Huangshan Xuanyuan International Hotel

“Good staging point for Taiping cable car”

Like the previous reviewer, we decided to make the extra effort to access Huangshan via the less-crowded northern entrance and use the Taiping cable car. From Tunxi airport, it's a 90-minute drive which we organized through John_Tunxi. His driver met us at the airport with a big sign and a very com… more

Like the previous reviewer, we decided to make the extra effort to access Huangshan via the less-crowded northern entrance and use the Taiping cable car. From Tunxi airport, it's a 90-minute drive which we organized through John_Tunxi. His driver met us at the airport with a big sign and a very comfortable vehicle. By Huangshan standards, the Xuan Yuan Hotel is enormous and luxurious. It's a convention hotel with 270+ rooms and suites, swimming pool, gym and other services. Our spacious room was clean and comfortable, with a nice rain shower, potable water tap, hot water kettle, free Wifi, English TV channels and free bikes for 2 hrs. The beds were very comfortable and sheets were clean and white. For approximately US$80, our room rate included buffet breakfast. We didn't bother to explore outside the hotel and had dinner in the hotel restaurant. Food was good and moderately priced. 18 rmb for 8 pieces of hairy tofu, dinner for 4 people would have been roughly 300 rmb. The front desk did not seem to be that experienced in arranging transfers to the Taiping cable car. Perhaps most visitors arrive in their own vehicles? After a short 'group discussion', I was told that a hotel representative would call me later. A taxi was pre-booked for 100 rmb. I had the gnawing feeling that it might have been cheaper for me to hail a taxi myself but not knowing the city at all, I had no idea if taxis would be easy to find. In the end, I was happy with the decision to pay 100 rmb for the 30-min ride along the winding mountain road. The driver kindly made sure that we had our cable car tickets and were set for the ascent before he departed. This hotel turned out to be the nicest hotel we would stay in during our 3 nights in Huangshan. As we went uphill, the value-for-money of the hotels went quickly downhill. :-)

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“Best available north of Huangshan, but not needs improvement”

The night before visiting Huangshan, most people stay south of the mountain, in Tangkou, but we decided to stay north of the mountain, in the Gantang area. This was so we could use the Taiping cable car, which is the least crowded and most scenic of the three cable car lines. The top of the Taiping… more

The night before visiting Huangshan, most people stay south of the mountain, in Tangkou, but we decided to stay north of the mountain, in the Gantang area. This was so we could use the Taiping cable car, which is the least crowded and most scenic of the three cable car lines. The top of the Taiping cable car is convenient for a hike around the first two rings of the Xihai (West Sea) area--the most scenic path we found on Huangshan. As of this writing one cannot do the full Xihai loop continuing on to the Baiyun hotel, because of a trail closure in the middle. Some agents had told us that it would take a long time to drive to this area from the Tunxi area, but with the freeway it took about an hour, the same time as the drive to Tangkou. So, we are certainly happy we stayed north of the mountain. The drive to the cable car station took about 20 minutes. This hotel is supposedly the best available in the area. The sheets and bathroom were clean, but the white carpeting in the room was horribly stained (see picture). We ate dinner in the hotel, and wound up being seated in a dreary basement alcove. The food was not very good, and far too salty. Ironically, our meals at the top of Huangshan (at the Paiyinglou and Baiyun hotels) were far better! The breakfast buffet, served upstairs, was better. I think you are better off in this hotel if you can speak Mandarin to communicate with the staff, although we did not try using English.

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