Review of Cheng Jin Hotel

Hi All,

If any of you are planning on visiting the beautiful Yellow Mountains in Huangshan, I recommend staying at the bottom of the mountain the night prior to the hike. This way you’ll be super fresh for your hike in the morning and have somewhere to leave excess baggage.

For my visit I stayed at the Cheng Jin hotel for one night and had a twin room with breakfast at a remarkable £28 a night, that’s £14 per person…wow!! For the standard of the hotel, location and how amazing the staff were, I could not believe the price and would recommend it for your stay to visit the Yellow Mountains.

The hotel is located about 40 mins taxi ride from the South Huangshan train station. The location of the hotel is excellent as it’s a 3 min walk from the bus station. This is where you will need to go to catch the bus to cable carts that take you part way up the mountain and also catch taxi’s, mini buses to the train station. There are many shops and restaurants around the surrounding area so you can stock up on drinks, food, snacks as there aren’t many options on the mountain, so go prepared. If you are from the UK and missing home food there is a KFC about 5 mins walk from the hotel haha…sometimes you just need some greasy chicken and chips. So basically you don’t need to go far from your hotel to get everything you need.

I arrived at the hotel about 11pm at night, so my stay was super short as I was planning on leaving for my hike about 10am the following morning. On arrival at the hotel I was greeted by the owner, a super lovely lady called Chen. The check in process was quick and easy, we were shown to our room and everything regarding the heating was explained, which we definitely needed as it snowed the night we arrived and was about -5 degrees.

So a bit more about my room, It was very spacious and most importantly, it was super clean and a lot more than I expected for the price I paid. There is a tv and wi-fi available in the room which I was super happy about. One thing that annoys me the most is when wi-fi is only available in the foyer of hotels. Last thing you want is to come down in your pjs to send a text or email. Another thing I was super happy about is that the bathroom was nice and clean. I have stayed in many hotels and I feel that most hotels it’s the bathroom that lets it down. In the bathroom they had provided rubber flip-flops (which I didn’t use), shampoo and shower gel and plenty of clean white towels. Something I noticed at many of the hotels around Asia was that they have clear glass to the bathroom which was rather strange and can be a bit worrying if you are sharing a room with a friend as they can see you from the bedroom. But don’t worry as there are blinds on the inside of the bathroom so you can have a shower in private. There were some ear plugs next to each bed which I didn’t feel I needed to use as I am a pretty heavy sleeper.

After a lovely sleep I’d packed my essentials for my hike and one night stay at the top of the Yellow Mountain in my backpack. Made my way to the foyer, checked out and went over all the details of my trip with Chen. At this point Chen suggested to visit the Huangshan hot springs once we had descended the mountain the following morning and explained we didn’t need to take towels, shampoo, shower gel, all we needed was swimwear, change of underwear etc and this meant I wasn’t carrying unnecessary weight. I’m really glad she told us about this as I could ensure I packed my swimsuit, it’s not something you always have on you. Chen made the booking for us at the Hot spring, which was at a discounted rate than what we would have paid if we went direct. Most people in the area don’t speak much English at all, if any, so I was super grateful when I found Chen at our hotel, as her English is excellent (she’s self-taught) and she is super sweet and helpful. She is really clued up about the journey to the top of the mountain, so can really help you with planning your trip, from when to leave, where else to visit. She really went out of her way to ensure we had a great trip and i can’t thank her enough.

I handed over my excess baggage and checked it in with the staff at the front desk. I could leave my baggage there and collect it the following day, which was great. And bonus was I didn’t need to go very far to collect my luggage it was all within a few minutes walk, saving money on taxis. Now it was time to fuel up and have breakfast. The breakfast was basic and there isn’t a massive selection, but for the price I paid I couldn’t ask for anything else.

I really enjoyed my stay at Cheng Jin hotel and would like to say thank you to all the staff for a pleasant stay and all their help, especially Chen as she was amazing and was lovely meeting her and I was a little sad when I had to leave.

After our one night stay at the top of the mountain, we descended, made our way to the amazing hot springs and returned to the hotel to collect our luggage and say goodbye as it was time to make my way to Shanghai.