Tonight Homestay Jing'an Temple Shanghai

The unit was big and the beds were more like king size beds each. The property owner/contact was extremely friendly and responsive, and was okay with us paying in cash to avoid foreign credit card fee (or wechat, but for some reason we couldn't). The AC (without the humidifier turned on) worked okay. Having laundry was also great.

The lack of cleanliness. The surfaces was fine, but the floor was not clean. There was hair on the bathroom floor (and in the bed), and under the furniture was quite unclean. We were playing floor is lava the whole time we were there. We also avoided cooking since the cleanliness was questionable.

This was our first time visiting Shanghai and we stayed here for one nights. Overall, the experience was better than we expected. The apartment isn’t very large, but it was more than enough for two people. It was clean, the bed was comfortable, and we slept very well after spending long days exploring the city. We were initially a little unsure about the self check-in because there is no front desk and we had to follow the instructions ourselves. However, the host sent us detailed information through WhatsApp before arrival, and we found the apartment quite quickly once we followed the instructions. We had one small question and contacted the host through WhatsApp, and they responded fairly quickly.

The building itself is a typical older residential building in Shanghai, so the common areas are quite basic and definitely not like a modern hotel. The apartment itself was much more comfortable than the outside of the building suggested.

The room is big and full of facilities

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There was much promise in the listing for Jing'an Homestay. And much of it was accurate: the location, a grape trellis greeting you at the Yuyuan Road with the lane ending in a school before you turned onto a sidelane reminiscent of the Shanghainese Shikumen architecture to find your door. Transportation is extremely convenient, with the 2 train very nearby and a bus stop at the Yuyuan Road. Cafés, restaurants, and shops abound. The space, while with several setbacks, did have a washer/dryer ensuite, and a maid service did replace towels daily, once asked.

Commucation could have been better from the onset. Communication was solely over WhatsApp. WhatsApp, while common, is difficult to use once in China without a VPN. The demand for full payment via AliPay outside the booking.com ecosystem immediately on the day refunds became impossible was suspicious - as was the excuse that credit cards "don't work" in China. Too, the clarification that the address listed on Booking is merely an office-this made planning to reach the property difficult at arrival. However the biggest drawback was that while there was daily replacement of towels, the property never was clean at check-in in the sense that would make a guest comfortable, or give the notion that the host was determined to make the guests' stay comfortable. Dust on the floor, grease on the cookware and exhaust vent, water stains on taps, child's stickers on the wall at random, and the pervading smell of a room occupied by a smoker. The space had the feel that a resident (not a guest) had been there days if not hours before our arrival and left in haste with nobody bothering to the clean the room. This was noted on whatsapp, but there was no remediation, save for daily linen replacement (which we were told wasn't normal). This was a disappointment, especially in light of the cost, which was on par with some very decent hotels in Shanghai. The location in a sidelane off a famous road in Jing'an kept us there for our full stay (as did the lack of seeing a refund). But were this homestay anywhere else in the city it would not be long as a business if this lack of attention is maintained.