All good things must come to an end. I refer to my post in Feb 2009 about the resort in Mile. I just returned from a stay there and my report on this resort is not good.
After about a 2 year gap between visits to Mile, a lot has changed. First the city itself has changed from a little quaint farmer town into a huge city, crammed with new condo developments in every direction. I got lost just getting to the resort.
But far worse, the Huqian Resort has undergone big changes itself. The room rates are triple from before. One can expect rate increases, so that is still not the worst of it.
The beautiful and private hot springs on the property is history. Nothing but a dried out cement rockery. When I inquired about it, they cited the water shortage is the reason for shutting it down. Let me see…. underground hot spring water is dried up? Upon further questioning, they admitted that the “new” management policy was for hotel guests to walk down to the public hot springs area for your hot springs experience. I assume the hotel is simply “cutting costs”, and their 5 star guests are made to walk 500 meters to the public facilities. As a hotel guest, you do not have to pay, but you get throngs of people, noise and hassle of walking there in your bath robe. As an added bonus, the staff at the hot springs are nasty, ill mannered lot who must not be happy with the hotel’s “new” arrangement. In a word the hot spring experience, which is a prime feature, is gone. They also had a huge indoor swimming pool in a separate round building. That building is currently under construction, where they have removed the swimming pool and it will become a “meeting hall”.
The rooms themselves are still the same, albeit a bit rundown now. The carpets and furniture are very stained, no batteries for the room safe, etc.
So for those of you who put off my advice to visit a top class resort for cheap, you lose. Right now my advice is to avoid this place. It has lost it’s luster and declined into maybe a 3 star operation at 5 star prices. New management is going for maximum profits, reducing this once fantastic resort into a “business hotel”.
Such a shame! Time to move on.