We spent four nights at the Peninsula Beijing with two rooms for the four of us on a club floor. The rooms were attractive and comfortable, nice bathrooms, nice bath products. There is a nice lounge chair next to the window for sitting, as well as a desk with good access to outlets etc.
When you enter the hotel, there is no lobby as such, the lobby consists of a large staircase, a bar/lounge, and Chanel, Hermes etc etc store. It is really a tacky retail environment, I don't care how "exclusive" those stores are, I expect an actual lobby with a place to sit and wait for people without having to buy a drink. It feels like a mall.There is NO place to sit in the lobby.The club offered excellent breakfast, snacks, hors d'oeurves at dinner hour, and drinks. The staff in the club were friendly, helpful, and really welcoming. Only complaint about club room was that the only comfy upholstered chairs and sofa were in the smoking area, and at one point they acrtually let someone smoke a cigar. The entire floor smelled, as there is no real separation beytween smoking and nonsmoking.. The location is an easy walk to Wangfujing St with the night market, etc.
This is a nice plush hotel but given the lack of decent public areas, I think it is not really special. If not for the club floor, I would give it a worse review.

My opinion of this hotel will be very different from that of the reviewer below me. We spent four nights in the Peninsula and found it quite excellent. Check-in was smooth, despite the fact that we arrived after midnight and the desk staff at that time tends to be peopled by the less English speaking staff. But it was no problem. Our bags were brought up speedily and no requests or overtures for tips were made at any time during our stay. On check-out we received a late check-out time of 15:00 without any problems.

The room (on the 7th floor - not a suite or part of the club floor) was fairly large and well appointed with everything one would need, but it was smaller than at some of the Shangri La properties where we stayed. It was definitely larger than some of the rooms I've stayed in luxury hotels in New York City - so really no issue on the size of the room. There was no perceivable smell of smoke anywhere in the hotel or in our room. We had no problem plugging any of our electronics (and we had quite a few, each with different style plugs) in the universal outlets available throughout the room. I actually found that quite clever.

The bed was harder than I expected. It was more along the lines of Chinese preference for super firm matresses, rather than the firm, but soft, Western beds. The Shangri La has much better beds, in my opinion

The bathroom was large, not huge. The shower was powerful and hot. No complaints there.

The breakfast buffet was varied, fresh and delicious (the pain au chocolat I had every morning was flaky, buttery and could have come straight out of a Paris bakery - I was impressed) and the staff was very courteous and helpful. There is no view at Jing and it is downstairs. The lighting is subdued. It's fine for breakfast. We also had Peking duck at the other restaurant in the hotel, Huang Ting. It was absolutely delicious and were told it is the best Peking duck in Beijing (by a long-time western resident who takes his best clients there). Excellent service and lovely atmosphere in Huang Ting.

The outside staff was always ready to hail a cab for us, hand us a hotel card with the taxi's number on it and to tell the driver where to go in Chinese. They did this each time we went out. No tip overtures and no tip given. We also arranged with the concierge for private cars twice - once to go to Summer Palace for the day and once to go to Simatai. It was all very smooth with excellent drivers and cars at a decent price (not what a local would pay, but whatever).

We used the spa one evening. It was a beautiful spa and just huge. But, I was not too keen on the massage, unfortunately. I found the therapist got tired after a bit and was not applying enough pressure. My travel partner, instead, said he received the best massage of his life.

And price wise, the Peninsula is good value at just over $185 per night, including breakfast, drinks and taxes. Overall, excellent

After traveling worldwide, this is the best hotel my husband and I have stayed in. We would not hesitate to recommend it to friends and would stay here again should we return to Beijing. The service is impeccable, the rooms spotless and modern, the bathroom roomy. I can't say enough nice things about it.

Five star hotels face a lot of trouble with their clients because in the service industries customer satisfaction is always tied to expectations. And let’s face it, it’s a tough mix to master: courtesy, consideration, and going the extra mile for a customer without being obsequious or intrusive. It’s a wonder that it happens anywhere. The expectations are that much higher at five star hotels’ price points. A customer naturally expects something for what he or she is paying.

But a number of hotels I have been to, particularly in Asia, have succeeded in this mix to a degree that stuns. The Peninsula Beijing, unfortunately, is not one of them. It is, by far, the poorest excuse for a five star hotel I have ever stayed in.

Let’s start with a few lesser details. First, the rooms. I was upgraded to the largest non-suite sized room at the club level. Most Americans will probably find the room unbearably small. Other reviewers have complained about the cigarette smoke in the nonsmoking rooms. The Peninsula has yet to remedy that situation. The sheets in my room reeked of smoke, an error that could have been avoided easily by more attentive management.

I will admit that the bathroom was a decent size. And there are cool switches for every light you can think of to the side of the bed, as well as a large plasma TV, though these days it’s pretty rare to find a top property in Japan or China that doesn’t have one in every room. You will need to ask the hotel for an adapter if you’re using appliances with American voltage.

Asking the hotel for anything, however, will usually involve a tip, even if it’s something you’d ordinarily expect a room to have. There’s a scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm (Episode 40 for fans) where Larry stays at the Regency in New York and has to tip the guy who fixes the faulty air conditioning. That’s more or less what service is like at the Peninsula.

On to the food. Breakfast at the Jing restaurant is simply dreadful. The spread compares unfavorably to a number of four stars I’ve been to, and the quality of the food is simply appalling. The pastries, for example, are uniformly damp, almost stale. There’s a good omelette station, but I haven’t been to many hotels that have flubbed an omelette. The restaurant itself lacks a view and is dark, so you kind of feel like you’ve been transported to a high school during a brownout.

And then there’s the service. The staff at Jing looks and acts severely depressed, and can be rude to boot. I witnessed a waitress practically flinging coffee at an American customer because she asked for hot coffee after getting a cold cup. Jing is the worst breakfast experience I have ever had at a hotel.
As other reviewers have noted, check-in is uncoordinated. When I arrived, my bags were lying around the reception area completely unattended to. After I finished check-in, I had to locate a bellhop to find my bags.

By nearly any measure I can think of, the Peninsula is a disappointment. Ultimately, however, the joylessness of the hotel is its greatest drawback. Its employees’ lack of enthusiasm is contagious. And unless it’s important to you to stay in a hotel that sells overpriced designer goods in its basement (that’s a draw?), you’ll save` money and have a better experience at just about any other top hotel in the city.