Of the 16 years of working and living in China, never had I ever experienced such an incredibly awesome service. From the time my sister, our 70 year old mum and I decided to go to Bishuiwan for the weekend right up to the time after we left, we were pampered with royalty treatment!

Before we got there, a staff called me to ask by what means of transportation we were taking to get there. She then text me a detailed description of how to get there including the time taken. We were honestly not expecting anything more than that until we got there. The room we stayed in was superb, the food was great and the hot springs were marvelous. But most of all, the awesome hospitality we experienced was simply beyond words. Knowing that my mum was abstaining from sugar, the staff prepared unsweetened herbal tea for her without being asked to. Sweetened herbal tea was served at the hot springs. My mum was pleasantly baffled by the hospitality and attention showered upon her. She received a total of 17 heart-warming handwritten notes from the staff. They were all personalized and specially written to my mum each with a different purpose such as advising her how to relief her failing knees and what kind of fruits to eat and what not to at her age and health condition. I was handed a clean plastic bag to put my swimming trunks in after I was done with the hot springs and after I had showered. I was then asked if I would like the trunks to be spun dry while I was changing and sure enough my trunks were ready when I was changed.

I could go on and on writing about how thoughtful and wonderful the staff were but I think I should leave some for others to write about. In short, all the staff were absolutely lovable!!! The hot spring management must have a hell of a wonderful hospitality training program! This is one place we would definitely visit again !!!

It's been one of our dreams to visit an outdoor spring ever since our aborted trip to Japan, following the earthquake and tsunami of last year (RIP to those who were lost). It was during a recent trip to China that we lept at the chance to visit one.

We booked through a local travel agent for the princely sum of £14 for the return coach journey and entry to Bishuiwan.

We arrived at the pick up point nice and early and set off to the hot spring on a, not very modern, coach, which left me a little woozy. Nevermind, because once we got there we were essentially treated like royalty.

We were led to the changing areas (ladies in one, gents in the other), where you were given a locker (with electronic key), changed into flipflops and then ushered into the lounge area, where we were plied with drinks (tea, water, coffee, soft drinks, that kind of thing), prepared fruit (melon, oranges, tomatoes, guava, etc.). Afterwards, you were free to go back into the changing areas and change into your swim wear.

Before heading to the outdoor hot springs, we took in a herbal sauna. Having never been in a sauna before I had to will myself to stop from passing out from the heat. However, even that was great. We then headed to outside, it was cold and drizzling, but once we jumped into our first hot spring, it was nothing less than awesome.

The place is littered with springs of different types. There was a coffee pool, a tea pool, a milk pool was rumoured to be a round but was closed for cleaning, jet pools, massage pools, pools with those fish which peck at your feet, there was a twin pool called 'fire and ice' - one pool was 40 degrees, the other freezing. There were hot stone beds, a swimming pool, there's even a conference pool where, erm, you can hold internet and face to face meetings (yeah, I KNOW!!!).

Also, with your ticket you get a meal voucher, okay the meal wasn't especially great, in fact, for me it was poor, but my family lapped it up, and for £14 for the day you can't really complain. Drinks were free and staff often came up to you with trays of water to keep you hydrated or with fresh towels. I even saw staff run out to people with umbrellas to escort people to and from buildings or between pools...

There was even a show during the day - singing and dancing and some acrobatics - nothing spectacular, but a very nice touch indeed. I can't stress how helpful staff were - though it will probably pay if you have a mandarin speaker with you.

All in all, a fantastic day out and totally recommended.

*Note: The place is also attached to a hotel, but we didn't stay there, but by all accounts staff and facilities there as just as good as the hot spring section.

Friends took us to the Bishuiwan Hot Spring Holiday Inn last weekend and I was blown away. It was a wonderful experience, the springs were awesome - clean and inviting - and the staff could not have been friendlier or more professional. It won Best Hotel for Tourism in the whole of China in 2008, and I'm not surprised.

The springs themselves are well worth a visit. We arrived in the evening and I was pleased and surprised that the springs were open until 1am, so we spent the evening enjoying the huge number of pools with different (allegedly!) therapeutic values, such as the tea pool, the coffee pool, the wine (yes, wine!) pool and many many many more. There were 2 fish pools that we found, 1 with Indonesian fish and one with Turkish fish, both there to nibble the dry hard skin from your feel. Sounds disgusting (!), but once you get past how much their nibbling tickles, it's surprisingly enjoyable!

The massages were great, they are an extra cost but worth it in my opinion. You can opt for short 20-30 minute massages on your head, or legs, or neck, back and shoulders, and so on. They are about 38-48 RMB per massage. Longer, deeper Thai or other massages for 90 minutes cost around 250 RMB.

We stayed in the most basic room, which still cost around 1180 RMB for 1 night. But the room was great - clean, full of complimentary toiletries and fruit. The large, flat-screen TV has lots of channels, but be warned as with most hotels, they are almost all in Chinese. On a few channels they have some English language programmes and movies, so you'll have to keep flicking through until you find something worth watching!

We went to bed around 1am and unfortunately the room next door held some very happy, noisy people so I couldn't get to sleep until around 3am. I didn't bother calling the reception, because I wasn't sure if they would understand what I was saying (a previous experience in another hotel in Guangzhou meant I am loathe to use the telephone to convey a problem to reception). I mentioned it to my friends in the morning and they told the reception staff. We checked out after breakfast as checkout time is before 12pm, and we wanted to use the hot pools again until ready to leave mid-afternoon (if you stay at the hotel you can use the facilities all day on the day you checkout) and as we were leaving the room, one reception staff member arrived with apology teddies for us, which I have given to my delighted daughters! I was amazed at the care and concern they showed toward us and just left me with such a positive experience of this hotel that I would love to go back when I next visit Guangzhou. The reception manager even gave me a little card (in Chinese), addressed to me and handwritten by her, thanking us for staying and hoping that we had enjoyed ourselves and would return soon. Little touches like that are the difference between a good hotel and a fabulous one, in my opinion.

The hotel management must have a brilliant hotel service industry training programme as ALL the staff are pleased to help and serve and some even would go out of their way to make you feel at home. I simply had a tickly throat and coughed twice as I walked into the breakfast restaurant. Ten minutes later, the receptionist who greeted me at the entrance brought a bowl of soothing white fungus and red date sweet soup to sooth my throat - a special one she asked the kitchen to prepare for me. Very impressed was another incident when we asked casually about direction to a nearby sightseeing spot. We were given not just verbal advice but also a hand-drawn map with all details the next day when we thought they had forgotten about it. Bathroom clean but not 5-star standard. The hot spring baths are all very wonderful. By the way, the hotel name says Holiday Inn but it is not at all related to the Holiday Inn chain. The standard is far better than that of the world hotel chain.