This hotel is beautiful. Wonderful classical Chinese furniture and the friendliest hotel staff I have ever encountered. I cannot recommend this hotel more highly. The hot water is a bit slow, but that was the only problem. Obviously due to its converted-courtyard-house nature this hotel is far more suitable for a romantic holiday than a business stay!

we were staying in this hotel for 6 nights in a suite and were very pleased with our accommodation. it has a cozy athmosphere and we liked very much the location because you could walk to some of the attractions or take a taxi.
it would have been nice if the internet would have been included but still, the rates were very inexpensive.
the breakfast had a nice variety and the staff was courteous.
one incident: we tried to go to Tianjan and wanted to go by train. We tried at the front desk to find out about the train times and they told us every 15 minutes is a train. please make sure when you get the information that they call the train station. It turned out that we took an afternoon train and then they told us the last train is at 4pm so we had to hire a taxi to bring us back to Beijing.
So, conciergewise they are not good but everything else made up for it.

A gorgeous hotel in the old courtyard style (why would you stay in a faceless generic hotel where you could be in any city in the world?) with generous rooms (we stayed in the hilariously titled 'chinese theme' room. The location is perfect - right next to 2 great cheap food options - the dumplings 3 doors down were the best we ate in china (for about 80 australian cents) and the hutongs nearby all had great food as well. 10 mins walk to the fobidden city & tiannamen, right on a long shopping strip and yet really quiet and peaceful - we only wish we'd had more time here! Don't keep hunting around for a better hotel, you won't find it, just book it now & enjoy, as we did!

We had 2 rooms at the Haoyuan, #12 and #14 which are connected by a small living room. Our room #14 was appointed with traditional furniture. Everything was nice and fairly clean. But the lighting in our room was poor, making it more susceptible to mosquitos. But we used our mosquito net in our bed and didn't find the mosquito zapping machine until our last day. Beds and linens were comfortable and cozy; though everything seemed to be a little "used" or old. our bathroom was also prone to mosquitos and didn't have the best water pressure. it also had a weird smell; don't know if it was the mildew or something else. it may sound bad from what I've written so far, but overall it was a comfortable 3 nights.

we enjoyed the little complimentary breakfast every morning; and yes it was repetitive but we thought everything was tasty. we did try the novotel buffet mentioned earlier, which was fantastic, but Haoyuan did just fine as a free meal.

The front desk people were also good at writing down names of places in chinese to show taxi drivers. Their english wasn't really great, but it seemed like no one in china spoke very good english. the hotel was on a quiet street, and was very relaxing at night since no street noise could be heard (at least in the front courtyard). there was also wireless internet access which was surprising. I believe they also had computers for you to use but it cost money. So if you have a laptop with wireless, feel free to bring it with you and get free internet. The hotel also let us leave a lot of baggage with them for 3 days while we went to xi'an. when we returned, we were hoping to get a room for a couple hours to shower before our flight out of china, but they were fully booked. but they let us sit in the front desk area and repack all our luggages.

overall, a good, quiet time. definitely not your typical western hotel, but a interesting experience nonetheless. don't go here if you're looking to be pampered; but do go if you'd like a nice place to stay and get away from the hustle of beijing.