We loved the Marco Polo! We stayed in December and good a real cheap deal (I think it was around £25 per night!). The hotel is modern, the rooms clean and comfy, the staff helpful and friendly. There is a travel desk in the main lobby, which can help you with trips and further travel arrangements (I needed to get a train ticket and they sorted that all out for me). Our room was large, the bathroom clean and medium sized. we even had HBO and a good buffet breakfast was included. It was excellent value for money! The location is good. Beijing has two main subway lines and there is a station for each within 500 meters of the hotel. There is also a large modern shopping centre close by. The Forbidden City is only a few subway stops from the hotel.

The hotel was very nice overall for the price paid. It is in a very good location just minutes by foot to the Xidan shopping area, which is the main shopping district in Beijing, complete with a lot of malls.
The decor all over the hotel is very modern and nice. Breakfast was plentiful with a nice variety of western and chinese dishes.
The room we stayed in was large, clean and very nice. The room was a bit warm on the first night, though not really uncomfortably hot. I made a call to housekeeping in the morning and they fixed it by the time we got back in the afternoon. It was pleasantly cool afterwards.

This hotel has now been taken over by Mercure and I am hoping they will make some necessary changes. Overall it was a good enough hotel in a convenient location, but there were some flaws. Our room (at the front) was far too hot and the aircon made no difference. You either opened the window and had lots of traffic noise or had the fan blasting out air that was little different. The carpet had a big wet stain when we checked in which was disconcerting. On the plus side the staff were nice enough and the pool was very good and quiet (swim caps needed). Breakfast was fairly good, if crowded. The restaurant seemed quite pricey for what it offered and the so-called "happy hour" did not include most drinks. We found a good local restaurant over the road and the nearby Times Square was full of designer shops with a good pizza restaurant if you wanted a change from Chinese. We walked to Tianamen Square and an excellent Peking Duck restaurant quite easily, but taxis are only 10 yuen.

Enjoyed our free upgrade from superior room to suite when we check-in on Dec 23. A very romantic surprise for us! Staff at restaurant were friendly. Spent christmas there and enjoyed the terrific location i.e. shopping at xidan (walking distance under 10 mins) and nice restaurants like the famous korean BBQ nearby.