Holiday Inn Express Taichung

This was our second trip to Taichung as a family. We were down here for the boys' softball tournament and decided to stay overnight. We heard that Holiday Inn Express ("HIE") opened a new location in Taichung this April and decided to try it out. Peter had stayed in the HIE in HK before and was satisfied with his experience -- while the rooms were small, the hotel was centrally located (right behind Time Square).


This hotel is also centrally located, overlooking the Taichung Park, in the older part of Taichung City. We arrived at the Hotel just before 5pm and were promptly checked in. Even though the hotel was only sparsely occupied, we were turned down for an "upgrade" to better rooms. While the parking lot next door indicated a height restriction of 1.6 meter, too short to accommodate our CRV, the Hotel guard convinced us to enter and gave us a space on the first floor of the lot. The lobby is clean, bright and modern with "The Great Room", its only restaurant, located in the corner. We took two connecting rooms, on the sixth floor, facing the city (not overlooking the park). Our room size was decent, probably around 200 - 250 sf. Again, the room's decorations were modern and functional. A long desk on one side of the room, held the desk lamp, electric kettle, mugs, packets of instant coffee and tea. There is a safe in the closet but no mini fridge. There are open shelves in the closets but aren't any drawers to hold one's clothes. Our connecting rooms have the standard combination -- one room with two single beds and one with a queen size bed. The bathroom is fairly simple with a small sink, a toilet and a relatively large walk-in shower (though the shower head was low -- more suited Asians). One complaint we would make would be on the towels in the bathroom -- while they were soft, they were not absorbent -- leaving one wet even after a thorough toweling off.


Apart from the Taichung Park (which is beautiful) across the street, there is GeeGuang Commercial Street (繼光商店街) with probably an active night market just a few blocks away. The breakfast at the Great Room is of a semi-buffet style with one serving of entre (four to choose from -- Western which features scramble or boiled eggs, sausage, ham, hash brown and steam veggies; Chinese which has fried dumplings and eggs; Healthy with yogurt, an egg and salad; Asian which was the Singapore style fried noodles) plus all-you-can eat congee with condiments, toasts, fruit and salad plus coffee, tea and juice. Consistent with the rest of the hotel, the Great room is modern and functional. There are enough tables to seat probably around 100+ guests though there were probably only 30-40 people this morning.

Overall we think Holiday Inn Express is a decent hotel. At NTD3,199 nett, it's reasonably priced but not outstandingly valued. Comparatively, Hotel One where we stayed during our last visit to Taichung, is an outstanding hotel with great services but cost at least 50% more at around NTD5,000 per night. So, depending on the experience you are looking for, Holiday Inn Express can certainly be an adequate choice on your next visit to Taichung.