The JW Marriott is a very modern hotel with many great facilities. The rooms have lots of features, and is very new. However, there is one great big flaw to this hotel- the service. Service is non-existent. NOTHING at all! Never does one welcome you to the hotel, help you with your luggage, or cares for you. It's all do it yourself.

I stayed here before the Olympics, and the taxi driver didn't really know this hotel at all! We had to give him the directions. After arriving, we checked in and got into our room. Please do note that you do need to use a room key to get to the room levels.

The room: We had a king room, and it had a ton of special things. Lots of great goodies, and lots of cool items. My complaint however is that the room is ultra small. But they do make good use of the space. There is a lot of room in the closets.

The bed had more than six pillows, and is extremely comfortable! Every night they also give out Dove chocolates inside a pocket. Very cute. We also asked for a rollaway and it was really comfortable too! Really soft and it used a down comforter. Unlike Shangri-La in which used synthetic everything unless you ask them to change it.

Electrical: Very nice in the rooms! All the TV's are Philips, and there is one big one in the main room, and a widescreen about 20 inch in the bathtub. They also have cords in which you can use to connect to the TV. Electrical plugs also fit many sorts of plugs.

Bathroom: Very modern. They have fragrant stuff near the tub, and they use L'Occitane Verbena toiletries. Shower is also the modern stuff- and so is the sink! The sink is very shallow, and you can easily splash water all over the place. Just something that makes the maids have to work more. Plus you can get splashed too. You can open a blind so that you can see into the room. A privacy issue if you are with a partner is that the doors to the bathroom are pretty much see through.

Color scheme is pretty much beige, and dark brown with lots of other colors mixed in.

Other stuff: Their coffee and tea area is very complex- they actually use the one cup style! There's also a minibar, and complimentary mineral water in which tastes good. The safe is also very interesting- it's opens upward and not side to side. Also, all the blinds are motorized, and they go upward. Very interesting! Also slippers are included, in which are kind of shaped like a peanut- big front and back and not as wide in the middle.

We also used their executive lounge as part of our room. I have to say, it's very nice, but everything is DIY. Do everything yourself! The staff doesn't care for you. Never once did they ask for our room number- and they didn't even know us! Afternoon snacks there scrumptious- delicious sandwiches and fresh fruit, and their happy hour is also very big. Lots of blues, marble, and dark colors used in the lounge.

Public Areas: Very nice and modern. They pump a smell into the lobby in which smells familiar to us...but can't really tell what it is. The health club is very nice- especially the pool, which uses tile. Surrounding areas of the pool are very nice- they have a big giant shower to spray yourself before getting into the pool in which has so many sprayers and is very modern! Seats are also shaped weirdly. Pool area is also dark again, and goes from shallow to suddenly deep. So be careful if you have kids! Stay to the side that is near the Men's locker room as it is the shallow area. I have to say again but here they also had a broken pump for the shampoo. And so you had to open up the top and use your hands to open the shower!!! For the lockers they use the waving of a thing over the sensor which opens up the locker. Very high tech.

Complaints: The hallways to the rooms are just DARK! You can barely see room numbers, and the whole area is light and then really dark. I took a photo of the room numbers with flash and it was still pretty dark. Also, their food quality is sometimes not really good- hard fried rice and artificial tasting orange juice.

Other interesting facts: In the morning, they put out fruit and pastries at the reception area. Also, there is a Beijing 2008 store located in the lobby.

Surrounding area is very nice- new and modern. The nearby Shin Kong Place has great eateries, and is very high tech as well- a Panasonic center that showcases future products is there, and they have lots of interesting products in which unfortunately are all overpriced. But their dining is very good, and is affordable in the lowest floor and is mid-scale to expensive on the highest floors.

Overall it was a really good stay, but the service given out was basically nothing unless you asked them to do something for you. And that is not right if it is a five star hotel. JW Marriott is considered to be a pretty expensive brand, and this hotel seemed like a regular 4 star hotel that doesn't give out much service. So, in conclusion, I give it a 4 out of 5. Have tons of photos of this hotel as well!

Our family stayed at this hotel for 9 days, and this is the best hotel during our China trip. Definitely a 5-star! Like others said, it is very new and modern, and is located next to a very nice and upsacale shopping mall.

Upon arrival, we were upgraded to the executive floor. Our room was on the 22nd floor was spacious - two double beds + 1 rollaway, lots of storage (We stayed at Le Royal Meridien Shanghai later on, and the room in JW Marriott Beijing is definitely better). We had a couple minor problems with the room (it seems like we were their first guests in this room), and they were all fixed promptly.

The bath room is beautiful and luxury. Kids enjoyed taking babble bath with flower paddles while watching the flat screen TV. One previous reviewer mentioned there were no outlet and hairdryer in the bathroom - actually they do have those, but may not be intuitive: the outlets are on the mirror wall, and the hairdryer is in one of drawers under the sink.

Newspapers and fresh fruits were delviered to room every day. Rooms were cleaned every morning, and beds were turned down every nights, with chocolates and a card with tomorrow's weather forecast.

There were fantastic food in the executive lounge throughout the day. Free internet. Food at lobby was also excellent. Great pool area. Great location of the hotel. Anyone working here were so nice and helpful to us. Beijing is a great city. We will be back and stay at JW Marriott again.

I stayed at the JW Marriott for eight nights in August, 2008, with my husband and two young children (4 years and 15 months). We were travelling with a group for the Olympics. If my husband and I had been travelling without the kids, this property would have met our needs well, although it does not quite measure up to five-star standards (see below). We managed fine with the kids but if our group had not been based at the JW we would have preferred another property. There are no adjoining rooms available, so if one wants separate sleeping areas (either for privacy or because the little ones go to sleep earlier than mom and dad) one must be comfortable having the kids in a totally separate room. We were not. Upgrading to a suite was not an option (availability), although my understanding is that the suites do not actually have a partition between the office/sitting area and the bedroom, so that would not have helped us much anyway. On the positive side, the sumptuous breakfast buffet is free for children and there are extensive offerings on the kids menu. In fact, any regular menu item can be ordered for kids at 50% off. Also, the indoor pool is shallow and thus quite safe for the children.

The highlights: wonderful showers in the bathroom and fitness center locker rooms; very quiet – we were next door to another family with small children and only heard them when they were in the hallway; good food in all the restaurants; very close to a metro stop on the main east-west line; next door to Shin Kuo mall, with upscale shops plus a huge food court and a play area; prompt, friendly service; fitness center has lots of machines and is open 24 hours; lovely pool, Jacuzzi, sauna and locker rooms.

Why this is not quite a five-star property: (1) The rooms are quite small – we were very cramped in a room with two double beds. A couple without kids, a crib and 3 suitcases would be more comfortable but would still not have a lot of room to move around. (2) Don’t look under the beds or behind the curtains! Our room certainly seemed clean on the surface, but when I was fishing toys out from under the bed I was pretty grossed out by what I saw. I then started to notice that the cleaning really was cursory – for example, surfaces were wiped, but residue of yesterday’s milk-spill were still obvious. Corners were not vacuumed. This despite the fact that housekeeping spent at least 45 minutes to an hour in our room each day! Twice we came home and had to wait, and wait, and wait to get back into the room. I learned to call housekeeping as we left in the morning, and they then came right away and finished up before we returned from our morning excursion. Also, I had brought dishwashing liquid and a bottle brush with me to keep all of our paraphernalia clean, and, oddly, one day those items disappeared. (But at least my cameras and jewelry were untouched!) (3) There is no outlet in the bathroom for a hairdryer, not even the hairdryer provided by the hotel. (4) The desk chair does not actually fit under the desk (thus consuming precious real estate in the room). (5) The flat panel TV is not mounted on the wall but sits on the dresser, thus sort of defeating the purpose of a flat panel! (6) The in-room safe is very small. (7) One night while my husband and I were at a reception on the conference level, an evacuation alarm and announcement sounded. ("DO not panic. Do not use the elevators. Please evacuate the building immediately.") I flew up 12 flights of stairs to help our babysitter with my little darlings, only to learn that there was no announcement made on our floor. To be safe we took the kids down anyway. It turned out to be a false alarm, but there was no subsequent "all-clear" announcement, and the hotel staff made no proactive effort to inform the handful of guests who had taken the announcement seriously. One of my friends finally found the night manager and grilled him until she was sure it was safe to take everyone back upstairs. The next day we received an apology, but it was all very confusing and unsettling. What would have happened in a real emergency, I wondered. In any case, all of these things may seem like nitpicks, but they add up to an experience that is generally very nice but just not top-of-the-line.

If you are going to Beijing to shop, the JW is well located. If you are going to see the major sites, I suggest staying downtown. Several years ago we stayed on Wangfujing Dajie, which is much more convenient. Based at the JW we spent a lot of time in taxis (traffic!) and on the metro. Beijing traffic is really quite bad so when considering the comfort level you want in your accommodations, it is really worth considering the distance from sites you’d like to see. I would probably prefer the downtown Holiday Inn – not as deluxe, but so much more convenient! – over the JW for future visits to Beijing.

I stayed at the JW Marriott Beijing a couple weeks ahead of the Olympics games. The hotel is relatively new. It is nice and comfortable. There are four bottles of water in the room which is replenished everyday.

I thought that the location was somewhat convenient. It is a 3-5 minute walk to the main subway line (line 1) which runs east-west through Beijing which means you can go to the forbidden city / tian'an men square and other tourist sites easily. Next to the hotel are two shopping malls / office buildings. In the basement of these buildings, there are many restaurants, a food court, and a grocery (supermarket). Therefore access to food / drinks is very convenient. The only drawback is that the hotel's address is actually the back door of the hotel (where groups check in). Not really a problem since there is hotel staff to greet and direct you, but a bit confusing for the taxi drivers.

As usual in Beijing and China, it always helps to have the hotel name in Chinese, and a quick map to show the taxi drivers. I had a difficult time obtaining this prior to my trip. I have uploaded a scanned hotel card for future visitors. I hope it is of use to many.