Review: Eastin Taipei Hotel – great neighborhood and good service!

The Eastin Taipei Hotel is in a fun neighborhood in Taipei, making it a great base to explore the city. The friendly service makes you feel at home in a foreign city and is inviting to return. You also get a gym, lounge with coffee, snacks and fast WiFi as well as a laundry room.But the rooms are a little worn and the ceilings in the converted office building are low. The views of the iconic Taipei 101 from upgraded rooms are nice, but come at a steep price. Read my detailed review of the Eastin Hotel Taipei to see if it’s the right place for your visit to this fun and diverse city!

Location: The Eastin Taipei is on Zhongxiao road, in a very hip neighborhood. The main road has plenty of international brand shops and department stores. And the countless funky stores, cosy coffee shops and cool restaurants and bars along the narrow alleys here are super fun and reminded us of Le Marais in Paris. It’s a great atmosphere on weekend and the perfect place to stay in Taipei – we found it thanks to a local friend!
It’s between two metro stations and an entrance to the underground mall is right in front of the hotel, making access to the excellent train system easy and convenient. Taipei Airport is about 1h to 1h15min by taxi or train. Taipei main train station is about 30 minutes by subway or bus without having to change.
If you are walking up to it, look for a red sign to point to the entrance and take the elevator to the 14th floor – it’s easy to miss!

Service: The staff at the Eastin Taipei is exceptionally friendly and attentive. At check-in the staff processed our reservation quickly and explained the amenities of the hotel. There was always staff at the reception who spoke English very well. They also assisted provided me with a key card for the gym for the duration of our stay and assisted with my laundry. They were kind enough to extend our check-out by 1h, enough to work out for our afternoon flight. I noticed that they offered to store luggage for other guests with later departures. Service was friendly in a casual way, making you feel at home, rather than like in a luxury hotel.
Housekeeping cleaned our room thoroughly each day, replaced towels and left everything in good working order. The supply of shampoo and soap was not refreshed during our 4-day stay, but that seemed to be a matter of policy, so bring your own for longer stays.

Room: We had booked a Double Deluxe Room with a view of Taipei 101 and that’s what we got! The room is compact and the queen bed takes up most of the space, with a night stand on each side.

From the bed, you da have a view of the skyline and Taipei 101. In the corner by the window is a padded chair and a wall-mounted TV is facing the bed.

The room is equipped with coffee and tea facilities as well as a small, empty fridge and a laptop-size safe.

Along the wall are a desk with chair to get some work done. Near the door is an open wardrobe with space for your luggage and clothes. All the furniture is made of light-colored natural wood, with a bit of an Ikea feel. The wood furniture and chair showed some sign of wear and tear and could use a replacement. The color scheme is in beige/brown tones, warm and inoffensive, with a red lamp and photos as the only splash of color.

The bathroom has a deep soaking tub under a window to the bedroom, with a shower and curtain installed. The toilet has a Toto Bidet seat installed, which is a nice touch common in Taiwan hotels. On the right of the door is the single vanity. Towels are of good quality and small bottles of L’Occitane shampoo and shower gel were provided, once for the stay. The internets ate my bathroom photo, please apologize the photo from the hotel website. Our room had a shower curtain instead of the glass partition and featured frosted glass for privacy, instead of clear glass.

My biggest problem with the Eastin Hotel in general and the bathroom is the very low ceiling. I’m 6ft3 (1,90m) tall and had to duck under exit signs in the hallway. Because of the even lower ceiling height and the tub, my head hit the ceiling when taking a shower and I’d get shampoo all over the ceiling. It’s probably not a problem for the majority of guests, but worth pointing out.
The free WiFi internet was fast at an average speed of 24.8Mbps, but speeds dropped to as low as 5.9sMbps down and 0.63Mbps up. It was always fast enough to browse the web or stream movies, but work might be impacted.

When selecting a room at the Eastin Taipei, make sure to look closely at the room category you choose: it offers separate male/female single rooms with shared bathrooms on a separate floor, as well as standard double rooms without windows at lower prices. Online Travel Agents (OTA) will show Deluxe Room pictures of corner rooms with windows all around – but these are a separate room category and there are only two of them, so you should book direct if you have your heart set on those! See the floor plan of the Eastin Taipei below.

Restaurant & Amenities: The Eastin Taipei has a small lounge area where you can get (good) coffee from an automated Espresso machine, tea and snacks all day. The breakfast included in our rate was to our surprise provided by the fast food chain Mos Burger. It’s delivered to the hotel at 7am or 9am, you can have it in the lounge area or in your room and staff will notify you on request when it arrives, so you can have it while it’s warm.

There are a couple of Western and Chinese choices. The quality is comparable to a McDonalds breakfast, I’d call it decent but unless you are a fast food fan, I wouldn’t book a rate with breakfast and rather go to the many coffee shops in the area.

The hotel has a laundry room with washer and dryer. Laundry detergent is provided and staff is happy to assist with the Chinese-labeled machines. They worked well and are convenient on a longer trip.

There is also a small gym with cardio and weight equipment for a basic workout.

If you need to print your boarding pass or a ticket, you can do that easily in the small business center. It has two computers, one set up in English and one in Chinese, connected to a printer. It worked flawlessly on first try – there was ink, paper, a connection, something I’ve found to often not be the case!

Value & Rewards: We booked a total of 4 nights at an average rate of $113/night. That’s a pretty steep price considering the room and breakfast. While the view of Taipei 101 is nice, the standard rooms without windows are available at a much lower price and I’d consider them better value.
The Eastin Taipei doesn’t have a loyalty program, but we earned points for our stay with hotels.com WelcomeRewards (worth 10% of the rate) and Agoda giftcards (worth 4%). 

Bottomline: The Eastin Taipei is in a great, fun neighborhood to explore the city and the service is warm and welcoming. The low ceilings made it a little claustrophobic for a tall guy like me and the worn furniture could use an update. If you are on a budget, the standard rooms without windows are better value and I’d skip the fast-food breakfast! I’d recommend the Eastin Taipei (with a height warning for tall folks), based on the fun neighborhood and good service.
If you want something newer, there is the Hej Hotel on a lower floor of the same building that has comparable prices and offers brand new rooms with the same low ceilings. Service wasn’t as friendly during my inspection, English not as good and there is no gym. You can check out prices for these and other hotels in Taipei here!


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