Your China on the move.

Run by Singaporean management, this sprawling resort has something for everyone--a 36 hole golf course, a hands on pottery and art workshop, hot spring swimming pools, an artificial beach and waterslide park, excellent restaurants a top-of-the-line spa and an old Tang dynasty lighthouse. Best part? Their 470 split level villas have recently been renovated to top form.

• narsfweasels
  20%

  Lousy. Just lousy. After nearly four years in Shanghai I still cannot fathom how massively sub-par service, accommodation and food can still go for such terribly high prices. We started off here on a bad note: the lady at the desk noted our reservation but immediately began upselling to a villa - there were only the two of us staying and it wasn't worth it. She kept on for five minutes after every single polite "no" that we uttered. Her only reason for recommending "It's bigger". Not better. Bigger. The room itself was fine, just a little overpriced for the size at about 800RMB for less than 20 metres. We looked into one of the villas... and yes, it was bigger but with the same furniture and fixtures. No real point in two people staying in a four-bedroom house. We then drove down to the activity centre, as we had been given four complimentary activity tickets. The activities on offer were: ping pong (yawn) pottery (full of the under-fives) archery (crowded) Karting (long waiting time) Horse-riding (one or two lame horses, one of which had thrown a shoe) and golf (really just a driving range). We settled on the archery, which was not so bad, fair value -each ticket is worth 30RMB and for that price we got 20 arrows, enough for two of us. We then sauntered over to the go-kart circuit, which by that time was getting empty. Still we had to wait 20 minutes and get a double-kart for the two of us. Which, upon arrival at the front of the queue, we were told would cost two tickets per person and we could go round the small circuit once. A little math: 1 car for two people + 1 circuit of approximately 1 minute track = 120RMB. How about no? By this time it was late, so we decided to go off to the Spa and have a massage before dinner. Big mistake. This time the receptionist at the Spa took about 15 minutes upselling absolutely everything. I had settled on an aromatherapy treatment rather than a massage, as massages never seem to do the trick for me. The receptionist kept bleating on "But sir, it's not a massage! We have a very good massage at 1500RMB with two masseuses! Two!" She really wasn't taking no for an answer, and after a while I lost patience and Mrs Narsfs began to deal with her. The upshot was that the treatment was delayed by 45 minutes - 15 minutes thanks to the upselling, and then 30 minutes because of the sullen attitude of the receptionist in not taking any action to get a room ready. By the time the room was ready, we were too hungry to wait, so we went for the 288RMB per person bbq buffet with free drinks. And lemme tell ya, it was terrible. We were in front of the wave pool, which was nice, beautifully lit with tiki torches and the waves aggressively lapping at the fake beach. We were ushered to a small plastic table and told by the waitress that we would have to share with other people, as the place was busy. Ok, but for nearly 600 RMB you'd expect more tables and tables for two... Strike One. Then the band began their sound check... now, I'm in a sucky band, and one thing that we know is to never have a sound check when there are people around - the guests start dancing or getting in the groove and then you suddenly turn off and say "Hey, keep that feeling! We'll be back in an hour for the real music!" What made it worse was that the lady singing was one of those tone-deaf howlers who was accidentally once told "you have a nice voice" to spare her feelings several years ago that has somehow made a career out of being thoroughly unable to sing. She was joined on the stage by her compatriots -apparently from Inner Mongolia all, but dressed as Rastafarians as they hammered out emotionless rhythms on their island drums. It was clear they were enjoying themselves. Nobody else was, sadly. What made it more difficult to bear was that our table was side on to the speaker, and when all four of us tried to move the table the staff came over and shouted us down. Strike Two. Of course, it would have been thoroughly bearable had the food been of a high standard. Instead, what we were faced with was an enormously and blatantly cynical attempt to save as much money by the management as was humanly possible. The barbecue chefs didn't begin cooking until well after the 6pm opening time, so when the first few scrag ends of meat were available, there was the usual Chinese scrum of four thousand people trying to get all the meat... and only one woman walking away triumphantly with five plates piled high because she was able to shout louder than the rest of them and her elbows were that much sharper. Then followed a long wait for the next load. And the next. And the next. By which time the people who had eaten the first few plates were already barging their way to the front of the queue again. This could have been avoided had they began cooking before the start of the festivities, but no, it wasn't until 7pm that meat was readily available. The meat itself was your typical Shanghai street food: lamb kebabs, chicken kebabs, emaciated scallops and low-quality sausages. Fine if you like street food, but not fine if you're paying 300RMB for the privilege of eating it. The remainder of the buffet was extremely average - ten tonnes of cold spring rolls, steamed bread, fried rice, cheap fruits and foul-tasting salad. Add to that complimentary beer that had so much water added to it that it was flat about a minute out of the tap and you have yourself one very overpriced shindig. Strike Three. Out. To cap it all, however, we decided to go to the Spa again for a treatment. This time, the manageress was very helpful - no upselling, just helpful. She told us that our treatments would be 30% off as we were guests at the resort, so I decided to risk the 800RMB Chinese massage and Mrs Narsfs opted for the 660RMB Whitening Facial, both lasting 90 minutes. What followed was 90 minutes of near abject-agony and confusion: {PUNCH, SMACK} "Ow, please, a little lighter, that hurts!" "Oh, sorry!" {THUDTHUDTHUD WHACK!} "DEAR GOD! Lighter, I said! Not 'try to rupture some organs'" "Oh, okay!" {WHUMPWHUMPWHUMP} The long and the short of it was that I woke up this morning with intense neck pain, barely able to climb the stairs and several bruises on my chest. In fairness, the masseuse stayed away from my bad ankle (heroically sustained in a recent game of football) but maybe it was because I told her I would "make the final moments of her existence a misery" if she touched it, rather than any professional ethic. Mrs Narsfs, however, mentioned that her facial was very good, and it certainly left her looking whiter than usual. It was probably the paint they used. That said, she agreed that even the discounted price was hard to swallow - we have both had massages and spa therapies elsewhere in Shanghai much, much cheaper, and much, much more relaxing. Poor value, poor service, poor massage. The only saving grace, if there was one, was the driving range the next morning -breakfast was 3-star hotel quality, by the way. We sauntered up, paid the 400RMB club deposit and exchanged our remaining 3 tickets for 60 golf balls and spent a very enjoyable hour trying to look like we did that sort of thing all the time. The final bill, after discounts and everything came just shy of 2500RMB -terrible value. Shockingly bad food and drink, painful massage and poor attitude of the staff. The receptionist upon check out tried to charge us an additional 2000RMB for some things that had been mistakenly stapled to our bill. She was adamant that we had ordered mahjong tables for six, convinced that we had picked up the tab for a group of ten people in the mineral baths and amazingly assured that we had made several long distance phone calls. Only when we pointed out the difference between the room numbers and the fact that the signatures didn't match ours were we let off the hook - without an apology. We won't be going back, and we urge everyone else not to as well.