Oriental Century Hotel Shantou

We paid quite a premium to stay here, booking 3 rooms for 3 couples. We had actually been deciding between this hotel and Marriott, and eventually chose this hotel despite its less convenient location because it is new, grand and looked very impressive. To be fair, the hotel itself is beautiful. Everything looks new, luxurious and grand, and our initial impression was very good. Unfortunately, our experience on the second night left us extremely disappointed. The six of us, staying in three separate rooms, gathered at the hotel lobby for a simple and quick supper of some local Teochew delicacies we had bought. Halfway through eating, a staff member came over and told us that eating was not allowed in the lobby. We respected the instruction and were made to move outside to finish our food. What shocked us was what we saw when we returned to the lobby shortly afterwards: a group of around 4–5 men were smoking and playing poker/cards inside the lobby. So hotel guests who paid for three rooms cannot sit together and have a quick supper in the lobby, but smoking and playing cards in the same lobby is acceptable? If the hotel has a strict no-outside-food policy in the lobby, that is its right, and we would respect it. But the policy and enforcement should at least be consistent. Seeing smoking being tolerated immediately afterwards made the whole situation feel ridiculous and gave us a very poor impression of the hotel’s service standards. For a hotel positioned and priced at this level, we expected much better. Beautiful and grand property, but unfortunately this experience seriously affected our impression of the stay.