My room was sparsely appointed, but perfectly functional, and everything was suitably clean. The staff were friendly and professional, despite it being late on New Year's eve when I checked in! It took me ages to find the hotel walking from the railway station, and next time I think personally I'd look to stay somewhere a little more central. But the Cullinan was perfectly fine itself, and I recommend it to others.

We had a two night stay in a twin room. The room was very large with two queen-size beds, but rather sparsely furnished and somewhat plain decoratively. Some coloured rugs or a few more paintings on the walls would have brightened it up. The floor was solid (laminate) which appeals to Japanese visitors more than carpet and is easy to clean, but is not so good for noise suppression. Not all rooms have see through windows (ours did not). Some details could have been improved. Wifi signal in the room was poor and frustrating. There was no soap supplied at the bathroom sink (only a dispenser in the shower). Breakfast (included) was a little limited for Europeans though adequate to fill up on.

Hualien seems to lack a definitive city centre. There were plenty of restaurants near the hotel, and some tourist areas and a market were within walking distance. We took advantage of the courtesy car service to and from the station (arrange it in advance). We also used the Taroko Gorge day tour arranged by the hotel. This was (for us) a minibus tour with only 4 passengers. At 1000NTD each including lunch, we found this good value. The gorge is spectacular but note that large parts of it are closed/off limits due to rock falls and landslides. The places the tours take you to are very busy. The hotel reception staff were friendly and anxious to please. We didn't see other European tourists here, but English spoken at reception was adequate. This hotel seems to avoid taking the groups of mainland Chinese tourists encountered commonly elsewhere. If you are irritated by the behaviour of the mainlanders, staying in this hotel is a good bet. Given the very reasonable price, we had no complaints, enjoyed our stay and would come here again.

First, the rooms smelled horribly musty. Like I can't fall asleep because of this smell. We tried to change rooms, but any room they showed us all had this musty, moldy smell to it. Despite being on the 8th floor, it felt like I was sleeping in a basement. I attempted to open up the very small window in the room in an effort to air the room out, however I couldn't get it open. We ended up keeping the heat as high as possible since it seemed to help with the smell.

Second, our stay included breakfast. If you have the option to booking a room only rate, do so, eat somewhere else. The food was terrible. The only bright point was that the area was kept clean - I can only assume this was due to the fact no one was eating the terrible food. Oddly they gave us one set breakfast vouchers - we were booked for 3 nights. The first day at breakfast there was no one to collect the voucher, the second day they collected the vouchers and never returned them and the third day we didn't have it in us to approach their breakfast, but I would have been curious to see if they would have requested the vouchers from us again.

Locaton isn't terrible. There is a nice bubble tea place, a mall, and a grocery near by. Let me tell you, the A Mart grocery was a life saver!!
We ended up cabbing it to the night market, it was very easy getting a cab to and from and relatively inexpensive.

Pro: free wifi