Ngoc Bach Hotel

If you are after a good night sleep do not stay here. While the price is good, the rooms good and clean, the mattresses are incredibly hard. We found we had to put towels, jackets, beanies, scarves and anything else we could find between us and the mattress to try to soften the load. It still didn't work.

Very disappointing.

This hotel has the unsettling atmospherics of an enterprise that is in the hands of subsequent, hobbyist owners following a financial collapse, and had me wondering if it was perhaps impossible to attract hospitality professionals to Mai Chau. It seemed to have been built by someone who had seen a luxury hotel, but had no personal experience of one. The management were friendly and the food delicious, but:
- My family of 4 were allocated to a 3 person room.
- the building was not quite finished
-There was little or no soundproofing
- a loud outdoor broadcast that continued for several hours started at about 5am
- the drinking glasses had a disgusting brown film on them
-many of the advertised features were unavailable. I could see where the pool was being constructed, but it was nowhere near ready for water. I visited the "cafe". It was deserted except for dirty dishes and other mess. The " karaoke " room was being used to store beer. I could see no evidence of any staff at the "spa".
- There were no credit card facilities

Not surprisingly, our party of 7 were the only guests in this 6 story hotel.

I hope the owners can turn this around because that's an awful lot of new hotel to stand empty.

I really wanted to love this place, and it has definate potential. The redeeming qualities are the price, and the view. We paid $300,000 dong per night, really cheap considering that some other hotels in the area are 500,000-1,000,000 dong per night! And the view is incredible. We stayed on the 7th floor. There is a deck area outside of the door of the 7th floor rooms (there are only two rooms on the 7th floor.) It over looks the entire town, tucked in a valley between mountains. We were able to find a couple of chairs and sit outside and enjoy the view. Though it was short lived, as the karaoke on the 6th floor was so loud, that it penetrated into our hotel room and over the sound of our tv. It continued late into the night, and began again at 11am the next morning...though I believe this was the family only. There was no toilet paper in our room, and we were not given any toilet paper or clean towels at all during our two night stay. There were two packets of instant coffee in the room, and a teapot. We requested additional coffee for the next morning and were charged for it. We were charged more for the 6 packets of coffee we drank, than an entire box of 24 costs. We had our laundry done here as well, and it was returned to us with a musty odor...I suspect no soap was used. We also rented a motorbike from this hotel which we paid for immediately. Upon checking out we were asked to pay again. We explained that we had already paid for it, and that was when we were asked to pay for the coffee.

Before leaving a room I always look under the bed to be sure I am not forgetting anything. There was filth under the bed, including several cigarette butts. The entire time we were there it felt like we were being asked to pay for sub-par, fo bad service. It seemed that the family treated the hotel more as their home, doing as they wanted, making noise, and disregarding that they had paying guests. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

If you wish to have a decent stay here, I suggest the following:

1) You must be somebody who is not bothered by loud music
2) Bring or buy your own coffee from a nearby seller
3) Do not have your laundry done here
4) Do not rent a motorbike here
5) Do not expect toilet paper in your room

There are a number of guesthouses in the area that likely have comparable prices.