Name: Howard Resort Xitou
Address: San-lin Lane; 10, Lugu, Lugu, Lugu, 558, Taiwan
Rating: 6

Air conditioning

Elevator/lift

Smoke-free property

Television in lobby

Fire Extinguisher

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General

Non-smoking rooms

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Family room

Minibar

Slippers

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Telephone

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Coffee/tea for guests

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Vending machine

Bottled water

Kettle

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Free Wi-Fi

Internet

Tour assistance

Tourist services

Karaoke

Recreation

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Business

Family/Kid Friendly

Kids

Pets Not Allowed

Pets

Location

At the resort

Room amenities

Chiayi Airport

Howard Resort Xitou

Lugu

child-bed

child-bed-fee

external-private-bathroom

private-bathroom

shared-bathroom

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limited-time

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treatment

no-window

bay-view

bosphorus-view

canal-view

city-view

courtyard-view

garden-view

golf-view

harbour-view

inland-view

lake-view

land-view

mountain-view

ocean-front

ocean-view

oceanside

panoramic-view

park-view

partial-ocean-view

partial-sea-view

partial-view

pool-view

river-view

sea-front

sea-view

street-view

sunrise-view

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water-view

with-view

annex

basement

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1-bedroom

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not-guaranteed

wired-internet-access

smoking

sauna

duplex

safe

mini-bar

breakfast-for-1

breakfast-for-2

pets-allowed

wi-fi

kitchen

The lobby is located at the entrance at the park. The hotel is located inside the park.  Hotel room is spacious & has a Japanese style interior. The comfortable king sized bed has a heater control. The toilet & bathroom is clean. Walking around the park will take several hours. Its surrounded by beautiful plants & trees of the forest. Breakfast is located at  another building. It has a very spacious dining hall. The food is mostly Taiwanese foods & a few western choices.

Hotel Inside The Park

We were arranged in a very old building. Room is decor out of date and bathroom’s silicon was covered in dark “dirt”. The hall way is smelling and no air conditioning coverage.
Location is good for hiking in the park.

Bad room facility and decor is out of date

This hotel has clean rooms with no smell of mould, which is normally presence in rooms at other hotels and resorts erected in forests or mountainous area. 
It has ambience of Zen and it was really peaceful to stay inside the room and walking around outside the hotel. 
This place got really misty after rain and it was just soothing as the air was clean and not polluted. 
There were plenty of fireflies and some exotic animals at night which can be seen upon following the tour guide. It was really marvelous!

The only drawback was the staffs or some visitors were drinking and eating at the second floor of lobby, they made exceptional noises and it spoiled the peaceful ambience at night. What's more, a drunken man collided to the glass main door as he wanted to walk into the hotel lobby. Someone should had patrol the hotel and stopped them from affecting the other tourists.

A comfortable place to stay at.

I highly recommend staying inside the park -- Leader is the only hotel I was aware of before going, but saw that there were also "villas" or log cabins which may be rented. Staying inside the park provides super easy access to all the hikes and being with the nature.

Room: Spacious, pretty updated (expected may low expectations), but don't expect it to be a luxury modern hotel. It's comfortable

Dinner: It was included in our hotel package. The 7-course family style dinner was absolutely delicious which included soup, fish, local vegetables, etc.

Breakfast: Standard Chinese breakfast buffet which was pretty good also

Other notes: It's about 7-min walk from the bus station (last stop), at one of the park entrances. About 5-min walk to the Monster Village. Park entrance fee is included in all hotel fees, I believe.

Great location inside the park, spacious room

I'm from California. National Parks and rugged country sides are aplenty. Taiwan is a very developed island. It isn't huge and folks simply do things differently (it is an East Asia country, after all).

Leader Hotel: The check-in is actually before the park entrance. You have to park and check-in. The front desk folks are nice and it really helps if you speak Taiwanese vs. Mandarin vs. English. I'm 4th gen Chinese American so believe me I was struggling at the front desk. My wife speaks both Taiwanese and Mandarin and things went very smoothly.

Leader Hotel was formerly a research station for the Taiwan University. Some of the housing comprised of old Japanese styled dormitories and visiting professors. It is divided into 3 sections: Lowest Tier (former student dormitory), Middle Tier (nicer rooms), and Highest Tier (nicest rooms - formerly for dignitaries and visiting professors). The three tiers are physically separated with the highest tier atop of the hotel grounds. The Highest Tier has its own breakfast dining courtyard not accessible to the other sections. The Middle and Lower tier dine at the main dining hall. You can also dine at the main hall for breakfast and dinner.

We were unaware that our children would be placed in the lowest tier while our room was situated in the upper tier. The lowest tier has futon beds and looks like a basic Japanese mid-level hotel room. I suspect many folks complaining about the rooms stayed in the lowest tier. My kids were fine but we had them moved to the highest tier due to their age.

The highest tier is really nice. We had a spacious bath, plenty of closet space, a tea ceremony station (with real Japanese styled tea settings), and a very large bedroom. There is a whirlpool tub and shower. We had a view of the private villas behind us. You can also rent the villas and if we go again, I'm probably going to try out the villas. Room service was prompt as there were about 25(?) or so rooms in the upper tier. It is quite cozy and you really feel isolated from the rest of the hotel.

They have an onsite night/morning tour guide/researcher from the university. The Xitou Leader hotel is the concessionary of the University and there was a conference going on. I think all of the attendees were in the lowest tier except for a couple of folks.

Pros:  It is a very beautiful park/campus/location. The paths take hours to complete and the wildlife is amazing. Make sure to bring a flashlight and warm clothing. It was misty/foggy and it rains quite frequently. We lucked out and the 3 days spent there was sunny and cool. The highest tier rooms were beautiful. The lowest tier not so much.

Observations: There is no heater (I discovered that practically the entire island of Taiwan does not have heaters - I stayed at 4 different hotels and they all had A/C and dehumidifiers only). Leader provided a x-large heating pad instead. The bed was very firm (again, Japanese style) and took a night to get used to the firmness. The futons felt softer but were also lower.

Cons: Mainland Chinese tourists. Seriously, this was an issue. The mainland Chinese tourists are instantly recognizable by their mannerisms, boorish behavior, and loud/obnoxious tone. They will cut in line under the (mistaken) belief you won't say anything. Bummer, I'm American so no way. They will spit on you and curse you (no joke) if you tell them to shut up. And I thought the French were rude... Anyhoo, my favorite part was the main dining hall. We didn't reserve our dinner at the upper tier section for the first night and had to eat with everyone else. There was a group of 10 mainland Chinese tourists. They were hands down the LOUDEST, rudest and demanded to be served first despite showing up after us (and a few others). The manager served them quickly and explained that they will leave quickly too (they must have inhaled the food). Instead of going on the night tour (thank goodness),  they sang karaoke outside against the mountains. Badly I might add. Go figure, in the misty of night beauty I have to hear screeching. Fortunately, their voices faded and stayed at the main dining hall area.

Other thoughts:

We couldn't pay for the evening meals at the upper tier area. We had to go down to the check-in area to pay. Funny thing, we had a hard time paying hotel deposit. They didn't have very good email capability and my wife's cousin had to fax it to them for us. Also, they have no foreign exchange capability and all of the stores/shops/restaurants nearby didn't take credit cards. 

Do I recommend the hotel? Yes. Do I recommend spending a few more $$ for the upper tier section, yes! I can't imagine what the sound was like hanging out with the never ending mainland Chinese tourists.

FYI - On the weekends the park is filled with Taiwanese senior citizens and tour groups. It was a mad house on our last day. It was much nicer during the weekday. The paths were all lightly trafficked until the weekend. Then BAM! A cast of noisy thousands drowning out the beauty of the park. (people were walking around with speakers blaring Buddhist chats, old Chinese folk songs, or just current music).

Howard Resort Xitou

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