The hotel is quite dreary, and very basic considering the price of RMB 480/ night. It is not a place to lounge or sleep-in. I guess it must still be one of the better places to stay, as they have a long list of famous people who overnighted here, including a Thai princess and various Polit bureau members. Staff were unable to help us with a car service to the airport, which is about a 45 minute ride away.

The Pipaxi hotel is a 15 minute walk from the Western entrance which is separated from the main part of the park by a mountain (that you have to climb to get to the others side, or circumvent by following the stream). Walking paths are very unclearly marked so ask instead of guess.

The Eastern entrance to the park leads to many more interesting walking routes and is serviced by a tourist boom town. It is also easy to access other top attractions in this area from the Eastern entrance (such as the Baofeng mountain lake and the Huanglong Cave).

Summing up: The hotels at the East gate are more idyllically situated, but lead to a secluded part of the park with longer travel times to other area attractions. While staying close to the West Gate means you're basically staying in a city hotel.

Positive:
+ Hot water and AC available at any time unlike other smaller hotels in that area.
+ Room was very clean.
+ Service very good.
+ Big breakfast in the morning.
+ In walking distance to the Park entrance.

Nothing negative.

The hotel is big. And when we arrived at 10pm it looked desolated. The lights were not on (that was only on our last night of 4 nights, because it was the national holiday start). And it was hard to find the room. There are no elevators, but there are only 3 floors. The staff doesn't speak English. Only the manager does, but he was very helpfull.
The food (they have an english menu) was very good in the hotel. We didn't use breakfast, because it was only available till 9.00 o' clock and that was not on our schedule.
The entrance is a 15 minute walk through the town. And the town itself is small and don't expect big shops.
We also went to the eastern entrance (Wulingyuan entrance). The town there is bigger and a lot of resorts and hotels are being build and a few of them are already finished. It is also a better starting point to explore the park.
From the Zhangjiajie national park Entrance (west) you can only go by bus to the western cable car. The only connection the the other calble-car and/or Bailong elevator and sightseeing minitrain is a 6 km walking trail (Golden Whip stream). And those three (2nd cable car, elevator, train) can be reached from the eastern entrance by free buses in the park.

I stayed in Pipaxi with a friend for three nights. The hotel is not bad but the staff bothered us many times calling to offer trips or massage. They even called us in the early in the morning to ask if we were going to have breakfast!!! Room was good, they forgot to put toilet paper but when we asked they immediately provided.
In general hotel is not bad and location is convenient.