Slove Hotel - try to avoid

This is my review after staying at Say Love Hotel (http://www.slovehotel.com.tw/) from 21- 23 Nov and 26-29 Nov for my trip to TW recently. I deliberately chose this hotel over other more established and popular budget hotels with more reviews in Taipei as I wanted a newer hotel which I thought would be cleaner with better fittings, which I was wrong about.

My comments below:

1. Breakfast - Very basic. White toast with butter and jam. Plain chinese porridge with condiments. Very boring and mediocre. Only saving grace, the free fish spa at the breakfast area, which my husband liked. I didnt dare use it as I%26#39;ve heard stories of ppl being bitten badly but my husband has tought feet, haha.

2. Room. Again, I chose Slove over other hotels like Gocity cos the room (even the cheapest one) looks bigger than their competitors. How wrong was I! It was way smaller than how it looks on their website. My husband and I were very disappointed! I stayed in their cheapest room for 2 days before I left for Hualien and one more night in the same room when I returned to Taipei. When we moved into the second most expensive room for our last 2 nights, we were even most disappointed when the room was the same size, if not, slightly more cramped than our previous room! Only the bathroom was slightly bigger, but that was a small comfort cos the fittings were beyond bad. The tap, when pushed to the warm water settings, trobbled violently, so I couldnt have warm/hot water in the morning at the basin. The water also leaked from the bottom of the tap onto the countertop and down to the floor. The showerset holder at the marble-tiled bath area rusted to a total black color. Pretty gross. Same for the rain shower which probably saw better days. It also leaked out at the top. It wasnt pleasant, to say the least.

The bathroom we had at the cheapest room was tiled in white smooth tiles which made it a hazard given the floor would be wet most of the time. In fact, I almost had a potentially bad fall one late night after showering. Perhaps its a Taiwan construction/renovation thing, but the bathroom fittings were really all of very bad quality. Rust was everywhere and to choose mosaic tiles for a budget hotel is not smart. Fungus etc will accumulate quickly and replacements for small tiles which came out were an eye-sore.

Also, I highly suspect the hygiene/cleanliness at the hotel. As we know, most budget hotels in Taiwan serve hourly customers who come in to rest. When we check into our room after returning from Hualien, my husband told me that he found pubic hair on the bedsheets, and obviously that wasnt ours. I also found suspicious short strands of hair and dust on my side of the bed. It wasnt a gd experience.

I guess the worst was on our last night. We came back at abt 10+pm and went straight to our room and forgot to pay the room rent for the day (we paid on a daily basis). My husband and I had a long shower (hour or so) in the bathroom, and apparently the service staff were calling/ringing our room to ask us to make payment. I came out of the shower first, only wrapped in the towel, and heard the door bell ringing. I didnt/couldnt answer as I wasnt clothed. Before I knew it, I heard someone outside taking the keys and turning the door!! I quickly told them that we%26#39;re inside the room, and that we will pay them when we%26#39;re done since we had been showering. Their excuse was that they had rang us for a while and we didnt answer. I was pretty outraged, as we had paid every day that we stayed there and we were going to check out tomorrow already, so what%26#39;s the fuss about barging into our room? Doesnt it occur to them that their guests may be taking a long shower and since they didnt have a phone in the bathroom we wouldnt have heard anything?

Also, on my last night at the room, I noticed on the left top corner of the room some red stains resembling blood on the wallpaper. There are no other similar colors used in the room, so it shouldnt be any paint which dripped there. I admit I am quite imaginative by nature, and I was pretty spooked but didnt tell my husband. Actually I wanted to cancel my booking after reading here that a HK woman committed suicide at Slove, but it was too late as the other budget hotels were full for my dates.

Anyway, I was glad to be out of the hotel on my last day, and I would definitely go for a more established hotel should I return to Taipei again. Cramped rooms + badly-fitted bathrooms + highly-suspect room-cleanliness will keep me away from Slove and similar hotels for a while.

Slove Hotel - try to avoid

Thanks for your review, It will help others a lot when making choices on accomodation.

Slove Hotel - try to avoid

Welcome home, Risin_Fallin. :-)

Wow, yrs has certainly been a horrendous experience, to say the least.

Aside from the bad bathroom workmanship, I personally thought the barging into yr room, dirtied room upon yr return from Hua Lien %26amp; the unexplained blood stain, were really inexcusable!

Sigh.. Sorry to hear of yr bad experience. Thks for sharing with us.

TA :-)

TaipeiDreams.com

Eek! Thanks for such a detailed review. Not to be rude, but after their experience with the HK woman, they have probably become super nervous!

Rust and leaking faucets in a hotel that just opened in May of this year? Incredible!

No wonder they are able to offer such cheap price at such a central location! I was in Taipei end of October, and I paid 1700 for a room in the basement of a 30 year old hotel.

Thank you for sharing your experience. Unfortunately I%26#39;ve booked Slove fm 18-22Dec but have not paid yet. Can anyone recommend a decent budget hotel? but by now most would have been booked. =(

I booked mine at GoCity Hotel. 1500+ for standard room and 1900+ for twin room. i heard it%26#39;s small (i don%26#39;t mind) but i really hope it%26#39;s clean..

I was there last yr, clean and new. Yes, small, don%26#39;t even has closet to put clothes for the room that I had. Not an issue to me. Location is superb.

To be specific, my comments were for GoCity, not Slove.

left top corner of the room some red stains resembling blood on the wallpaper??? OMG! Skally they give u e room which e HK woman killed herself... mayb cos their room is fully booked and den dey gt no choice bt 2let u stay in ';her'; room. luckily didnt booked there when i went on sept as i hv ever post in e forum sayin tt sum1 was killed in tt hotel

Thanks everyone for their replies. Actually Slove isn%26#39;t that cheap, esp compared to other budget hotels like TS hotel and Hope Hotel (on the floor above Slove). But I chose it thinking I got a gd deal cos it was new, central location right opp the Kuo Kuang bus terminal and nicer decor. But I was sorely disappointed. Nice decor sounds for nothing when the workmanship, maintenance and cleanliness is of substandard. Hotels should never use low quality fittings regardless of whether they%26#39;re budget or otherwise because they will wear out/rust very quickly due to the high utilization rate from different guests who may not treat the facilities as well as they would for their own house.

I was fairly disturbed to see no reviews for Slove on Tripadvisor given that it was basically fully booked everyday I was there despite the low season so I had to let out everything here, esp since I didn%26#39;t wanna complain to my husband since I was e one who planned e trip and chose the hotel, and complaining to the mgmt was useless given it is such a small one (30 odd rooms in one very run down building).

Hopefully the mgmt actually sees this and do something, else there will be no repeat guests, and hope this serves as a warning to all TPE travelers. I%26#39;ll not be going back to Slove if I can help it!