Butterfly Valley Resort

We stayed four nights at the resort. The staff were very friendly, even though most of them did not speak English. The room was beautiful and spacious. However, you have to request housekeeping service; otherwise, your room will not be cleaned. I have never experienced this at a five-star hotel. Unfortunately, I found the food disappointing for a five-star hotel. The buffet offered the same breakfast and dinner every day. In fact, breakfast and dinner were nearly identical. No dishes were changed, and nothing new was added throughout our stay. Most of the options were Chinese, with very little variety. Although the hotel was not very busy, our empty plates were not cleared after we finished eating, and we had to ask the staff to remove them. The hot spring is located outdoors and appears somewhat outdated. Some parts are no longer functioning. There were leaves and other debris in the murky water. After using the hot spring, I developed a severe case of hot tub folliculitis (also known as whirlpool dermatitis), a skin infection caused by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which thrives in warm, moist environments such as hot springs or poorly chlorinated hot tubs. Overall, the surrounding nature was beautiful, and we saw many butterflies. However, considering the price we paid and the potential health risks, I would not recommend this resort.

This is a secluded, peaceful and beautiful hidden gem in Hualien. We greatly enjoyed the scenic trails in the park. We had done the circular trail which reaches the hanging bridge and ancient rock, as well as the shorter trail by the turquoise river. The hot springs and buffet style breakfast and dinner were also highlights. It’s nice to not have to plan for meals nor transport, as the resort can pick visitors from the nearest train station. I would suggest to include hand soaps and hooks to hang towels in each hotel room, as well as building a playground for the kids.

This is an excellent facility in a beautiful forest. We stayed in one of the "villa suites." The villas and Japanese suites are a little walk away from the hotel, with a somewhat steep driveway. They do offer complimentary large golf-cart style rides between the rooms and the spa or main hotel/restaurant. ||The spa has warm/mid/hot pools, a cold pool, and a warm pool with various jets. They have steam/dry saunas (separate for men and women, the pools are mixed). They have nice changing rooms with plenty of lockers, nice showers, and amenities. ||The forest area is beautiful to hike and walk. It might be a bit treacherous if it has recently rained. We took the main path out to the suspension bridge. It's a bit of a climb, but pretty manageable with decent stairs. It's really beautiful and worth the effort. The northern mountain trail (I think it's "mountain trail #2") is more rugged stairs.||If you can stay at least 2 nights, that would be great to relax in the tubs and do the hikes.||The hotel is a ways out of town. It's maybe a 5 minute ride to the local small village, which does have some good restaurants. It's about a 15-20 minute ride to RuiSui. They have a shuttle that runs every hour, but you need to let them know when you will use it.||The breakfast buffet and dinner buffet is fantastic. Very large with many choices. The lunch service (it is NT$350, if I remember correctly) is a limited bento box.

The butterflies are huge and the views breathtaking. There's a 5 mile loop trail that is a great hike. Breakfast and dinner buffet are included. The room was clean and freshly remodeled. Mosquitoes are an issue and kept showing up in the room though. I think they got in every time we opened the door, so plan accordingly.

Our stay was booked online and there was some communication problems as we did not understand chinese in the email. We ended up using Google translate and this led to some miscommunication (i.e. they thought we had cancelled therefore constantly having to reconfirm our booking). The location is in the countryside of Taiwan and was accessible by the close by Fuyuan or Guangfu stations. Which the hotel provided complimentary pick-up and drop-off.||We quickly learnt that the resort mainly caters to Chinese speaking guests as there were very few English speaking staff, and signs were not translated. ||The villas are situated separately to the main reception, and there was golf carts that could take you there if needed. We had booked the Japanese suite and it was amazing. The room was spacious and sectioned off like a typical Japanese living space (entrance, main bed area, elevates floor seating, bathroom with spa). The highlight was definitely the private hot spring water spa. It was excellent quality mineral water as we had never felt so relaxed. The only negative was the drainage in the bathroom, as it could've been better since it was an open shower and the water never dried up. The mattress was comfortable but firm.||We booked this mainly to see the Long Ying waterfall which is only a short hike from the resort. Unfortunately this trail was closed off due to a recent Hualien earthquake. There were many short walks throughout the grounds and up to the bridge. In general the place is run down and really needs a refresher. The butterfly house was dead. The plants were not looked after and this meant limited types of butterflies. Even the deers looked depressed. The butterfly exhibition was dusty and neglected.||The outdoor public spas looked unappealing. Many areas were permanently closed and abandoned. They did not have any private spa options available when asked, even though there was a sign pointing upstairs for this. Note that you need to wear a one piece bathing suite to use these facilities. ||Dinner and breakfast were a mediocre buffet with limited options. There was a very lively indigenous show during dinner which asked for crowd participation. Seeing kids join in on the dancing and dessert making was heart-warming.||After dinner we joined the night walk to see the fireflies. It was crowded and we were loss due to not understanding the tour guide especially in complete darkness. But we enjoyed it anyway as there were many fireflies to see.||Overall, the staff were friendly and tried their hardest to make us feel welcomed. Our villa was amazing but the underlying issue still remains. The resort needs an update.

Beautiful area. Hotel is an overpriced aging dump. It is a crime for them to be listed as five star. Buffet is inedible and not a single dish was hot enough for health or flavor. What kind of place serves room temperature congee? No hand soap in the room and when asked why, the staff blamed the government. There were some sort of creatures (probably rats) scrambling around the ventilation in my daughter's room. Our family also were covered in bites on our legs after staying at this place like another reviewer mentioned. What a nightmare!

You get exactly the five star experience you pay for - good service, beautiful location, lovely hot springs, good amenities, spacious rooms, good food with big portions. Some staff speak English. There are golf karts available very quickly to take you around the grounds. There are lovely gardens and walks, but be very prepared with mosquito repellent, which is provided free of charge in you room. It was a nice bonus that all drinks and snack provided in the mini bar was free of charge. Just refills are charged. Child friendly.

DO NOT travel to this fake/scam so called resort. It claims to be hot spring. Not only were we not able to enjoy the resort. We wasted our time and money to this place. This resort is located in a very remote area so you are pretty much stuck there with nowhere to go. Food was mediocre with lots of bugs and flies. Hot springs tub were filthy and not even filled with water. The entire resort was nasty and very poor maintained. Very few people were there. Contacted their so called “manager” named Coco Yang (楊惠恩) all she did was laugh and being very nasty and unprofessional. So stupid of her to laugh when there’s not even business at the resort, she can keep laughing when she gets fired and I should sue her/them for making us sick with disease infested food and unclean resort. Warning! Don’t waste your time and money. They should get shut down for being extremely unsanitary and poor service, no maintenance, everything was old and broken.

We did not stay here, but we did pay to walk the trails, visit the exhibits and ate the the restaurant. We saw butterflies, birds and those of us who took the Mountain Trail, also saw monkeys. The restaurant was good, especially since at lunch the beverages were self-service and free.