how futile it would be to address someone with one eye in its forehead and the other in its chin, with their peers boasting similarly fascinating facial misalignments. An hour of that and we wanted to leave, including our baby. She would have been much happier at home playing with her toys, or rather just happy at home doing anything than being at the Nirvana resort. Anyway, the swimming pool is not free either, they will charge you 58 a person including child. When I went to ask about a swim, staff were downright stunned I'd walked in to ask such a question, watching as I entered and left with hillbilly intensity and incomprehension.
You can see the park had a lot of money invested in it before, way back in the misty past, but I can't see them recouping their losses. The resort is a grab money scheme with separate interests taking care of, or neglecting, what is on offer. I can't see them attracting a moneyed middle class without a total overhaul.
On the plus side, my wife and I did have a good laugh about how bad it was and the fact we'd packed for a few days in expectation of a holiday, but found ourselves cancelling after an hour. The reception was helpful with this and refunded our money. The staff are well meaning in a vacuous kind of way, going about their duties as the whole place drops about them, broken lifts, falling plaster, water leaks and all. But to be sincerely positive, the gardens are pleasant along with the lake and ducks.
