we stayed for 2 weeks and it was so enjoyable! loved it so much!

we r loyal clients of hilton so it was very nice get all upgrades . very quite and peaceful resort if you are going to relax just go there! seriously! i didnt think it was that expensive as some ppl mentioned . just loved it.

The Hotel is horrible

1.)Nothing to do with childrens, they close playroom at 7pm .

2.)Renting movies from Hotel library cost money

3.)All prices are very expensive with no justification. Food is bad, service is bad. We are western family and all food was very local

4.)Beware of cancelation, not refundable room charge. Hilton tricks

5.)Nothing much to to do at nights, besides go to restaurant and maybe seat in the lobby- entertainment is low class.

6.)Lots of places in the hotel, no air-conditions. Very hot

Suggest you to pick other hotel, we will never coming back there.

Our family stayed at the Hilton Sanya between April 30 and May 4. Me and my wife were travelling with a 16-month toddler. It was our second time at the resort and the first stay had been exceptional. This time, we were not so lucky.

On the good side: the property is beautiful, pools are clean well maintained, rooms are well decorated, service and attention to client is reasonably good.

The bathroom is 50cm below the sleeping area in one large open space, with 3 or 4 steps going down to the bathtube area. It is good for young couples, but not perfect for families with toddlers. We had to block the access to the steps.

We added a little extra for a sea view room when reserving the hotel. Unfortunately, it was more like a "Ritz-Carlton view" when we arrived in the room: the new hotel next door constructed a huge building in front of the room blocking 50% of the view with a modern and ugly new structure.

The air conditioning was not functionning properly in the room. It started with some light noise at the beginning of our stay. And then it got worse, with water driping from the ceiling onto the floor. Dripping accelerated and ruined our last night. At 7am on our last morning, the floor was covered with water and a technician came to check the AC.

The new hotel next door decided to add to the noise level on the same night. The moved heavy equipement, furnitures and metal structures between 10pm and 5am. We complained to the reception desk and the night manager on duty from the Hilton went to complain next door. No need to say, the truckers, staff and construction teams laughed a little, and continued...

There is also a cash advance to be paid at the reception. Once we ran out, we had to pay another advance at the reception desk. It happened at the end of a meal in the restaurant, and it was not a pleasant experience. "Sorry sir, but you don't have the sufficient funds..." I had to go to the front desk immediately and pay another deposit, in order for us to conclude the dinner.

I previously visited some other hotels; I must say this stay at the Hilton Sanya was far from being the best resort vacation.

Before booking this hotel we reviewed all the hotels in the area and they all looked pretty good so the only reason we chose this hotel was because we are Hilton Honors Members and we definately made the right choice.

Staff were very friendly and helpfull. Food was excellent with good choice at breakfast, China Harvest restaurant in the hotel was fantastic. Reasonably priced food and drink throughout the hotel compared to the other hotels in the area (even room service was reasonale with good selection) - we ate at two other hotels and the food and drink prices were really expensive.

Hotel room was fantastic with robes, slippers, decent toiletries, mineral water, maps, beach bags, ruck sacks, flip flops, DVD, as well as the twice daily room servicing. The grounds of the hotel were lovely in fact having explored one or two of the other hotels I would say its probably the best in the bay.

Hotel was on the quiet side, in fact I would say it was only a third occupied - it was low season, anyway all the faciities were still open and even entertainment in the evening.

The Spa was good with reasonale prices and they do the best french manicure I've ever had.

The beach its located on is serviced by the hotel and with a variety of watersports available.

Hotel organised taxis were slightly more expensive so if you need a taxi just walk down the drive to the road they are readily available.

Only slight complaint was the lack of tourist information, we had to find out for ourselves what there was to see and do on the island.

Yalong bay is really a hotel based holiday so if you don't like being tied to your hotel this is not the resort for you. The Crowne Plaza hotel about 1 mile away is in a complex that had a good choice of bars and restaurants and a limited number of shops, I should imagine in high season there's a good atmosphere here in the evening.

Place not to miss if you visit this island is the Nanshan Temple with the amazing Buddasava of Mercy statue which stands 108 metres tall in the sea. Not too be missed, take plenty of sunscreen and bottled water. There is a small train which costs about £1.50 per person which takes you all around the grounds and you can get on and off as you please - don't try to walk it, use the train its worth it.

Sure we stay often in Hilton Hotels but this time first time in one of the resorts. The rooms are great and also the Hotel is. It was easter, no holiday in China ... but the Hotel was fully booked. The staff never gave us the impression to be stressed out. Very clean area, nice beach, good food at the three restaurants. We will return! Book a table outside at the ICE-Restaurant ... We liked the friendly people and also the good service.

My family stayed at the Hilton over the Christmas holiday and had a wonderful time. We were surprised by the level of service and the overall quality of the resort. The service and attention to guests is wonderful. The pools and physical facilities are by far the best in Sanya. The rooms are nice, large and clean. The food is fine but not great. One negative was the pool bar where the food was substandard, the service friendly but slow, and the drinks bad.

Stayed in Hilton Sanya Resort on Yalong Bay for 4 days around New Year. Not the best time to visit, as the hotel was packed with guests, mostly from mainland China and Russia, the sea was rather rough, and the water in the swimming pool cold at this time of the year (air temperature 16-22C), though there were blue sky and sunshine on most days.

The hotel is situated right at the end of a row of hotels built along Yalong Bay, a stretch of fine sand over a few miles. There are sunlounges belonging to the hotel on the beach, though these were always occupied. The sea was rather cold and choppy to swim and the hotel had warned that, as it was a public beach, there was no lifeguard facility on the beach.

At present there is a new hotel being built right next to Hilton, so some siderooms have only the the view of this new concrete with hammering noise during the day.

The hotel is built around a large swimming pool area, with man-made beaches for children, linking lagoons and large infinity pools. Again sunlounges here seemed to be always fully occupied, and the swimming pool attendant just shugged his shoulder when I asked him to find me one.

I booked a Grand Ocean View room. The first room I was given was situated in block 7, having only a side ocean view really, facing adjacent hotels, and it was a long walk to the reception area for my elderly mother. So we were moved to block 1 which had full seaview looking beyond the swimming pools (see photos). I much preferred this room, as we sat in our balcony on New Year Eve and watched the countdown concert and the magnificent display of fireworks organised by the hotel. We also requested a room on higher floor (total of 7 floors), and being on the 6th floor, we had a better view of the sea.

The rooms were spacious (500 sq ft plus a large balcony) with modern decor, lightings very dim here (my mother complained that she could hardly read) though it created a special mood in the evening. It was open-planned in design with open bathroom, closed by a curtain (my mother was not keen having a bathtub right in the middle of the room). In our first room, the bathtub and separate walk-in shower unit were situated at the end of the room, facing the balcony. Though it was supposed to give you a nice sea-view during bathing if you left the balcony curtain open, it might also give guests from some other rooms a nice view of you (depending on the location of your room). I preferred the configuration of the second room which had a sitting area facing the balcony, and a large freestanding circular bath (yes, can accommodate 2 people together) at the entrance side of the room (see photos).

Other criticism about the room:

-the sink is in a form of a large bowl, but the tap is designed in such a way that water gets spilled everywhere when you wash your hands!

-walls are quite thin, and I could hear the lift "dinging" and people chatting in the corridor

-the beds are not the most comfortable ones I have slept in

We tried all the restuarants here: standard of food was surprisingly good here, though the New Year Gala buffet was disappointing. Chinese food in the Harvest restaurant highly recommended, with a huge choice and it's good value for money. I liked the Ize restaurant setting, one could dine al fresco on the terrace facing the swimming lagoon. Seafood was fresh and beef very tender (my mum had lobster and steak as main course).

One criticism is the poor command of spoken English of the restaurant staff and some receptionists. I rang the Chinese restaurant to reserve a table for dinner and had difficulty communicating with the restaurant staff. This resulted in my table being booked at the wrong time, and when we turned up, the table had gone. I also overheard in amusement some Russian guests struggling to order a whisky and getting lemon and ice for coke.

The spa consists of 8 treatment rooms (some for couples), relaxation room where tea is being served, and separate spa courtyards (3 whirlpools, 1 sauna, 1 steamroom) for men and women.The spa courtyards are free-of-charge and on the 2 occasions I attended, I was the only one there.

Overall it is a family-friendly large Hilton beach resort with modern decor and helpful staff but not without faults.

Stayed there with family (2 kids) for 5 days/4 nights.

The place is packed with russian tourists coming here to have fun and drink, and unless you enjoy mingling with crowds of drunken people (or are one of them) I strongly suggest you stay away from the place. We understood it was not a seasonal issue but a permanent one. One morning they even had to fish one out of the pool, although it was not clear whether he was dead or just in a booze coma...

Kids club was just Okay but not much more.

Pools are nice (when not inhabited by floating drunk bodies).

Appart from that, service is substandard for a Hitlon (only the price reflects what you would expect from the brand), the personel really does not give a damn solving problems or being helpfull, and the quality of the environment is higlhly depending on in which wing of the hotel you stay in. We were close to a part under refurbishment at the time of our stay, with noise and dirt around, and the front desk would refuse to change room, arguing the hotel was "full" although we could clearly see it was not at all. Same issue about a refusal for a late check out arrangement, althout we hold a VIP HHonors card... Same excuse of the "fully booked" hotel, which clearly was not the case.

As for the Island itself, it does not present enough interest to spend more than a few days. Most of the tourist "attractions" are auite disappointing.

In other words, a substandard hotel from Hilton, with bad service and patronage leaves a lot to be desired -once again unless you enjoy the company of crowds of drunk people vomitting around...

Neither the place, nor the hotel, nor the price, can compare with "nearby" Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia/Bali for instance.

I and my wife have just got back from honeymoon - touring round China and Hong Kong and we stayed at Sanya for 6 nights, 5 days at the beginning of November.

I loved the Hilton. From the friendly greeting, towel and refreshing drink on arrival to the service and the attention to detail; it was my wife's birthday while we were out there and they had already prepared a cake, (without anyone asking) and when I enquired about arranging some flowers for her, they surpassed themselves by using rose petals to spell out "Happy Birthday" on the bed, complete with elephants made out of bath towels!! it cost nothing and meant so much!

The weather was excellent, very sunny and about 26 - 30 degrees in the day and 22 at night but all the rooms had good air con.

The room was massive with a giant two person tub, DVD player, Plasma TV and balcony. The food was really nice, the best being the IZE restaurant. I had 200g fillet steak, (which is huge!) and lobster and my wife had a 300g fillet steak. The food was exquisit, (the best steak and lobster I've ever had!) and the meal came to about £60, which I thought pretty reasonable, considering the meal was top notch! I'd recommend that you don't order a starter though, for two reasons - 1.you'll never eat it and the main course! 2.they provide an apetizer for free. Also the water is very expensive.

The following are only slight quibbles which didn't detract from the holiday, but I should just mention to make your holiday that little bit better:

- The restaurants aren't non-smoking, (but this is probably only made more noticeable by the fact that we've now banned it in Britain) but this is common throughout China, (though it is banned in Hong Kong). They usually provide non-smoking areas, but these aren't always available.

- Try not to get a sunbed next to one of the drains. It was only noticeable if you were close enough and the wind was blowing hard and in the wrong direction - but still worth mentioning to get the best pew not pee-ewe!

- There's a shop down the road from the hotel if you want supplies a little cheaper and worth getting out to explore.

- Take your own DVDs, 'cause they only have about 30 to choose from and we'd already seen most of them! Still managed to rent Troy. The trick is to rent the DVD a few minutes before the sports shop closes, so that you get the DVD up until 12pm the next day, rather than having to take it back when your four hours is up - you still get charged the same price!

- Book the restaurants to ge the nicer placed seats!

The manager apologised for the hotel being 80% full that week and busy around the pools. We were a little bemused, as even though the sunbeds, (and there were plenty) were occupied, no one really distrupted the tranquility of the place and there were so many pools that it never once got crowded, even when I was swimming lengths, I didn't even have to change my stroke!

I recommend the location and the hotel if you want a completely relaxing, hassle-free vacation, (or rest stop) before you go off to China proper, or Hong Kong. We both loved it and felt completely revitalised!

We returned from an 11 night stay at the Hilton on 21 September, we had a fantastic holiday, the hotel and staff were excellent definitely the best hotel we have stayed in, I would not hesitate to recommend this hotel, by far the best on Yalong Bay.

Last August I brought kids to Hilton for summer vacation and our kids had several nice days there. This year again, we stayed at Hilton with the family for vacation, and found the resort offered a kid’s promotion during the summer vacation period: daily three free meals for kids even including buffet dinner; useful welcome gifts for my kids, sand toy, my little son’s favourite and cartoon video my daughter just loves that most. More valuable is that when we requested extra bed for kids, the resort offered an “Extra RMB10” solution: for extra RMB10 only, we could choose one of three benefits they offered, one extra bed or one more breakfast or room upgrade. Really a valuable trip for my family.

Sanya is always my favourite destination for vacation: less outing, less walking, but totally relaxing. I used to stay in almost every 5-star resort there, but since the opening of Hilton, I have been the big fan of Hilton Sanya 

No need to talk more about its hardware, THE BEST! The service, the atmosphere Hilton has created there is what I love most: you always feel easy and welcomed. Here at Hilton Sanya, you can feel the best of Chinese simple people, still shy sometime, but eager to smile and help. Most time I want to be alone and dislike the service staff always around and asking, but when I do have some request, I need the full service. Once a dinner at the café, I want some salad not listed on the menu, the waitress brought their chef to me. The guy is excellent! I told him that I didn’t want to spoil myself too much during the vacation and had to suffer a lot to loose weight after the holiday; and that I need something light, healthy but good taste. The chef just created a special meal for me only plus tips for the following meals in the resort!

The Spa at Hilton, the must for my days there. The staff, the treatment, the lovely spa villa, the shower in the little garden, also their specially made ginger tea: SUPER!

Have recently paid a visit to Sanya, been to Sanya before and real liked the beach and hotels. This time I choose Hilton though it was lightly expensive than the others (12$ per night). Have to say the hotel is wonderful and the money is worth every penny. Some of the tips for the readers:

- Sit by the pool in the evening around 5 to 7, the band there is just nice

- Do not miss the Chinese restaurant in the hotel, nice food and reasonable price, a dim sum lunch may cost only 10$ per person (we take late breakfasts)

- Can eat out once, should be some big restaurants that you do not get ripped off. Do not go to those places that with promoters handing out cards

- Bring some DVD as they have DVD player in the room, or you could rent at the hotel for some not too new releases

Saw the in room video with the beach concert, something different and it is a pity we did not catch the timing. Staff in the hotel are very nice and warm, eager to help with smiles.

Recently, I spent two days in Hilton Sanya, I must say it was really cool & fantastic, the layout, the guestroom and the whole design, I like it very much.

Check in is not bad, though many guests, but the hotel staff was very thoughtful, them brought me drinks and icy towel, so the waiting did not seems long. Guestroom is great! To me there is nothing better than super size bed & super size bathtub, Hilton got them all, it was really cool. Restaurants, I like China Harvest most, acceptable price, delicious food, good services, and it was really a surprise for the first day that when I back to room after dinner, I found a birthday cake in my room, it was really very cool, later I know that they got my birthday from my ID card, it’s really cool, I never have this before, I mean this never been to me, a little one cake, but made me very surprised.

Swimming pool, it was said that it’s the biggest in China’s resort, and it was cool that I can read book in the pavilion alongside the pool, pretty well for me!

Hilton Sanya is really a cool resort!

Just came back from a 3 nights short break in Sanya and I have to say the family liked it very much there. From the spacious room to the huge pool area and the friendly staff who tried a lot to make Easter a memoriable holiday (and who made the extra effort to speak english), it was a very pleasant stay for a long weekend.

The previous comments about only Russians and Chinese being there cannot be confirmed, we meet a lot of Germans, English, Singaporeans, Hong Kongers etc.

Our two small kids (4 and 2) loved the sand pools, the water slides, the beach and the possibility to run around in the huge area.

Only draw back in my opinion is the lack of alternatives just around the hotel, so if you dont want to take a taxi, you are more or less confined to the hotel restaurants (which are ok for a couple of days, but not more)

The Hilton was one of the very best places I have stayed in China, and the best resort hotel I have stayed at in China.

Let's get the negatives out of the way.

The pool water was not heated, and as the weather gets cooler, the pools become unusable for any length of time. I suspect we were at the very tail end of being able to use the pools. There are six different pools I believe. Even if they only heated a couple of the pools, that would be a great help. In sum, the pools are probably only really usable for 8 months of the year at best.

While service was good overall, there were some glitches. We had two adjoining rooms, and on the last day paid for a late checkout until 6 pm for one of them so we could shower, change clothes, etc. However, the housekeeping staff was totally perplexed by this concept and kept trying to get us to leave. That they speak no English and my wife speaks only a little Mandarin made for about 3 less than enjoyable confrontations.

Check in and Check out were pleasant enough, but not very efficient as it took a bit of time to finish both of these transactions. That we have two children under age 4 made it a bit difficult to manage both at the same time.

The Children's room is nice enough, but quite small and I suspect the kids would become bored after a short period of time. This could use some improvement.

Positives. The rooms were spacious and quite nice.

While the kids menu was a bit limited, the Executive Chef was quite nice and accomodating and was quite happy to prepare things not listed on the menu. The western restaurant was quite good and the service pleasant. The pizza was very good with a real pizza oven. We didn't try the Chinese restaurant, but .IZE was nice, yet they seemed to try a bit too hard to be "trendy" or "cutting edge" in their dishes and somehow didn't quite pull it off. That said the food quality was good and we enjoyed our meal.

There were two slide for the kids at the pools and the kids loved them. One of them is hard to get to and the water too deep at the end so that they had to go down with either my wife or myself. Two of the pools had "sand beaches" which were a hit with the kids and quite nice as we didn't have to worry about them nearly as much as we would have out in the ocean.

There were 2 or three private cabanas that were quite nice, but we never got to try them as with 501 rooms, it seemed as if you needed to claim the space by 7:30 am or you were out of luck for the day.

The hotel was totally booked, and there were some 800 guests while we were there. But it never seemed crowded, which probably says a lot about the layout being quite good for the most part. We were on a shuttle bus back for the Hong Kong flight after a long weekend, yet there was only 11 of us on the bus. That meant that most all the guests were either Chinese, Russian, or Ukranian it seemed. Nothing wrong with that, but it made for a very eclectic group with no one being very sociable. We only spoke with one other family from Hong Kong and a very pleasant German couple.

The activities staff was quite pleasant and they were very efficient in booking us a tee time at the golf course 5 minutes away.

Needless to say, we plan to return in April for another long weekend. Here's to hoping that at least one or two of the pools is heated by then.

We (two adults and three children, 7, 4 and 1) stayed in the Sanya Hilton in December 2006, sharing a ‘grand ocean view’ room.

OK let’s start with the positives. The Beach is fantastic, a classic, crescent shaped bay several miles long, with hills at each end and clean white sand. It’s fringed with palm trees, with enough activities to keep most amused (diving, jet-ski, quad bikes) and plenty of loungers for the lazier at heart. And not at all crowded – most of the guests seem to want to stay indoors or round the pools.

Then the network of pools, waterfalls, bridges and other water features is pretty and original, allowing many ground floor rooms direct pool access and plenty of poolside space. Some other cute outdoor features too: roofed and matressed areas for small groups, the bar with beanbags, a massage area. Indoors, the ‘Bar d’Or’ is far better than resort average with a genuinely talented covers band.

But I’m afraid these are outweighed by the negatives. Let’s start with the building itself, consisting of several ‘Pavilions’ joined by short bridges and walkways. There’s something grim about the architecture, looking rather like watchtowers – I half expected to see gun emplacements and stern military men with binoculars peering out from the top floor windows. Inside, our room certainly had a wow factor, with the big round bath and glass-walled shower at one end and the balcony at the other, but the bath took half an hour to get even quarter full so was almost useless for adults and it took up an awful lot of space in quite a small room.

The food was no better than average. The Cantonese style ‘China Harvest’ restaurant was distinctly worse than you’d get in a middle-range restaurant in Hong Kong. The seafood-specialist ‘.IZE’ did something to my halibut to totally take away any taste or texture of fish, though my wife’s beef was pretty good. The Western-style restaurant was probably the best, and the only one practical for a young family, and did good buffets, which also worked out as very good value as out 7 year old ate for half price and the younger two for free. Unfortunately they got the bill wrong or forgot items literally each time we went – hardly five star.

The ‘Kids Paradise’ club was small, and though the staff seemed nice they were also pretty clueless. I don’t think they would have any idea how to amuse children by themselves, much less cope with an emergency. In practice, most parents seemed to stay with their children in the (rather unimpressive) facilities, or leave the older children watching a DVD or playing on a Playstation (rentable at RMB 100 for two hours). There actually weren’t very many children at the resort – it’s not especially child friendly, we steps everywhere in the grounds (no stroller ramps).

The gym was in a beautiful location, spacious and with big windows overlooking a lake. There is a nice sauna and spa, Pilates room and ample changing facilities. Treadmills and other machines worked fine, but the dumbbell free weights only went up to 10 kg. My wife reported that the Spa was great.

Perhaps the worst thing of all was the guests, almost entirely Chinese and Russian. They all looked miserable, all the time. Seriously: I saw no smiles from anyone over the age of ten. It’s kind of hard to relax and enjoy yourself when everyone around you looks like they’re hating every minute.

Would I go back? No way, but I might be tempted by the Marriott next door. We crashed the children’s pool, which was lovely, and had two pretty good meals too. The grounds are less cluttered, with lots of lawn space rather than dark green flowerless shrubs, and the staff seemed more relaxed and generally more competent. The Sheraton, the next along, might be worth a look though it is huge.

Finally, check the weather before you go. For all the talk of being ‘China’s Hawaii’, the weather was too cold for the pools or sea when we were there in December and there was a strong, sandy wind.

This is the newest and best resort in Sanya, and (certainly by mainland PRC standards) extremely sophisticated and refined. The facilities far exceed even general 5* resort standards and the service (whilst there are language barriers as in all of mainland PRC, particularly when trying to communicate with cleaners etc., this did not pose a problem) is also first class. This has to be one of the best value resorts in Asia - the most modern, luxurious Western facilities at PRC prices.

Just came back from a short vacation at your resort. In my understanding that a five star resort will provide a 5 * service.

Yes, the food, surroundings are really excellent. BUT the service are terrible. Most of the staff even simple english they don't understand. Need more training in english & service.

Rereation side is upside down, the kid's club is not propely organized. No body take care of the activites outside. The staffs standing at the beach watching the guest in the ocean. NO body organize any ouside activities. I read the activity list but nobody organize.

We walked down to Sheraton after sunset & observed of what they have, a lot of guests at the beach, busy water sport's and so many guests play beach volleyball with staffs.

For this kind of vacation for leisure, it must be organized with activities not only swimming at the ocean.

Yet, cheap but lack of service.

Vivan Zhang - Hongkong

I travel a lot for work and haved stayed in countless hotels. My husband and I recently booked a reward stay at the Hilton Sanya - of which I am a Diamond member.

I have to say the Hilton Sanya is the absolute best - most fantastic hotel - I have EVER stayed at!

We spent three nights at the Hilton Sanya and cannot say a single bad thing about the hotel. From the exceptional service to the delicious breakfast to the wonderful swimming pools and an excellent fitness center to the bathtub warm and clean ocean waters to the best meals we had in China, we did not want to leave!

We had a "king" size bed - which was 1 1/2 times bigger than normal with an Ocean View room. Prices were also good - considering the remote location of Yalong Bay.

The food at China Harvest was the best Chinese food either one of us has ever eaten. And the romantic dinner we had at IZE was sumptuous. We also ordered room service which was also delicious.

If you do not stay at this hotel, you are missing out.

We spent 3 nights at the hotel. An absolutely nice experience. The hotel was crispy new. Room was big and tastefully decorated. We loved the huge lagoon and lap pools very much. The beach was nice too, not crowded at all, and tons of lounge chairs for guests to use.

The service had improved a lot since previous reviews. Staff were nice and helpful. Of course, some were less experienced but we did feel that they tried their best. As said in other reviews, the breakfast place was crowded, especially between 9 and 10 am. The food was generally okay, but not superb (well it's hard to impress Hong Kong people coz Hong Kong probably had the best chefs and the best ingredients in Asia.). We also spent a night at Teak Lounge, with live music. Drinks were very reasonably priced (usually around RMB 30 - 40).

By the way, we also visited Marriot and Sheraton, which were just next to Hilton. We had to say Hilton was the best amongst them.

My fiancee's brother bought us an engagement present to stay at the Hilton for 3 days. After the planetrip, I had a splitting headache and our taxi driver pulled over to a local pharmacy and recommended a painkiller. Strange start to the trip, but our driver was helpful. The drive, as all of our taxi drives in China, was fast and interesting. After about 45 minutes from the airport, we arrive at the Hilton.

Our first impressions of the facility were excellent. In spite of my poor mood due to the migraine, I was very impressed with the beauty of the lobby and the quick process of our check-in. The lobby is a beauty. They have a huge entryway but the wood tones make the feeling of the room very inviting. (Sidenote: An American tourist, one of the only one Americans I saw, was loudly complaining in the lobby about service as we were checking in. After reading some of the reviews, I would say that service problems for the most part stem from a lack of English.) After our welcome tea, we were shown to our room.

I was immediately impressed with the room as well. The French doors that open onto the South China Sea were one of the highlights. You can recline on the king size bed and look out towards the Sea. We spent some time enjoying the waves and view from our very spacious balcony as well. Room was well-maintained and stocked. If we lacked anything, we merely picked up the phone and they sent extra supplies up for us immediately. My fiancee speaks fluent Cantonese and Mandarin so we did not run into any problems with communication.

The Chinese restaurant that is on site was excellent and very reasonably priced. I wish we would have eaten there more, but only went there on the last night of our stay. The breakfast was an interesting mixture of different cuisines. I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh fruit, but stuck with some of the staples for an American breakfast. The breakfast area was a bit crowded, but we did not have a problem with getting a seat right away. We also tried IZE. This is one of my only complaints. Way overpriced almost bland food. There were hardly any folks in there, the ambience was not relaxed or inviting, and the portions were of a comical size. When they brought out our appetizer, served on 2 teaspoons, we both had a difficult time holding back our laughter.

For leisure, we enjoyed walking along the beach and relaxing by the many connected pools. I also had alot of fun taking the SeaDoo out on the Sea. The waves were huge when we were there and I had a great time bodysurfing there as well. Towels and chaise lounges were plentiful and we enjoyed the privacy we seemed to enjoy wherever we chose to sit.

We did not use the spa, so I can't comment on any of those facilities.

Overall, the setting, hotel, and staff were all excellent. Pricing is very reasonable there as well, save the IZE restaurant. In order to accomodate our late check-out, the staff allowed us several more hours and did not charge us. They were very courteous and helpful. I would highly recommend this hotel for anyone travelling in that area. I will definitely return and bring back family members.

This hotel is wonderful - the rooms are beautful, the pool is amazing, the beach is fabulous, the food is pretty good (esp good western food by usual chinese standards), the staff are friendly and very helpful. I will agree with previous reviewers however that the service is not 5* standard.

We've stayed in lots of supposedly 5* hotels all over asia and are accepting that in most cases (except Hong Kong) the service isn't the same as europe. We did have some problems with check in, extending our stay and the level of english spoken in the chinese restaurant, but everywhere else staff were excellent. All of our problems related to us not being able to speak chinese, but everything was sorted out and were only minor irritations. I think you have got to accept that these problems seem to occur in most chinese hotels and not compare it to the west or Thailand (where they have had years of practice).

Having read other reviews i was slightly worried as to what to expect with this hotel. When i compared the Hilton to the Sheraton and Marriott all seemed to have similar reviews. However - what finally swung it was the fabulous price we got on the rooms. By booking through another chinese hotel we managed to get a seaview kingsize room with breakfast for £58 per room per night!

The beach at this end of Yalong Bay is clean, with wonderful sand and water quality and there is no comparison with the other end by the Holiday Inn which was crowded and much dirtier.

The weather in June was wonderful and we only had storms at night. The weather forecast was worrying before we went, but we figured out that the coastal area seems to fend off the storms until night time, whilst the inland areas were pretty cloudy.

We also had a look around the Marriott, the Sheraton and the Holiday Inn.

Both the Marriott and Sheraton would have been nice, although the pool at the Hilton is much bigger and the restaurants seemed to have a greater diversity of food too. As for the Holiday Inn - well i wouldn't touch it with a barge pole - the location was noisy, the beach was horrible in comparison and it was next to the bus station and road. HOwever is it definitely worth the walk up there as there as there was more local life going on.

I would definitely recommend the Hilton - just don't expect the Chinese to be able to compete with other locations for service. The staff are very friendly and do try very hard - they just don't always get it right though! Relax and you'll have a wonderful time.