Samye Monastery

Title: Beautiful hotel with impressive lobby, but limited English and western options I stayed at the Intercontinental Resort Lhasa Paradise and overall had a pleasant experience. The hotel building and lobby are magnificent — truly grand and beautifully designed, giving a strong first impression of luxury. However, there were a few areas that could be improved. It was surprisingly difficult to find anyone who could communicate in English, even at the reception desk, which made simple requests challenging. The breakfast buffet had very few western options, and the in-house restaurants also offered limited western dishes on their menus. My Deluxe room was spacious and comfortable, but there were some shortcomings: the minibar fridge wasn’t working, the curtains were manual (not electric as expected for this class), and there was no welcome pack provided. Even the soap had an unpleasant scent. Overall, it’s a visually stunning hotel with great potential, but service and amenities could use some refinement to truly match the Intercontinental standard — especially for international guests.

The rooms are quite spacious, unlike the ones in NA or Europe. The staff were very attentive. We had a problem with our room upon checkin and luckily the front desk staff Anna was able to resolve it quickly and offered proper compensation which we really appreciate. One other thing I enjoyed was the breakfast. My favorites are the rice noodle soup, the yogurt and the egg tarts.