HARI Residence & Spa — Hotel in Siem Reap

The architecture is beautiful. We stayed during off season so the hotel was nice and quiet in terms of guests. The staff are very lovely and nice.

Some observations having stayed in the residence suit... No sound proofing to keep the outside noise outside. If you don't want to be woken up by rush hour, microphone speaker from locals on the road or barking dogs in the middle of the night, I suggest not staying in the centre. If you can't moon walk, you'll be able to do so on the wooden floors as the polishing is OTT to the point where I slipped a number of times. The wooden frame around the bed as nice as it is, is a tripping hazard to get out of and I slipped into that frame whilst going to the toilet at night.

We went into the roof top pool once and the surface of the pool had way too many bugs and plant debris. We did see a staff member sweeping and cleaning around the pool. We could see plenty of staff for the restaurant and a present manager. I'm not sure who is responsible for skimming the scum of the surface of the pool. It was pretty gross and probably should be done multiple times a day.

The website stated complimentary free daily laundry, complimentary 2 way airport shuttle as well as breakfast until 15pm...in reality we paid $35 each way (the driver on route from the airport begged and I mean begged us to book the return trip because he needed the work. He also advised us to get a simcard locally and not at the airport because it would be cheaper in town...we paid $10usd for 15gb yet you'll see $1.50 everywhere in town. We arrived at night so we didn't see those signs), We had to show the staff the website stating complimentary daily laundry which we only used twice. They did provide the free laundry service in the end after going back and forth. Initially they said breakfast finishs at 10.30am and again we referred to their website about breakfast until 15pm...We were able to pick from a breakfast menu in the end...again back and forth communication.

I'm sure the staff were just following orders from management, therefore it would be down to their upper management team to ensure that website/marketing offerings are communicated to their team so they can deliver the service without question and reconfirm on arrival.

Khmer massage...if I knew that this was going to be a DRY massage and you'll be touched more times around the butt then normal, I would have opted out. As a tourist an explanation of this should be provided...imagine if you were sun burnt and you get a dry massage, or you just don't wanna be touched around the butt/certain areas of the body. I've had plenty of massages but I did not enjoy the...

It’s a nice hotel and ok for the money, though the cracks start to show after a few days.

We had the deluxe room with Balcony.

Balcony is cute with a nice swing bed, we did use it however when the bugs started dropping on us we unfortunately had to abandon using it.

Rooms are nice, spacious and comfy Staff are pleasant.

AC is good, Cambodia is sweaty and hot so the AC drips on the floor and the windows get steamy, it keeps the room cool tho!

Bed is soft but has a large wooden outer rim which is awful in the night, easy to stub a toe. In combination the hard wood floor is polished to the level of an ice rink you need to wear shoes or you will slide.

There is a really foul smell that comes in through the bathroom, I think it’s the pipes or something, who knows but it’s foul. Block the drains and just avoid the bathroom and shower when it happens. House keeping brought us scented oils to keep it at bay.

Water smells off too.

Hotel is in a good area, but be careful at night there are homeless etc. it’s a 5 or so min walk to pub street!

We had complimentary hour long massages. I would not call it a spa more a room with massage beds. I would not recommend the massages at all, even for free I would skip it. The girls tried but I think both sides would have preferred not to lol

Not sure about the dinner, but after breakfast we didn’t want to chance the feee set Khmer Meal we were offered.

Breakfast was inedible. I mean no disrespect, but buffet for a hotel barely occupied did not result in anything worth swallowing.

I think COVID has hurt the hotel and all of Siem reap. The cocktails for happy hour are already double the price of anything on the Main Street.

Roof top pool is cool tho!

Not sure I would stay again if I came back to Cambodia again.

General Cambodia tips! You need American Money and if you don’t have it and use an ATM use a cash card not your personal debit or credit card. Also withdraw in ODD numbers so you don’t get stuck with 100$ bills which no one takes. They think they are fake. They will try to give you riel back, don’t let them, walk away and sometimes they will have the American if not then your call. Spending riel is not easy, they will inflate how much you need to spend. Spend when you can and don’t take riel when you don’t need to. Ignore Tuk Tuk drivers, it’s mostly a scam when you can walk everywhere here. The only exception being a four of Siem Reap. In that case look up Mr Kat tuk tuk,...

Before leaving, we were asked by The Hari hotel staff to write a review, so we posted on TripAdvisor, then promptly received an email asking us to take down the review and they would refund our money. So we did. And decided to post it here instead.

The staff is all very friendly, in particular David and Kim Nang from the front desk crew, went out of their way to make sure that we were enjoying our time. Kim helped to set us up with a driver to do a city tour, which was a really great way to see Siem Reap. Our driver was super friendly and pointed out many areas we may not have known about. However, because we didn’t have a map or fluid description of what were intended to see, we missed out on a couple of spots, which wasn’t a big deal, but it would have been helpful to have a document listing each spot and where in the city everything is located. For example, we ended up driving out to the “Floating Village” which was kind of pricey for what it was and very underwhelming. Especially because the river that we took a boat down to get there, was quite low and dirty since it wasn’t the rainy season. Once on the water, there wasn’t a whole lot to do or see and this took a few hours out of our day. This is a tourist trap, which I’d recommend skipping. You really won’t miss much.

We signed up for massages in hotel’s spa, which were good, but after explaining a few times what we wanted, including at the front desk when we booked them, we ended up not getting the type we wanted (dry vs. oil). Again, not at all a big deal but it should be a pretty simple request given we pointed to it on the spa menu. The ladies that did the massages were nice and seemed to know what they were doing.

One main point of contention that we were very unpleased with was the set-up of the bathroom. The main bathroom area, including the sink, shower and tub has no door on it, which is kind of awkward when sharing a room where we had two beds. The European style shower is basically in the middle of the bathroom, so when anyone showers the water gets all over the place. This leave the area very unsafe for slips and falls, which we were concerned about our whole time there. We requested extra towels a few times to help clean up the water, but never received them. Luckily no one fell, but it was an added annoyance that we didn’t need.

The food in the hotel’s restaurant was pretty good and the pool area is a great retreat from the bustle of the crowded streets...