White Swan: The Adoption Hotel

The White Swan hotel is located on Shamian Island, Guangzhou.  Two of our three adoptions ended here.  It is one of the four star hotels that our agency booked us into.  When you do adopt a child and stay at this hotel, you get a special Barbie doll made for the hotel.

The interior of the hotel is very nice.  They have stores on the ground level, as well as restaurants.  Guests are treated to a buffet breakfast, but you have to pay for all other meals.  From what we could tell, it was expensive.  We could not partake in dinners.   The buffet in the morning was great.  They had everything you could think of.  In addition, they also had Chinese dishes.  It was all great, but I still tried to watch what I ate, due to the bathroom situation on the outside.

On the outside, they have a pool.  On our first trip, it was December.  Angie and I did not bring swimming clothes. The second adoption happened in the summer.  With the temperatures outside, we needed the pool.  That and we had three girls that wanted to swim.  The only problem was that they did not know how to swim.  Our adopted child was the first one in.  We were told she did not like pools, guess they forgot to tell her.  I had to jump in to rescue her.  Then, the next two fell into the same predicament.

At the pool, we met fellow adoptees.  They were either part of our group or part of other groups.  It was nice to meet and talk with the people.  We learned a little about our daughters disability and some other disabilities.

Shopping was okay.  They had some nice things, but what would you expect from a 4 star hotel, but 4 star prices.  The shops on the island fit the tourist shopping and a little inward from the island is a big shopping area.

The December adoption, the hotel was decked out in Christmas decorations.  It was neat.  We did not know that they celebrated the holiday, but it could have been for the tourists.

On our last trip, we did not stay at the White Swan.  The hotel closed down for a major renovation.  Although they were closed, the stores remained open.  Even some of them were getting ready to close due to lack of customers.  That store had a mob scene going on.  Angie saw this, dropped everything and ran to the store saying "It's a sale!".

One of the last acts we have done on each trip was to take a picture of our daughters at the Red Couch.  It is located on the second floor of the lobby.  The guides arrange a photographer to take the children's picture.  It is usually a task to get them to sit there.