Two months ago, over the New Year holiday, I went to Hainan with my parents. I say “with” because these days the two of them are happily flying all over the country and checking off destinations one after another; when it comes to the small matter of travel, they’re already far more seasoned than I am.

In this unusual year, Hainan Island became the single hottest vacation choice for travelers, thanks to its unbeatable calling card: ocean, warmth, duty-free shopping, and hotels.

Winter in Jiangnan is damp, cold, and hard to endure, so my parents started thinking about spending an extended stay in Hainan. To avoid the pre-holiday crowds, they picked Qizi Bay, a destination that still isn’t all that well known, along with Qizi Bay Kaiyuan, a hotel that quickly became an internet favorite last year.

Qizi Bay sits on the western side of the island, roughly in the middle of Hainan’s west coast, in Changjiang Li Autonomous County. Nearby is the town of Changhua, where my idol Su Dongpo once lived. Geographically speaking, Hainan, the Leizhou Peninsula, and Taiwan are the only three places in China where you can enjoy west-coast scenery.

Getting from Haikou to Qizi Bay is very convenient. Since the Hainan loop high-speed rail opened, the train ride from Haikou to Qizi Bay takes just a little over an hour, and it’s about the same from Sanya. My parents were briefly confused at Meilan Airport Station by trains labeled “Haikou to Haikou” and “Sanya to Sanya,” but in practice, you just pick the faster departure and you’ll be fine.

The hotel can arrange flexible station transfers based on each guest’s high-speed rail arrival time, so you don’t have to wait around because of the train schedule. Big plus there. It makes for an almost true door2door vacation experience: home-airport-airport rail station-Qizi Bay rail station-hotel.

A Garden Resort with Tang-and-Han-Inspired Style

Set on a seaside bluff, the hotel is built into the slope. Once you pass through the lofty, spacious lobby, you’re greeted by an endless meeting of sea and sky. If you haven’t seen the ocean in a long time, this is exactly the kind of view that makes you stop in your tracks and just go, “Wow.”

The hotel’s public areas sit along a central axis, with guestroom wings stretching out on both sides. The symmetrical Chinese architectural style carries a distinct Tang-and-Han elegance.

At first glance, it looks strikingly similar to The Ritz-Carlton, Sanya, Yalong Bay. As it turns out, both were designed by WATG. Properties by WATG, including InterContinental One Thousand Island Lake and Haikou Marriott, have moved away from imitating Southeast Asian resorts and instead draw from royal garden styles like the Summer Palace to create vacation hotels that feel more rooted in Chinese aesthetics. It seems the Ritz-Carlton’s success gave WATG plenty of confidence.

The hotel looks even better at night under the lights.

The outdoor landscaping and the coconut grove that stretches all the way to the shore were designed by Belt Collins. I can’t say I immediately saw the signature genius of this top-tier landscape firm, famously favored by Galaxy Bay, but the fact that Kaiyuan brought in both of these companies shows how much it expected from this Qizi Bay project.

The guestrooms continue the same Chinese-inspired design language. The palette runs dark, and the overall feel is steady and a bit old-school-probably just my parents’ taste, while I still prefer a more tech-forward look. Thanks to WATG’s layout, nearly every room faces the sea, which is a win for everyone. (At the Ritz-Carlton in Yalong Bay, quite a few room types don’t have sea views.)

If I were to recommend a room, I’d suggest choosing one in the hotel’s right wing, Building 8, on the 6th floor or above, with room numbers ending in 50-66. These overlook the open pool area and also offer the best sunset views.

There are also thoughtful little details everywhere. For example, the room number plaques are carved into local Li ethnic pottery, part of the area’s intangible cultural heritage.

One thing I found a little puzzling: the hallways are lined with movie posters, but they’re for commercial blockbusters like Harry Potter and Despicable Me. Is the owner secretly a big blockbuster fan?

Sunset at Qizi Bay

If I had to sum up Qizi Bay Kaiyuan in two words, they’d be “value” and “sunset.” I’ll save the first for later, but the second-Hainan’s most beautiful sunset-has to be the hotel’s proudest selling point.

Qizi Bay faces the horizon of the Beibu Gulf. A long time ago, I wrote on WeChat Moments that life’s happiest sights are first snow, starry skies, drizzle, planes taking off and landing-and then sunrise and sunset. The beauty of a sunset is hard to capture in a single sentence. If you can, it’s worth becoming a sunset chaser.

Every day around 4 or 5 p.m., hotel guests gradually gather in the lobby. They order a cocktail, a tropical drink, or an afternoon tea set, and wait for the sunset to arrive.

The sun slowly drops in the southwest, scattering gold across the water. In winter, the cold sea often produces a fine mist under the sunlight, giving the sunset a hazy softness. In summer, the sun sets due west, perfectly aligned with the hotel lobby, making those jaw-dropping sunsets even more likely.

Is every sunset the same, or is each one different? Looking back on the sunsets of the past year or so, what I remember most are the emotions tangled up with them.

The sunsets in Phuket came with the exhaustion and joy after a day of diving. The sunset on Yashima in Takamatsu carried a trace of uncertainty about the road ahead. The sunset in Qingdao brought memories of returning to a familiar place. And at Qizi Bay, it was the incomparable comfort of having my parents by my side.

One unexpected highlight of Qizi Bay came while waiting for sunset: I met the hotel’s GM, Mr. Du. He’s the kind of photographer who puts down work every day a little after 4 p.m. to focus on welcoming the sunset-an “unusual” GM who has spent three straight years photographing the play of light over the sea. I was lucky enough to get some guidance and picked up a few refreshingly different ideas about photography.

If you get the chance to visit Qizi Bay, don’t be shy about saying hello to the photographer in the C position at sunset.

Sometimes, if you simply shift the camera a little, you can capture a softer, fresher palette.

On the third day, when I returned to the hotel from outside, the sunset looked beautiful in yet another way through the tall front doors of the lobby.

As night falls, the colors over the sea gradually settle into calm. On the other side, the hotel lights up, and the evening’s liveliness is just beginning.

If sunsets had Michelin stars, I’d say the one at Qizi Bay would have no trouble earning two stars-it’s worth making a special trip for.

Eating, Drinking, and Things to Do in Qizi Bay

Thinking about it, the fun at Qizi Bay is pretty layered and well-rounded XD. First off, this is an easy recommendation for parents traveling with kids: it’s a family-friendly resort with very solid value for money. After all, the latest season of Dad, Where Are We Going? also filmed its finale here.

The hotel calls itself the “Atlantis of the West Coast,” probably thanks to its free kids’ water park and the adults’ water area with a 40-meter waterslide.

There’s also a lazy river, where grandparents floating along with their grandkids looked especially relaxed. Overall, there’s plenty to do here—easily enough to fill half a day.

When the sun gets too intense, the indoor kids’ activities are a nice backup as well. Besides the play area, there are also hands-on craft and activity classes for children.

If you want to head to the beach or let the kids dig in the sand, walk down the wooden boardwalk along the outside of the hotel for a little over 10 minutes—though the walk back does feel tiring—and you’ll reach a hotel-exclusive sandy/rocky beach.

Unlike Sanya’s fine sandy beaches, Qizi Bay’s beach is all about its raw, natural feel. Saying it’s full of rocks wouldn’t be an exaggeration, but it still has blue sea, blue sky, palm trees, and ocean breezes.

Personally, I actually think beaches with rocks have more character and a bit of wild charm. There’s a slight sense of adventure to them, and kids might have even more fun digging around here.

If you venture farther from the hotel, there are also a few nearby beaches called Dajiao and Xiaojiao, and the hotel offers free transportation there. The sand quality is still fairly average, but when the weather is good and the crowds are light, it’s absolutely possible to get some great photos while experiencing the area’s untamed coastline.

If your beachcombing skills are up to par, you might find something interesting among the rocks nearby. The hotel also offers organized tide-pooling activities.

For multigenerational travelers, once the kids are occupied, the older adults can spend time in the lobby public area doing calligraphy, playing snooker, or singing karaoke. As for the infinity pool—which has basically become standard equipment for resorts these days—it would probably be even more appealing with a few floating water toys.

If you’re staying in Qizi Bay for a longer stretch, the hotel can also drop you off at the high-speed rail station so you can visit Haihua Island in Baimajing, which is often compared to Dubai’s Palm Island, or head to Dongfang for its famous roast suckling pig.

For some reason, the hotel’s SPA wasn’t open, which is a shame given how pretty the pool area is.

When staying at a relatively remote resort, the biggest concern is usually food—especially when you open a delivery app and find basically nothing available.

So breakfast deserves praise first. The seafood clay pot congee in particular is widely loved. They even had Hangzhou-style pan-fried buns, presumably a nod to New Century’s Hangzhou roots as a brand, though these weren’t very good.

For dinner, if you don’t want to go into Changhua Town a few kilometers away, you can choose the hotel’s self-serve individual hot pot (148 yuan per person, with a pretty good reputation and decent value) or order from the Chinese restaurant. The Chinese restaurant is fine overall—not especially memorable, but perfectly acceptable for a meal or two, and prices aren’t too high after discounts.

Of course, I had the rare privilege of traveling with my brilliantly prepared parents, who somehow managed to cook seafood all the way from the Philippines to Hainan—an experience not everyone gets.

Some practical tips

This brings us back to another key word for the hotel: value. Whether you’re using a room voucher stocked up during the Double 11 sale on Fliggy, or one of New Century’s occasional package deals, a night at Qizi Bay New Century generally runs around 300-400 yuan (excluding dinner). For a family resort in this price range, as one of my former coworkers from Northeast China used to say, “what more could you ask for?”—especially since the hotel actually does have quite a few bicycles.

Even on holidays, rates looked only about 30~40% higher. Compared with Sanya hotels, which often jump by 100~200%, this still gives Qizi Bay a noticeable pricing advantage.

Before your trip, you can try matching into New Century Platinum status through Alipay Diamond or Fliggy F3. If that works, there’s a good chance you’ll get perks upon arrival such as a room upgrade, complimentary birdcage afternoon tea, free drinks, and dining discounts.

Guest rooms come with children’s toiletries and slippers, and there are also welcome fruits and small snacks every day (which, from what I can tell, many other hotel groups don’t offer).

The children’s water park is free for hotel guests, while the adults’ water park requires a 40-yuan admission ticket per person.

I think this hotel is a good fit for families with a defined budget ceiling, young couples who want a spontaneous two-day Hainan escape, and road-trippers making a stop during an around-the-island trip. It works well as a three-day long weekend getaway.

One thing to keep in mind: this is still a fairly large resort, so it’s best to avoid peak holiday periods if possible. When the hotel is running at full capacity, the packed-crowd experience can be pretty miserable. As for service, I’d give it an overall score of 80+ points. Bottom line: avoid the busiest times.

I hear the kapok flowers in Changjiang are already in bloom—want to go watch the sunset at Qizi Bay?

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