Somer Chew Hotel

Helpful staff. Good breakfast. Good location.

Told the aircon in our allocated room wasn’t working so we were upgraded to a triple room. That just meant we had an extra bed taking up all the space, and in any event the aircon didn’t seem that great as we had to have two fans on in the room.

The staff were extremely friendly and helpful, which made our stay especially pleasant. Breakfast was excellent. I particularly enjoyed the congee and fried noodles — both were delicious. The room was very clean and well equipped, and I really appreciated having the bathroom and toilet in separate areas.

There honestly wasn’t much to complain about. The only thing worth mentioning is that toilet paper cannot be flushed down the toilet.

Breakfast and location were very good. Room was clean.

Room is tiny. Could barely even fit the bed and then no room for luggage.

We chose this hotel because of its location between the train station and three major tourist attractions on a circular route, the hotel being easy to find at some 800 metres walking distance from the train station. (we were travelling with cabin bags only - no large suit cases!) Initial impressions were positive - there was little English spoken in the reception (thank goodness for Google Translate - English to Chinese Traditional - ie, Mandarin), but the young staff were very pleasant (smiling) and efficient. Our room was adequate, with the window overlooking both a main and side street. The decor was good with quite an imaginative layout of bathroom and bedroom. Comfortable enough for our purposes on our 3-night stay. For our views on the breakfast, see the next section. For our views on the safety box, see the next section. Our overall score of 5.0 says it all about this hotel.

Our safety box didn't work - no batteries were fitted! The receptionist produced a new set of four batteries on request and we were 'away' with everything sort of secure - so we thought (if you discount that the safety box was not actually secured to a wall or any furniture!!) The next morning the electric lock refused to give us access - no response from the keypad. As the safety box was 'mobile', I took the box to reception and asked for the 'emergency' key to open the box - the key was hanging on a hook in the office, so we retrieved our passports and money - we left the box there and went to breakfast whilst Mr Kim sourced a new safety box (probably took one from an empty room) - after breakfast, a smiling Mr Kim presented us with another (working) safety box so I carried it to our room and secured our passports and money - the safety box sat comfortably in our room and was good enough not to migrate around the room and get under our feet for the rest of the stay. Security was not good for passports, money or cards - be warned. Breakfast was limited to four hot (?) choices - three Asian selections and one egg dish for Westerners (scrambled eggs for 2 days and hard boiled eggs for the last day). It is amazing what one can do with scrambled eggs and some toast. Coffee was available - only one version of coffee unfortunately (as the other 5 choices on the keypad were disabled), plus some milk if you wanted a latte!