Zhuhai Holiday Resort

Zhuhai Holiday Resort runs a small hostel facility of two eight-bed dormitories on its spacious and luxurious grounds. The place is set up as an aid to establishing the Chinese Youth Hostel Association -- it seems it is no longer affiliated but it still offers a discount to members of Hostelling International organisations. Just roll up to the normal hotel reception and register in the normal way. You will then be taken on the resort shuttle bus to the dormitories -- generally single gender, but as the facility is so little used, some flexibility is possible after settling in. Guests are not given a room key but must contact a member of staff in the adjacent building or ask the main reception to arrange to be let in.

The Location

The resort is a some way from Gongbei, the main city centre (with a large underground budget shopping center) and where the main intercity bus station and the main Macau border crossing are located, but bus route 4 will take you there easily enough. Bus No. 26 gets you there from the Xiangzhou bus station in the north of town. There are several restaurants, including two cheapies, and a small supermarket, within a kilometre.

Rooms and Bathrooms

Each of the two dormitories contains four double bunks, so the total capacity is eight male and eight female, but rarely are there more than four people staying at one time. The bunks are very solid and wooden framed with thin hard mattresses, as is generally preferred in China. There are two wide screen TVs with cable channels in each dormitory and sufficient power points but no internet. Each dorm has two air conditioning units and a single internet cable connection.

There is a single ensuite shower and squat toilet in each dorm. Hot water is never an issue. The normal resort maid service maintains the dorms to a high standard daily.

Common Spaces

There is neither a kitchen facility (just an electric kettle) nor common room at the dorms. However, hostelers have full use of the resort lobby, which has free Wi-Fi and all the other resort facilities, like restaurant, swimming pool, and nightclub but at normal resort prices -- far too high for most hostelers.

Summary

This is an interesting place, which we have been visiting for four years. It's not a typical hostel and does not have a hosteling atmosphere. However, apart from being one of the few cheap options in Zhuhai, it is a great place to while away a few days drinking a beer or two (from the nearby supermarket, of course) in the spacious grounds which includes an ornamental lake, with a quiet island where you can frequently be alone.

Zhuhai is not a tourist centre except that it is adjacent to Macau, but it's a very pleasant city -- there are some hilltop walks, the sea flanks the east and south, and there are nearby locations where you can eat fresh seafood at stalls by the side of the sea or fish ponds, and it's also cleaner and quieter than most cities. It is also more forward looking in many other areas -- for example, workers are less exploited here as the authorities apply the national labour laws quite seriously (and that is rare!).

— Exclusive Hostelz.com Review
April 2011