What's this? It's not a cat café? It's a cat hotel.

So my father came to visit me in Shenzhen recently for a period of 4 days and he insisted that on the final night, that he should stay somewhere that was quite close to the airport as he seems to have a phobia of missing flights. Nonetheless, I accepted his wishes and looked for something two subway stops away from the airport. However, I actually got around to completing the task of booking that room after a few beers; so all normal and logical thought processes went straight out of the window. When browsing booking.com's app on my phone, I came across this random place called 'Hull's Cattery Guesthouse.'

I must confess that I'm definitely a cat lover, but this sounded too good to be true. It really was a guesthouse that was specifically designed for cats and human guests to live together at. I instantly booked two rooms at the place oblivious to the fact that my father would probably think that I was being a total idiot for not taking things seriously and booking him into some backpacker place full of cats.

Eventually, the time came for me to admit what I had done and initially my father just laughed because he thought that I was joking. When he realised that I was in fact, being deadly serious; he seemed to begrudgingly accept it because the room rate was quite low and he loves being a bit of a tight cunt. So, when the day came, how did it go?

Surprisingly well in fact. I actually stayed in the bunk-bed room as the previous resident of the double-room had decided to extend her stay. However, the host 'Hull,' who was a very nice and friendly lady let me have the bunk room all to myself at no extra charge (double top deck/single lower deck configuration). This would not have been ideal if I had brought a girlfriend with me, but as I was staying in the both by myself, I accepted the other. The guesthouse came with a surprisingly large selection of amenities free of charge; it boasted an espresso maker, some free snacks, washing machine etc; all of which we didn't have time to use during our brief one night stay. However, if we'd stayed the whole four nights at this place, that would have gone down very well.

We didn't stay in the room very long during the day as we took the chance to walk around the local area and not long after that, we went out for dinner and some beers. Therefore, I am slightly lacking in photos. Despite this, I managed to squeeze in a couple of hours to do some work on the wifi. One of the hotel staff thought that my feet may be a little bit cold and decided to do something to keep them warm.

Later on, we returned to the guesthouse. It was a little late and all the other residents were preparing to sleep. Some were sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room or on a mattress on the floor. This meant that there was no possibility of one last beer and a chat before bed, but that wasn't the end of the world. Noticing that the cats seemed to like to sleep on the lower bunk of my bed, I chose to forgo the roomier top bunk and sleep in that single bed. That decision paid off as I was soon joined by the same cat that had kept me company earlier. I left my door slightly ajar just in case that the cat later decided that it wanted to leave my room. After I fell asleep, it did indeed leave my side and later return, to be found waking me up by playing with my toes.

Later that cat must have invited its friend to join us, as I woke up into middle of the night to find that I now had two cats keeping me warm. The guesthouse hosts three cats, named Jian Jian, Hui and Bitch. Bitch didn't seem to like me so much and didn't join the other two kitties, maybe she was being a bit of a bitch after all. But two out of three cats isn't so bad, I think?

Regardless, the other two cats seemed quite happy to sleep next to me until I got out of bed in the morning. Of course, not every guest is going to be as lucky as me, there are only three cats at the property and cats... Cats do whatever the fuck they want. Apparently, they usually sleep in the host's room, but they made a special exception for me.

Then I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed, got a shower, got dressed, said goodbye to the cats and checked out. Checking out was a very simple procedure, according to what is stated in the pdf handbook given to guests, you just place your garbage in the bin, used towels in the basket and your key in the collection tray and leave. I enjoyed an excellent night of sleep, probably because I had the cats keeping me warm. As for my father, the softer bed offered by this guesthouse suited his Western bedding needs as it was very gentle upon his aching, ageing back. He actually preferred the price to the pricier hotels that we had stayed in during the previous nights.

Was this place worth visiting? Yes. It may not be suitable for business travelers or those wanting privacy, because it is essentially backpacker style, shared accommodation with a few private rooms. However, if you find that the company of feline friends can help you to relax or you just want to travel on a budget whilst residing in a decent part of Shenzhen (central Bao'an), it is perfect. I regret not getting more photos and being able to write a more professional kind of review, but fuck it, this is a hotel with cats and you're not going to find many of those about, are you?