This is likely the best hotel at which my wife and I have stayed over the past 50 years. It is quite incredible with the beautifully appointed individual villas in private gardens surrounded by a wall and blessed with a 24 hour personal hot tub. The bar and restaurants are lovely, the service was incredibly good - we were pampered. Internet use was free.
Lijiang itself and the countryside is great but it really enhanced our visit to be able to stay at such a place. What a classy operation this Singaporean-owned enterprise delivers. I am delighted to hear that they will be adding several new locations to their chain.

We spent 3 nights in the Pool Villa, unit 227, during the last week of October 2007. Everything was great except for the pool! The hotel advertised that they keep the temperature of the pool at 28 Celsius but I could not stay in the pool for more than a minute before my teeth started to clatter, like a Gatling gun, from the cold.

Beautiful room with a magnificent unobstructed view of Jade Dragon Mountain. The bathtub was huge but filled up quickly and the hot water was limitless.

Service was good in general but the check out procedure was a big pain. Took over 45 minutes to check out because the hotel did not have the proper booking information from their Bangkok office where I had made the reservation. They were charging me for stuff which was included in my package and had to showed the check out staff proof of the email confirmation and information before I could settle the bills. Do bring your booking information for proof with you and be aware that they will bill you in RMB even thought you were quoted your rate in USD.

The Chinese restaurant was very good but the food of the Western restaurant were definitely not up to standard.

Overall I would stay here again without hesitation but would opt for a Garden Villa room instead because the pool was not usable.

My husband and I booked 3 Banyan Tree Lijiang villas for 3 days 2 nights to round of our trip to Yunnan with our elderly but feisty parents.

We are not disappointed. Banyan Lijiang met all our expectations. (We have previously been to 2 other Banyan Tree resorts before as well as their sister Angsana resorts). We booked the Deluxe Garden Villa package. Our parents were more than pleasantly surprised with the 'intimate moments' package which saw rose petals beautifully strewn all over our room and beds as well as a bottle of red cabernet sauvignon for our enjoyment.

The villas were beautiful and clean. Our parents had fun in their heated jacuzzi. Just some cobwebs at the roof area of the external outdoor entrance of my parents' villa which were a little scary at times as the spider was quite big.

Unfortunately, while we were there, it rained every single day. But we enjoyed ourselves in spite of that.

We also like it that there is a beautiful little antique village called Shuhe just 15 minutes walk from the resort. It is a pretty, albeit a little muddy because of the rain, walk there and is a great alternative to the over-commercialized Dayan old town in Lijiang.

The service was impeccable on all counts, from our drivers to the room service staff. But I would like encourage Banyan Tree to keep constant upgrading of their staff so that the standard will not drop.

We loved the spa too as the therapists were gentle and friendly.

The food at Ming Yue was a little disappointing as the chef didnt know how to do a proper Thai green curry that was on the menu. Both my mom and I discarded the entire bowl of green curry and ordered ribs to share instead. Perhaps we can suggest that the menu should reflect more dishes that the chefs can do well.

We had dinner at Baiyun. It is a beuatiful restaurant and the Chinese food is more than decent.

We will definitely go back to Banyan Tree Lijiang again and make a trip to Banyan Tree Ringha as well. Hoepfully, all the kinks in the Ringha resort like rats and smell will be sorted out by then.

Our parents enjoyed themselves tremendously, which was our goal and all we asked for.

This was our first stay at a Banyan Tree resort, and overall we had a great time.

The hotel is beautifully laid out, comfortable and relaxing, with attentive and friendly staff.

On the downside, there were a few minor irritants eg smell from one of the showers probably caused by poor ventilation, locks that didnt work and couldnt be fixed, weeds growing in the courtyard garden. None of these had a big negative impact on our enjoyment, and all are pretty straightforward to fix.

There are some language challenges with the staff, but everyone was genuinely friendly and trying hard to do the right thing.

We had one meal at one of the hotel restaurants which was enjoyable without being superb.

At the price, its difficult to say that it was value for money but equally I'd guess that the charges are the going market rate for this type of hotel experience.