Hotel Tangla di Beijing

My family and I have visited Beijing 5 times since 2011, and every time we've stayed at the Tangla. It has definitely lost some of its initial grandeur through the years, but is still a good value. The rooms are clean and a little more spacious than a typical hotel room, with a desk area and a bathroom that includes a separate tub and shower. The hotel has 22 floors with 4 elevators that work very efficiently. It was rare when we needed to wait longer than a minute for the elevator to arrive. The location is pretty good. Right across the street is a shopping mall with a supermarket, numerous restaurants on the 4th and 5th floors and some fast food on the first floors. On another side of the street is the Capital Museum, which is worth checking out for an afternoon if you have the time. A subway stop is a half-kilometer walk away, and that subway line runs directly to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Wangfujing, and numerous other attractions. However, traffic at this intersection has made this location less desirable over time. The main intersection doesn't allow left turns, and street lights don't change for 2 or more minutes at a time during most of the day. As a result, when taking a taxi, your taxi might be mere blocks away but nevertheless 5 minutes to get to the hotel. The traffic can also make taking a taxi down Chang'an street very, very slow. The 6km taxi ride to the Forbidden City can easily take 30 or more minutes just between waiting for your car to arrive and the roundabout way he has to take to get there. The hotel has a gym and pool. The pool is really nice and my son says the gym is too. There's a salon/massage place that we haven't used. It used to have three restaurants but one of them has since closed. We did not use either of the existing restaurants due to the abundance of good restaurants across the street. There is a tea room that we would have taken advantage of during this last trip but it has been closed indefinitely as well. The hotel features 5-star award plaques from previous years but the most recent year with a plaque is from 2018. Support from the front desk in English is minimal. They had one staff member with a limited knowledge of English but that's the extent of it. My wife speaks Chinese so this didn't present a burden for me, but it might for some other English speaking guests. Overall, it's still a good hotel with a good location, and prices are very good. I can't say when I'll be back in Beijing again, but when I am chances are good I'll be back at the Tangla.