Passage d'Eau Hotel

Excellent hostel. Big rooms, big communal spaces, big bed with light and plugs, big locker. Everything comfortable and excellent service. Also excellent locational the deeper west end of the Xizha scenic area, so that you get to walk through the entire place again the next morning with few people there. I had a special problem where I forgot something as my last hotel. 2 lovely staff members, one from previous night and one from next morning both agreed to communicate on the phone with my last hotel to help me find and coordinate the item pickup. I am forever happy and grateful for this wonderful place.

Overall is about 3.5/5. The lighting all very dull, and the location a bit deep inside, cleanliness overall still ok. The staffs are very helpful and friendly. Breakfast are good.

Reception staff at Tourist Centre helped with registration. Then one is free to explore as the staff will arrange for luggage to be delivered (via boat) to the booked accommodation, saving a great deal of hassle as the cobblestone streets are not exactly easy to negotiate if one is to drag large luggage around town. There is also the free shuttle service 24/7 which will ferry you anywhere along a fixed route in both directions, completely feee of charge. The hotel is located in a nice and quiet spot in this ancient Chinese watertown with nice ambiance perfect for relaxation. Room is a bit aged but expectedly so given the history. The room is clean with basic amenities available. Front desk staff are helpful and polite. Breakfast is not on-site. You need to walk some 3-4 minutes to the hotel next door and dine then. You can also choose to have breakfast at the stalls 早茶客along a morning market area near the stage with scheduled Chinese cultural performance, but you would need to ask the front desk staff to pre book as there is a quota for each day. When you ask the staff to book for早茶客it is advisable to check back the date you want - we wanted to go on the first morning as well be leaving early on the second morning for Shanghai, the staff mistakenly booked for second morning, we only found out after spending 20 minutes trying to figure out why we were unable to order, had to call the hotel reception and later found out that it was wrong date booked. Checkout process was straight forward. Done within 1 minute. Overall a nice 2-day stay.