Hotel PaPa Whale at Ximending Taipei Overview

We just arrived home from our 5 days, 4nights trip to Taiwan and today I will review the place where we stayed for that entire duration – HOTEL PAPA WHALE at Ximending area in Taipei.

I chose this hotel because it was one of the recommended hotels from a pinoy group called Taiwan for Dummies. Also, it is one of the hotels that accepts the Klook X Lucky Land voucher worth NTD 5,000 that I won from answering a survey question. Which was the main reason why we decided to visit Taiwan for the first time.

HOW WE GOT THERE?

There were a lot of options to go to this hotel from the Taoyuan airport. First, you need to take the train or bus from the airport to Taipei Main Station. When you arrive at the Taipei Main Station, you could either ride a train to Ximen station or ride a bus going to Zhonghualubei bus station. But because we saw that it will only take us 15 minutes from Taipei Station to the hotel (900 meters away), we decided to just walk and see the neighborhood. As mentioned it’s our first time to visit Taiwan so we would like to see every corner of the place as much as possible.

FIRST IMPRESSION

When I saw the hotel from the outside, I find it huge and cute (because of the whale graffiti). When we went inside I noticed an industrial theme of the place. My son loves the ambiance so I guess the target are GenZs. We arrived around 1:58 PM and the check-in time is 3:00 PM. I requested if we could check in early and I said that I don’t mind if there’s a fee, but they said that they are fully booked and their staff still needed to clean our room. They said that they could store our baggage for the meantime. Well, we have no plans or itinerary for day1 so since we are also tired from walking, we just stayed at the lobby and waited for the check-in schedule.

THE ROOM

We got a SOHO Twin Room at the basement area. It has no windows and I don’t like the ambiance of the room at all. It’s a bit dark and the crow paint art bothered me. But they provided complete amenities like soap, shampoo, body gel, cotton swabs, razor, toothbrush and even a comb/brush. They also provided us with 2 bottles of water everyday (you need to ask also if you need more) and pairs of super thin sleepers.

What’s the good thing about this room, was the bed. It’s nothing special but it’s comfy and I was able to sleep (which I had a hard time doing so in other hotels). I don’t know if it’s because I was always tired after a day of walking or is it really about the bed.

THE SERVICE

They offer a self check-in and check-out at the counter, but it’s nice that their customer service representatives are always present. They can speak english well and could assist you if you need one. When we arrived, I presented the confirmation of my winning voucher from Lucky Land but they wanted me to email it to them. Unfortunately I did not bring my reading glasses so I can’t read the email he wanted me to send it to, so what he did was he did it for me instead. I also appreciate that whenever I asked for bottles of mineral water and requested for our room to be cleaned they immediately comply. When I accidentally left our key card at the room, they helped me to get another one.

CONS OF STAYING HERE

Funny thing was that I did not check the map first before booking this place. I already booked them when I realized that its location is quite far from the train station. But it’s a good thing that there are buses that pass by here. Taiwan’s transportation system is amazing and there’s always an update on the Google maps what’s the location of the buses and time that they will arrive so this is not actually an issue at all.

The taxi from Taipei Station to this hotel is NT$120-NT$130 so if you don’t like to take the bus (NT$15), you could always ride a taxi as an option.

As mentioned if your room is on the basement, there will be no windows. So you might want to consider this if you are claustrophobic. Another thing was that, their CR does not have a bidet. If you are used to using one then this will be a concern.

Overall, I am glad we got a Lucky Land voucher for this hotel, ’cause if we don’t I would not consider it at all because of the look of their room and perhaps its location. If ever we will go back to Taiwan, I would consider a hotel nearer to Ximen station and a room with a window and bidet.

Hotel PaPa Whale
Address: No. 46號, Kunming St, Wanhua District, Taipei City, Taiwan 108