Taipei is well-known for its themed restaurants e.g. Modern Toilet, Hello Kitty Cafe.  What I didn’t know is that there are also themed hotels in Taipei – the Fantasy-Themed Sato Castle Hotel 莎多堡奇幻世界旅館!  We were told that it is fantasy and castle-themed – we thought it will be just some simple knights costume with cheap swords replica but we were shocked upon arrival by taxi from Songshan Airport in Taipei (after our Penghu trip) -> The entire hotel is a Castle with drawbridges and towers!  這是家不一般的酒店。顧名思義,酒店外表看起來像一座城堡。莎多堡奇幻旅館，是全台第一座以城堡式外觀設計的奇幻主題旅館。它的現身，為台北都會區帶來新鮮感

The Sato Castle Hotel 『莎多堡奇幻旅館』 is actually a car motel – 汽車旅館 where you can drive up right to your own room and park your car there (even if your room is at level 4)!  We were completely caught by surprise upon coming out of the lift – we seemed to have ended up at a multi-storey carpark!  We felt lost at first, expecting a normal hotel corridor and ended up seeing a series of shutters and a wide walkway (which we realised later is meant for cars driving right up to their rooms).  The Sato Castle Hotel 莎多堡奇幻世界旅館 theme is indeed very apt – Step into the Castle and Discover Surprises and Wonder! 走進城堡 發現驚奇!

This is what is behind all the shutters – a spacious private parking lot for guests.  After driving in, flip a switch to close the shutter and there you have it – your own private kingdom.  Sit down by the royal-looking bench to take off your shoes – open the medieval-looking wooden door and you are set to explore your kingdom 🙂

Just beside the door, we spotted an interesting sign – The rooms have been electronically swept to detect bugs and any hidden cameras – I have mixed feelings about this – is this supposed to reassure me that the room has been swept clean of any electronic monitoring devices or the fact that someone would actually want to put electronic monitoring devices (thus triggering the room to electronically sweep the room!).

The similarities with typical car motels in the United States pretty much end there (i.e. at the drive up to your room concept) – the rooms at Sato Castle Hotel are AMAZING! I seldom use full caps in my writing but nothing can better describe our experience at Sato Castle Hotel rooms!  Every room has its own theme from spiderman, madame butterfly, transformers, romeo and juliet and the list goes on (for a total of 51 rooms)! 每間房都有不同的名稱,例如歌聲魅影,超人歸來,蜘蛛俠,天鵝湖,蝴蝶夫人,一千零一夜,羅密歐和朱麗葉,國王和我等等。每間房都根據名字布置了不同的擺設.

There are 51 rooms each with their own themes and styles and there are four types of rooms in descending order of room size and price – King, Queen, Castle, Knight.  51間特色房型，讓你驚訝連連…51種風格，怎麼玩都不膩… 房型分為四種等級：國王房、皇后房、城堡房、騎士房

We stayed in the 皇后房 Queen Room with the Christmas Nutcracker theme (311 胡桃鉗 – 聖誕節歡愉風格).  I felt like I was in Legoland with a lot of toy soldiers.  If you have read “The Nutcracker” or seen the famous play, you will be able to relate to the display in this room.  The idea is to make you the Clara in the story where you shrink to the same size as the Nutcracker prince and then you wake up, it is all just a dream!

The theme of each room follows very strictly to the broad storyline – in this case, the Nutcracker Prince story and these stories are displayed right by the door so guests can understand the meaning of the room theme design.

一個快樂的聖誕節夜晚，一棟神奇又華麗的大房子裡正進行著舞會。小女孩克菈菈(Clara)心愛的胡桃鉗掉在地上…。可憐的克菈菈，抱著心愛的胡桃鉗，在聖誕樹下疲倦地睡著了。午夜的鐘聲響起，克菈菈醒來，發現胡桃鉗戰勝老鼠國王，變成英俊的王子。他拉著克菈菈的手，來到雪花國，那兒是有著飛舞雪花的神奇國度，梅仙子準備了一連串的節目歡迎兩人：有西班牙舞、阿拉伯加啡舞、中國茶舞、俄羅斯舞、笛子舞和花之華爾滋。最後，梅仙子和騎士跳了雙人舞，克菈菈醒了過來，一切只是她的夢…。

The room is well-equipped with all the latest technology – LED TV, Video on Demand Blu-ray systems and electronically-controlled room ambiance i.e. with a few press on the touchscreen central remote control, you can manage the room lighting and TV.  There is cable TV in the room so you can catch the latest movies on HBO or the latest news on CNN but do note that there are some adult channels (there is a button that is pretty self-explanatory – “Adult Movies”) so if you are travelling with kids, you might want to control the remote 🙂

There is free mini-bar where you can find cup noodles and some snacks.  There is a Sato spa downstairs (chargeable) but you can also create your own spa by using the in-room jacuzzi and water spa (lie down on a foam bed and let water jets massage you – you can control the speed and intensity too).  There is even an in-room sauna!

客房設施：房間液晶電視、浴室專屬液晶電視、VOD藍光影音隨選系統、幻彩珍珠雙人按摩浴缸、迷你吧台（各式飲料、茶包、茶點餅乾）、專屬私人保險箱、客房專屬停車位、蒸氣室、免費雜誌書刊、法式維琪浴

For a quick tour of the 皇后房 Queen Room with the Christmas Nutcracker theme (311 胡桃鉗 – 聖誕節歡愉風格) – see the video below:

Other interesting rooms at Sato Castle Hotel include Mission Impossible, Soccer Manchester United, Cinderella themed rooms.

Cinderella Themed Room 520

Las Vegas Themed Room 308 遠離賭城

Mermaid Themed Room 510 美人魚

Mission Impossible Themed Room 502

Pirates of Carribean Themed Room 512 加勒比海盜

Manchester Soccer Themed Room 301 雷米金盃

Sato Castle Hotel is located at the Zhongshan District – quite far out from the Xinmending area but still accessible to all parts of Taipei by MRT/Metro.  It is relatively nearer to the Shilin Night Market area (you will still need to take a taxi to get there).  The nearest MRT station is Jiannan 劍南 just 5 minutes walk away from Sato Castle Hotel.

Sato Castle Hotel is near to Songshan Airport so if you are taking domestic flights within Taiwan, you are just minutes away by taxi.  Do note that the Taoyuan International Airport is still quite some distance away (about an hour plus).

莎多堡奇幻旅館位於台北 (中山)，就在機場附近，十分方便，距離美麗華百樂園、故宮博物院以及美麗華摩天輪都很近。中影文化城以及順益台灣原住民博物館也在附近。 鄰近松山機場、劍南捷運站5分鐘路程，在繁華的美麗華百樂園與內湖科技園區之間，充滿科技與現代感的都會區，驚豔遇見一座中古世紀的金色古堡 — 莎多堡！

Sato Castle Hotel offers its rooms for day use purposes – a lot of couples do their wedding photoshoots in the rooms amidst the beautiful thematic backdrop and there are also a lot of modelling shoots.  Thus check-in timing for Sato Castle Hotel is later than the typical check-in timing of other hotels – Sundays to Thursday: Check-in timing is after 6pm; Fridays and Saturdays: Check-in timing is after 10pm.  You can leave your bags at the reception and explore Taipei and come back at a later time to check in.

平日(星期日~星期四)入住時間:18:00後
假日(星期五~星期六)入住時間:22:00後

The room rates are also tiered by Sundays to Thursdays 平日 and Fridays to Saturdays 假日.  The room rate for a King room starts at NT$4880 for 平日.  The cheapest room rate for the Knight room starts at NT$2880 for 平日.  Check http://www.sato-castle.com/ for the full room rates.  Look out for room promotions too.

Do note that because Sato Castle Hotel is primarily a car motel, there isn’t a walk-in reception counter so for walk-in guests, you would have to drag your luggages to the reception just after the drawbridge to check-in (which is more like a big booth between the 2-way driveways) – it could get quite intimidating with the constant vehicular traffic driving around you.

台北市中山區敬業二路75號, 104
捷運：文湖線 劍南路站2號出口