Banyan Tree Yangshuo

The property is beautiful, and the rooms are spacious, clean, and comfortable. The breakfast also deserves special mention: it is varied, plentiful, and of good quality. Unfortunately, however, the service does not meet the standards expected of a five-star international hotel belonging to a prestigious brand such as Banyan Tree. It is very difficult to understand how, in a property of this level, almost no member of staff is able to communicate in English. We experienced constant communication difficulties, even when placing a simple order at the restaurant. We always had to use a translation app on our phones, but even then, we were often unable to make ourselves properly understood. We also booked an excursion to the rice terraces through the hotel, and the experience was extremely complicated. It was very difficult to understand where we were supposed to go and how the tour was organized. We had to communicate using gestures and photographs because the guide could not understand even basic English. Overall, the property is pleasant, with spacious, clean rooms and a good breakfast, but our stay was significantly affected by the serious communication difficulties. From a five-star Banyan Tree hotel, we expected a much higher standard of service and better assistance for international guests.

The service of the Spa was great however, the installations are old and the hotel is not renewed ( the pool, lobby, restaurant is not a 5 star hotel). In the website they show 2 restaurants only 1 is open. The rooms were not properly made. Overall not a 5 star hotel.

We had a wonderful stay at Banyan Tree Yangshuo. The setting is absolutely stunning, surrounded by the beautiful karst mountains and peaceful countryside that make Yangshuo so special. The resort grounds are beautiful, the room was spacious and comfortable, and the views were incredible. We especially enjoyed the calm atmosphere and the opportunity to slow down and enjoy nature. The staff were friendly and helpful throughout our stay, and the overall experience felt relaxing and memorable. We would definitely return and highly recommend it to anyone visiting Yangshuo.

We stayed here for a few nights. The location is undeniably stunning. What an incredible landscape. Despite what comes next, which is highly critical, we appreciate the staff who maintain the beautiful grounds of the hotel. However, for a 5-star hotel charging 5-star prices (room rates as high as hotels in far more expensive countries/regions) there are some glaring issues. First and foremost, the check-in process was plainly awful. We arrived after 5 hours of travel to a queue of about 10 people sitting around waiting for staff to be available for the check-in. When our turn finally arrived, it was immediately apparent that the check-in staff barely spoke any English. I appreciate that we are travelers in a foreign country, but the bare minimum for a 5-star Banyan Tree hotel check-in desk should be flexibility with language. Second, the restaurant situation is frankly a puzzle. There are technically two restaurants at the resort. One is their more upscale Chinese cuisine and the other is a more casual broad mix of eastern and western cuisine. It is very strange, but they seem to both share the same staff, so nothing is very efficient. I have no doubt that the staff are all working their hardest, and everyone was very pleasant, but the design of the resort and management of the staff seems completely inefficient. I would also note that most of the staff speak minimal English. As for the food itself, the western cuisine is ok and the Chinese food is good (but the western palette must be selective). The pool was nice. The pool bar, which is featured on the website, was closed for no apparent reason. So if you wanted to order drinks at the pool, they had to send someone from the restaurants (mentioned above) to come to the pool and then run back, make it, and return. Again, the staff were working hard, but the system was completely inefficient and led to a poor guest experience. I’m shocked to find this at a banyan tree hotel. This is not necessarily the hotel’s fault, but there were many instances of guests throwing human food (fruits, bread, etc) all over the place in order to feed the animals (there are beautiful peacocks and ducks on the property which you can feed using specific animal feed that the property gives you). Not pleasant and if it were a western hotel the staff would undoubtedly tell the guests not to behave that way. Last, but certainly not least. On our last night (around 9:30pm) the key card lock on our door ran out of battery. Pretty silly for that to happen at a 5 star hotel, but it did. This is yet again a symptom of poor management, as no hotel of any decent quality should allow a guest room lock to not be checked in between every guest. The staff quickly arrived to try their key card, which of course didn’t work because the battery died. So, late at night after dinner we are stuck in the dark waiting with the staff for someone to show up and replace the battery. After about 5-10 minutes one member of the maintenance staff showed up, only to not have a means to fix it on-hand. This required a call to another staff member who arrived, apologized and spent another 5-10 minutes working to open our door. This process also let mosquitos into our room, which was not ideal. We were probably locked out of our room for 20+ minutes. At any typical 5 star hotel, you would be sure to get a message or gist from the hotel manager apologizing for such an occurrence and likely a complimentary night or meal to make up for the inconvenience, but no, we did not hear a word about it (not even an apology) from anyone, even at check-out. All things considered, the Banyan Tree Yangshuo is in a beautiful location with memorable views and amazing groundskeepers who work hard to maintain that beauty. However, it was very far from a 5-star hotel experience and quite frankly shocking that it bares the Banyan Tree name. We would probably stay here if it were just one night, purely for the landscape, but the hotel is massively overpriced and has a lot of improvement to do.