Guest User
May 1, 2024
The hotel itself was perfectly fine, however I had some very serious money issues with this place that I feel duly obligated to share. I encourage everyone staying here to check your bank statements!! The room (pool villa) was nice enough, clean and spacious. Food was fine, if you’re coming off of Hanoi’s street food scene you’ll likely find it a bit bland but everything was well presented and good portion sizes. First money issue - coming as a solo traveler, I asked beforehand the cost for doing a solo guided hike and was quoted $109 usd. Note that I specifically asked for a private solo guided hike, and was assured that was the cost of a private one person guided hike, via email, which I have screenshots of these emails. I was told if I ended up joining a group hike, it would be $77. Upon arrival, the cost magically jumped to $187 usd. I asked about the difference in cost, and was never given an explanation other than saying it was a solo supplement - obviously I understand there’s going to be higher costs for a solo hike, but the price for two hikers would be $154 (77 x 2) while the price for just me would be $187?!? That’s more than the cost for two hikers … I decided to just eat the cost and accept the higher price for the hike. Second money issue - I had originally booked their hotel shuttle service to get back to Hanoi. Shortly after booking (and weeks before my stay) I emailed back and requested to cancel for a refund. I received email confirmation that they would cancel it, but couldn’t process it at the time and would wait until I arrived. I responded that it was fine, and felt ok with it since I had the email confirmation that I could cancel. After arriving and reminding them that I wanted to cancel the ride, they told me …. That it’s too late to cancel, despite me cancelling weeks ago?!? That they would be keeping my money. I told them that I had already cancelled it weeks ago. I showed them the email, which was signed by a member of their staff with the staff members name and picture. They then had the audacity to claim that they didn’t know who the person writing the email was ……. Even though it had her name and picture… they then told me that they weren’t quite understanding what I was asking due to a language barrier. At this point I was a bit frustrated so asked to speak to a manager or someone with better English. I was told no and had to continue to struggle to ask for the money they stole from me, back. I totally, 100% support hiring locals but at the same time feel it’s wholly unfair that just because there’s a language barrier, they get to scam me out of fifty US dollars… My suitcase was also delivered to the wrong room. They apologized profusely for this, which is quite funny to me. They apologized for this small mistake which wasn’t a big deal, but no one ever apologized for trying to steal money from me. Although the views are cool, the money issues left quite a bad taste in my mouth and I do not recommend this pl