This is an old hotel that has recently (probably last year) changed management and gotten a new name. The new owner might have done up the lobby and the 2nd level and also put some "artsy" touch to the common areas, but most parts of the hotel have probably not been refreshed.
The hotel is located in a boring neighbourhood, with nothing of interest nearby: there wasn't any shopping area, parks, places of interest, etc. There are some supermart nearby, and lots of local food shops in the area, though.
The check-in process was smooth, and the stuff I encountered were friendly.
I had a room near the top floor. While taking the elevator up, I was surprised that the elevator travelled fast (perhaps they have upgraded the elevator).
The room was very spacious; I've found that older hotels tended to have larger rooms. The room retained everything from the previous management, even the tissue paper holder had the previous hotel's name printed on it. The decor was old style, dark maroon-coloured furniture, very 70's or 80's feel. The carpet looks old, worn out, and somewhat dirty at certain area.
Lighting wasn't adequate in the room. There wasn't any ceiling light (other than at the entrance), and lighting was provided mainly by a lamp at the desk, on one side of the bed, and a standing lamp; In fact, the bathroom was the brightest area in the room.
The bathroom has a large window looking out to the room, so anyone in the room gets a full view of the bathroom (I could never understand why so many hotels in Taiwan like to put a big window at the bathroom. Even though there was a blind that could be lowered, the whole setup still felt weird.) This also means that the light from the bathroom helped to make the room brighter.
There was a flat screen TV (not a CRT, which was good), but the reception wasn't very good: many of the channels had noisy pictures.
There was a safe in the wardrobe, and one large enough to place a 15-inch notebook computer within (plus point!). However, the safe wasn't bolted to the floor or the wall, which meant anyone could just carry the safe and walk away (minus point!).
The view outside the room was good (after all, I was on a high floor), and I can even see the nearby mountains to the east.
Breakfast starts at 6:30 am, which is earlier than many other Taiwanese hotels I've stayed in (some start as late as 7:30 am!) The breakfast spread was surprisingly good with quite a variety of dishes, though most dishes were still Chinese-style. The food selection didn't seem to change from day to day, though.
The hotel has a gym on the 6th floor; however, you have to get to it from the 7th floor. They have a really old treadmill, elliptical trainer, exercise bike, and other equipment. The treadmill was old and didn't function well: if you choose the manual program and didn't adjust any settings, it worked; otherwise, the machine resets itself every now and then which was a pain to use. I used the gym multiple times during my stay, but have not met other hotel guest using it; perhaps the gym wasn't well used.
The hotel provides free laundry service, apparently to a certain category of guests. Each day, I could send 5 items of clothing for washing: I just need to put them in a hotel-provided bag, fill in a form, send it to the front desk before 10 am, and they will send the washed, dried, folded, items back to the room in the afternoon. While the hotel has a laundromat (which you'd have to pay to use the washer and dryer), this free service was convenient; as long as I plan my washings carefully.
Internet access speed was adequate: I measured download speed of 4.88Mbps. In comparison, the download speed on my 4G mobile phone was above 130Mbps! However, the wifi wasn't stable: my computer got disconnected every now and then.
A minor annoyance, though, was that the hotel takes in tour groups from a neighbouring country. These guests were loud and inconsiderate, they would talk loudly outside the hallway late at night and early in the morning as if the whole place belongs to them. Breakfast time felt like a war zone, as they scrambled to grab food, talked loudly and even shouted across the dining hall!
Overall, I would rate this stay as average. I wouldn't mind staying here as it was near to the place I had meetings. If I were on vacation, I would have chosen a better location. Additionally, I would have preferred a hotel that doesn't cater to tour groups from the neighbouring country, so I don't have to put up with their annoying behaviour.
SG