Amanfayun

Amanfayun is absolutely unique. It provides an opportunity to stay in great comfort in the midst of a beautiful wooded landscape among ancient temples and rock carvings, with access to both at any time. Every part of the hotel is in a restored, historic building in a series of courtyards spread over a kilometre, either side of an ancient (but very well maintained) path. Although the footpath is open to the public, very few people seem to use it even when the holiday crowds are visiting the temple complex. The rooms are enormous high ceilinged 'cottages' and beautifully decorated with modern facilities and highly effective air conditioning - the only drawback is that they are quite dark. The food is excellent - we enjoyed our meal in the Tea Room and our lunch in the Steam House. Breakfast is a la carte which is unusual, but the selection and quality were impressive. Staff are very thoughtful and helpful - language was not a problem at all for us. The hotel arranged a guide for us to view the temples which was very helpful - we would have missed a huge amount without her. It's a 50 minute walk from the hotel to West Lake, with its scenic views and extensive network of paths. We didn't go into Hangzhou itself, but the main area is around 15-20 minutes by taxi and the stations are around 30 - 40 minutes away.

Probably the worst Aman hotel experience at all. I have been to several Aman hotels before but this is not up to standard. The room and environment are pretty good but the staff are not well trained, they were always on their phone, very impolite.

We have been to 5 different Aman so far, this is thr worst. Hotels old, staff is trash. The hotel lobby had piss everywhere when we got there, staff were impolite, they were always on their phone, and didnt look like a hotel that is worth 7k rmb at all. Even the waiter would drop off the wrong dish at your table, almost everything that could go wrong went wrong. The only normal person is Alex from Hong Kong. I highly suggest them to shut this place down or hire everyone all over

I have mixed feelings about this stay. We have stayed in several Aman resorts and we didn't think the level of service, attention, grounds, rooms etc was close to any other property we have previously stayed at. We got upgraded to a Deluxe Villa Suite, however not sure if a smaller room might have been better as the size of the room with the minimal lighting, it made it not as cozy. The staff is overall nice, but they speak very limited English, which sometimes makes communication difficult, in several of the restaurants we had to use a phone translator. The hotel is an old town reconfigured into the hotel, but the main street running through the hotel is public, so there is some pedestrian traffic that is not part of the hotel. Our villa was close to the road, which was not a problem. The breakfast is "a la carte", however they do have a good selection, I really liked the dim sum menu. We had dinner at the Steam house and we loved the vegetarian tasting menu. The vegetarian restaurant was pricey but amazing experience with their tasting menu. The hotel is next to the Lingyin temple, we do get a ticket to access the area, however we have to buy a ticket to enter the temple area, which was a little complicated as most places only take cash or Alipay. I wondered why the hotel didn't provide with a ticket to access everything to make it easier and to be able to enjoy right away as it can get extremely busy. The pool and furniture seem a little run down and there is no pool service (that we were aware of). You can reserve the steam sauna, hot tub, where tea and rice cake is served. This was nice. The first night, we received the turn down service after we were already back from dining and we were in bed, it is not a big deal, but usually at this level, we expect them to know where we are and do it earlier when we are not in the room. Overall it was a fine stay, however we didn't leave thinking it was exceptional compared to our previous Aman experiences.

So glad I made the decision to switch part of my trip’s accommodation to Amanfayun at the last minute! It wasn’t even on my list of considerations until a local mentioned it to me during my trip planning. Comparing my city hotel experience next to Westlake to this? Definitely choose Amanfuyun. Even with the knowledge you WILL absolutely get bitten by mosquitos during the Summer season (they do provide a mosquito kit). Situated in a lovely village modernized for our creature comforts, the serenity is almost surreal. I was a little concerned about privacy and human traffic given the comments from another review but it didn’t end up bothering me at all (even though my room 03 was right next to the path). Most of the rooms are tucked into a corner of greenery or only accessible by little rock paths so the public pathway only adds to the atmosphere and in no way detracts from the experience. The proximity of Feilaifang (which took us 2.5 days to explore and we still couldn’t finish) surrounding the resort has a huge part to play in weaving transcendence into the whole experience. There are about 5 of the rock Buddhas situated within a discrete corner of the hotel, requiring some dexterity for the older folks to hop across a steam with pebbles that is not accessible to the public. Beware: High mosquito bite risk. The cultural activities organized in Fayun Place were quite enjoyable! The activities are random so they can’t tell you until the day of! Our package included a photoshoot by a very professional photographer who was extremely determined to get some decent shots of the most unphotogenic couple in history. It took well over an hour and he brought us to some truly gorgeous areas of the hotel we didn’t even know existed! Just exploring the place could take a whole day in itself and it’d be a tourist attraction all on its own. The staff were very personable and we almost wondered if they had a GPS tracker on us because they always seemed to know who we were and which room we were from no matter where we wandered off to. The lighting in the room was a little too dim for my preference but it does really take us back in time! It’s a whole part of the experience! Definitely worth the occasional fumbling around the room to look for keys. For reference: we stayed in room 03 (Village suite), pictures as attached. Given the other reviews, I’d definitely go for a villa next time even though it’s just my husband and I!