I always give five-star reviews, but this is the first time I'm writing a negative one! This was also the only disappointing, even infuriating, part of my trip to Harbin. Based on my positive experience at Atour Hotels in Beijing, I decisively booked two nights at the Atour Hotel on Central Street in Harbin. At 3 PM that day, the front desk called to confirm my reservation, and I confirmed I would be staying for two nights. Due to heavy rain, I didn't arrive at the hotel until 6 PM. After checking in, I entered the room and saw two pillars, one of which was right in the middle of the room. This was not mentioned at all during check-in. Because I was in a hurry to take my child out for dinner, I only discussed the room issue with the front desk after we returned. They said they could change my room tomorrow. I asked why such a room wasn't mentioned beforehand, and their explanation was: 'We had no other rooms available.'
The next day, I went to the front desk to request a room change. The front desk told me I had to hand in my old room card first before they could make a new one. Their reason was that if they made a new card, the original room would become 'dirty' (meaning ready for cleaning), and they were afraid housekeeping would disturb us. They asked me to confirm that my belongings were packed, then call the front desk. After packing my luggage, I called the front desk, and a robot came to deliver the new room card and collect the old one. At this point, Atour Hotel had thoroughly disappointed me.
There are three reasons:
First, this type of room, which significantly impacts the living experience, was sold at the normal price of 600-700 per night, and the front desk did not inform me about it at all during check-in.
Second, from the first time I raised the room issue until the room change, not a single front desk staff member expressed any apology. The entire communication and room change process felt completely impersonal. Even when I asked why they couldn't give me the new room card first, the front desk seemed impatient. I've had experiences at other hotels where I extended my stay but needed to change rooms. In those cases, they specifically brought the new room card to me and chose the closest available room to make moving my luggage easier. After I settled in, they would then notify housekeeping to service the old room. When traveling with family, packing luggage is a hassle and takes time; no one wants to change accommodations in the middle of their stay unnecessarily! In contrast, Atour Hotel, despite it clearly being their problem and causing me inconvenience, didn't seem to think anything was wrong and simply processed the room change procedurally.
Third, in all my years of staying at hotels, the front desk staff I've encountered have always been professional, warm, and attentive. Atour's front desk staff are truly far worse than the housekeeping aunties. If everything is just handled by procedure with no service awareness, they might as well replace everyone with robots – at least robots wouldn't be impatient!
Original TextTranslation provided by AI