I stayed at the JW Marriott Beijing for 4 nights with my family while on vacation in China. I travel to China regularly for business but this was the first trip over for the rest of my family. The hotel is very nice, but is lacking compared to other luxury options in China. I would not stay there again or recommend it to anybody else over other options like the Shangri-la or even the Hilton.

I'll start with the positives: The hotel is new and well appointed. It is very clean. The beds are comfortable, the rooms are big enough, and the TV is nice. The "welcome" truffles were very, very good.

Now the negatives: The first problem I had when arriving was realizing that the double doors that lead into the bathroom are made of glass with etched floral designs and are "see though". Some rooms also have a window from the tub into the main room, but there is a shade that can be pulled down for privacy. The problem is that you have a view from the entryway through the glass doors of the entire bathroom including the toilet, shower, sink, and tub. Call me crazy but I don't really feel comfortable using the toilet or taking a shower when I have family members coming in and out of the room when they can see straight in.

I complained at the front desk and was told by the customer service manager that the doors were in fact not "see through". I'm still not sure if he understood that I was talking about the door into the bathroom and not the window with the shade because his english wasn't very good and my mandarin vocabulary is too basic to discuss see through doors in the bathroom. After repeated complaints though, my room was visited by 2 maintenance men and then 3 people from housekeeping. The net result was that they taped up a bed sheet across the entry way (see the photo). Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that the solution to providing me some privacy in the bathroom at a supposedly 5-star hotel is taping a bedsheet across the entry to the bathroom. Why they didin't just include two little shades that could be pulled down on the doors is beyond me.

There were a variety of other problems with the hotel. My mother, who was traveling with us, found herself trapped in an elevator for 20 minutes one morning while the maintenance guys figured out how to get the door open. The breakfast buffet was hit or miss. There were apparently some language issues and my wife received a veggie omelet with no veggies. And my eggs over easy were cooked to the point that the yolk had solidified. We also only saw the chef at the crepe station once out of the 3 mornings we ate there. The shower head had a pretty significant and annoying drip. And in one odd encounter, I was waiting in the lobby reclining on a sofa and had the toe of my shoe sitting on the edge of the table, when one of the lobby employees came over and admonished me, telling me to take my foot off the table. I can't imagine that happening at any other hotel that I've ever stayed at.

The JW Marriott Beijing is a very nice looking hotel. However, once you get beyond the appearance, it become clear that it is lacking in many ways. There are so many good choices when it comes to top-tier hotels in Beijing (including the Ritz next door) that I can't recommend anybody stay here. On future trips I will be going back to the Shagri-la or Hilton, both of which are far nicer hotels.