First of all, the hotel is located at a very inconvenient location. The nearest MRT station is 15 mins away from the hotel. There are no shopping malls and good restaurants adjacent to the hotel. Secondly, most of the staff I encountered was extremely rude. Third the room wasn't impressive at all. The room was extremely small and appointed in obscure tones. On the other hand, almost every room in the hotel doesn't have a decent view. If one is to glance out the window, one will only be able to see a handful of shabby buildings. The worse part was that the housekeeping lacks "common sense." I have never seen housekeeping staff intruding guest's room without prior permission. This is exactly what I encountered. Around 6 PM, a housekeeping staff entered my room without informing me. At that time, I was sleeping and half naked. I informed the front desk regarding this issue, yet the seemed to feel appropriate for housekeeping staff to enter the rooms whenever they desire. Overall, not impressed at the hotel all. For the amount I paid, I expected more than this. I would not visit the hotel again!

This hotel is very luxurious, but in a very Chinese style. It has even golden sinks in the big marble bathroom, but to me the style of the hotel was extremely old fashioned. There were some incidents that didn't fit into the 5-star luxury picture and the price. One is that the window jalousies were closed during my entire stay and couldn't be opened. Hence the room was always a little dark and no view at all. I even asked housekeeping to open these jalousies for me, but they replied that management decided to close them because of a recent self-murder... Couldn't understand this because the windows couldn't be opened anyway. At least there was an efficient aircon.

Another issue was the internet access. They offered free internet-access via the in-room TV and a cordless keyboard. However, the keyboard wasn't working well and you couldn't write emails with it. As a nice touch they offered me daily use of a laptop for 1 hour per day for free. You just have to call reception and they will send someone to set it up and take it back for you. Unfortunately one day the receptionist called me at 1 o'clock at night (when I was sleeping) to tell me that I would be charged for the laptop now since I didn't give it back after one hour. However, I had returned it back at 10pm already which he confirmed 5 mins later...

Another horrible thing is their breakfast. There is hardly anything edible for a Westerner. They only have Chinese and Japanese breakfast and the waiters don't speak English. After a few days and since I was staying for one week in total, I asked at the reception whether I could switch to a rate without included breakfast as I would have preferred going to a nearby Starbucks. However, they advised me that only a Manager could decide on this matter and no manager would be reachable until three days later (which was the last day of my stay). Upon check-out I informed the manager about these problems. She apologized and I was given a refund of the breakfast cost.

The hotel is really luxurious, but mostly frequented by Asians, not many Westerners (as the very few reviews indicate as well...) and I would not really recommend it for Western business travellers, and even less for tourists.

Stayed here during the 2004 Presidential elections.

PROS
- Newly build hotel with hi tech design. The rooms are luxurious and there are lots of luxurious touch ( eg high grade toilet wares, nice furniture, plasma television etc)
- Friendly and efficient staff.
- Small boutique hotel which is well run and imaculately maintained. Check-in was efficient and quick.

CONS
- The room I stayed in was quite small.
- The neighbourhood is quiet and the hotel is far from the subway stations. It is however quite convenient and inexpensive to travel around by taxi to major spots within Taipei.

Overall, I think this is a new and modern hotel. The service is excellent too. Recommended by me!