Somerset Emerald City Suzhou

Bed quite comfortable (just a little too soft for my preference). Having a washer/dryer is a nice plus. Shower water is quite hot (but pressure is very low!). The Emerald City mall it's in (and the adjacent IF Mall, which takes up the other half of the block) has lots of good food outlets, including some international chains like the Bifengtang Hong Kong restaurant and the Japanese Ajisen Ramen, as well as Western standbys like Papa John's Pizza, Subway, Starbucks and KFC (and Burger King and McDonald's next to the subway station). Each mall also has a decent supermarket in the basement (the one in the IF Mall near the subway is much better).

VERY hard to find!! (It's in the middle of a huge mall complex that takes up half of a city block.) 'Apartment' very small - actually somewhat misrepresented in the listing: significantly smaller, I think, than the advertised 52 sq m, even if you included the unusable 'balcony' space outside. The bedroom actually feels pretty claustrophobic, with hardly any room to move around the bed. No outside furniture for the balcony (and no inside furniture suitable to move out there); staff simply refused to try to obtain any (even though there were, for example, plenty of suitable chairs & tables in front of the building, not much used); balcony itself very shabby, hadn't been cleaned for ages (possibly ever), and covered with very worn green felt. TV very small, and bizarrely hidden inside a wardrobe in the bedroom; impractical to move it into the more suitable 'living room' area next door; only a handful of channels in English. Poor furniture: no proper desk chair for the desk (only an upholstered upright chair, far too low and too soft to be used for working); no armchair (only a very small and very low sofa); no dining furniture; the two small tables are too HEAVY to be moved anywhere. ZERO CUSTOMER SERVICE (in English, at any rate): they do not reply to e-mail enquiries (request for directions to the property, request for slightly early check-in, etc.). AWFUL desk staff: inept, rude, unhelpful, and with fairly limited English (the one in charge appeared to speak no English at all) - this is amongst the worst hotel service I have ever encountered in China, even going back 10 or 15 years; I expected much better from the Ascott chain. Noise from A/C fans and nearby main road slightly bothersome at night. Gaps at the top of the blackout curtains allow in a lot of light early in the morning, making it difficult to sleep in very late.