Swiss Grand Xiamen

It is a 5 * in China hotel.( not Swiss).We stayed in a suite on 27 th floor so had a magnificent view . The suite has old Chinese features but had a floor bed reminiscent of Japan. The restaurant on the 2nd floor serves breakfast. It is just average in quality. The executive lounge serves breakfast too but less variety . The food seems better too. The afternoon tea is good and the executive lounge serves a small selection of food. The staff , however , is EXCELLENT. Very helpful and professional. We are satisfied with our stay.

Check in to Swiss due to train services disrupted by Super typhoon Doksuri. Had a good sleep and catch the early train to Longyan next morning.

Located on Xiamen harbour front, the Swiss Grand Hotel offers a front row seat of Gulangyu Island and panoramic views across the bay. This is the real selling point. It's not the newest of hotels, more Grandad than Grandeur, but has lots of charm and grace. The rooms are good, a little tired in places and as others have stated, the placing of products in the room that are 'chargeable extras' is a bit old school. The breakfast buffet was superb. A lot of choice and variety and the serving times allowed for early starts or if you fancied a layin. We stayed for 5 nights and still enjoyed every visit. Staying with young Children, there is a kids soft play area, though this is a chargeable extra. A lot of hotels are offering this facility, but why they charge hotel guests to use is not great. The play area in general was OK and offers a variety of activities, but the scalextric track did not work (and costs extra to use), some of the ball pool vacuum pipes didn't work, and why oh why did someone think hard wood pellets is a great material to put in a soft play. It kills your feet walking on it, and the small hard pieces are a serious risk to very young kids. Location wise, this hotel wins over many better, newer hotels. A few tips/heads up: The ferry for tourists is not adjacent to the hotel as you may be led to believe. Its a 15 min taxi ride up stream to the 'international cruise terminal'. Buying tickets of you don't have a Chinese ID card is a pain and the overall hassel of it all makes you question is it worth it. Buy or borrow a good pair of binoculars and sit in your room. Xiamen Railway Station is not as near as you think. Give yourself at least an hour if catching a train. We missed ours due to heavy traffic. Taxis are plenty, though its convenient if you can book the Uber style cars. With our amount of luggage and my foreign face many local taxis didn't want to take us. With 3 young kids I can kind of understand. The red Sightseeing bus is not particularly great for seeing sights. Far better to walk about or use the metro. A lot of the main urban attractions are within walking distance. Overall, a nice stay with a superb location. I would recommend and would consider staying again. Xiamen is a wonderful city.

We spoke little Mandarin so Jasmine checked us in English. She was professional and efficient. Our room was perfect as we had a great view of Gulangyu (see morning pic) from our hotel room. We did not have the buffet breakfast but everything else was good.

Traveling with friends from swissland,they claimed that not enough choice on breakfast not even english on foods plates,expect upgrading on next trip if stay this same hotel !