Sheraton Grand Danang Beach Resort & Spa — Hotel in Đà Nẵng

This hotel has great potential and I don’t want to seem overly critical as you must take into account this is a new hotel and I think over time given the attentiveness of both the staff and management I am confident the hotel will improve and iron out the various areas of improvement that we found were necessary.

Positive sentiment;

All the staff we encountered were extremely polite, friendly and attentive.

Excellent breakfast buffet. I liked the fact it was changed on a daily basis and there was a plethora of options available to a variety of cultures and customers. The Australian BBQ buffet was also very well received.

The room we were allocated was wonderful, ocean view, with fabulous vistas.

The beach is fantastic, very fine sand and although there is a red flag for swimming, paddling with the children and searching for sea shells was great for the kids.

The gym equipment is all very new and has an excellent set up with adjoining stretching studio.

The playground for the children was a great addition for them to explore.

Room for improvement

No changing room/shower/toilet facilities near the baby pool – you have to walk a considerable distance to the beach restaurant or main building to access those facilities. With a young child, this isn’t ideal.

The Grill restaurant was not open and unlikely to be open for some time. This was frustrating as we were staying in the hotel for nearly two weeks and the Starwood website makes no mention of the fact that this restaurant isn’t available. In fact on the website it states “Atmosphere: Lively”, which you can appreciate is both confusing and inaccurate.

On occasion both restaurants had a shortage of baby chairs.

Limited menu options. Again staying two weeks in this hotel, it doesn’t take long before you have tried all the various dishes and it becomes very mundane and repetitive in due course. Not having the Grill open also further compounds this issue so hopefully that will be alleviated in the future.

There are currently no shops on-site at the hotel and thus you will need to make sure you purchase items you require before you arrive. Again I’m sure that will change over time as construction is still ongoing.

Some of the hotel rooms with balconies had no furniture on them and some did not. The room we had didn’t have any balcony furniture at all thus making it impossible to relax and enjoy the beautiful views.

Whilst staying at the hotel, they had a three day conference group which included a ‘beach morning bonding session’ which commenced at 6am and entailed approximately 50 people shouting and screaming at each other, someone loudly ranting into a microphone with speakers that woke all of my family up for three consecutive days. We complained (as did other guests) and they said they would move the group further down the beach but the noise could still be heard every morning that they did this exercise. That wasn’t very conducive to making our holiday a relaxing one being woken up so early on those particular days.

Air-conditioning units. It became very obvious that staff members either didn’t have the knowledge or ability to alter the air-condition within certain rooms. For example the gym temperature was at 26 degrees for several days and despite multiple conversations they struggled to amend the temperature. Training in that heat was unbearable and arguably dangerous. The same applied to the Kid playroom. When multiple children and parents were in the playroom temperatures were excessively high and the children were getting extremely hot.

Kids playroom supervision was questionable. The staff were very nice and certainly engaged the children but we saw a couple of injuries to children and I don’t think the staff are first aid trained. The age disparity of kids also played a problem as 2-3 year olds being given scissors as opposed to 8-9 years olds is a distinctly different proposition. Some parents left their children in the playroom for hours and I have to say we saw many of the children just walk off totally unsupervised, which was unnerving.

The main swimming pool. The pool is huge and looks impressive, that is until you look closer. The water was incredibly murky and visibility was down to less than two feet. When I took the children in the pool I went under water and moved the pool loungers and there was an immense build-up of green algae. When you touched it, the green algae released a type of powder that made the water discoloured and appeared unclean. I was very concerned about this and spoke the GM and director about it and I was assured the pool was safe but the pumps had been broken for 3 days and they were currently rectifying the situation. I can confirm that was indeed the case, several people had placed pumps into the pool and cleaning was underway but I remained at the hotel for nearly two weeks and by the time I checked out the pool visibility had not improved.

Room service. One particular evening I ordered room service and I was informed the food would be 50 minutes. I asked if they could expedite the order as I wanted to put the children to bed asap. The order finally arrived after nearly 90-100 minutes and the dishes were all stone cold and inedible, so we ate nothing. I complained and the F&B manager was excellent in the morning he acknowledged the issue, apologised and offered complimentary lunch instead, which I thought was handled incredibly well and fully appreciated.

All in all a good experience, I only highlight the shortcomings because it’s a new hotel and many of these things can be addressed and corrected if management decide to take the constructive feedback accordingly… Definitely a hotel to try and I would encourage people to check it out. Like I said the staff are super friendly and it’s a hotel with huge potential…...

Service and staff at this hotel are absolutely amazing, nothing is a big deal for staff, within their means though... they would all really go above and beyond to help guests. Rooms are very comfortable air conditioning is the quietest one I have ever experienced in hotels. Main pool is insanely massive with chairs always available. Breakfast, is your standard buffet offerings... Things to watch out for: At the time of booking we were offered to upgrade our breakfast experience to Table 88 for some 4€ extra, which we chose, I would consider this a marketing scam as there is only a Table 88 available as a breakfast option at the hotel. So don’t fall for this option. On the way from the airport we drove past some amazing grand hotel entrances, looked amazing, once we arrived to Sheraton Grand, well, there is nothing grand about it, entrance looks like the entrance to 60’s European government institution. You then exit the air conditioned vehicle and enter the lobby which is believe it or not 100% no air conditioning! You absolutely melt waiting to check in on 40+ Celsius. I just wanted to go back to the airport, completely insane concept, and they expect check in staff to work in these conditions!!! Next thing is an oversized swimming pool, it does not have an inch of a shade, complete sun exposure!! Pool temperature is good 45 Celsius. Very unpleasant! Only time you can really swim is after 4:30PM once sun is behind the building. Good thing is that pool stays open the whole night... which kind of raises the question on how the cleaning is done? We had a plunge pool room, so we had a pool with the shade, lucky! However, this room’s bathroom has only a single sink resembling a size of the airliner sink, tiny for one person and to have to share it in a 5 star resort costing some 300€ nightly, wrong. Bath tub is a complete waste of space which could be better used with a proper double sinks, wc door would also be nice. This hotel provides soap bars which you are suppose to keep in their little try which has been poorly designed, as once you put the soap in it you will NEVER get it out! There should be absolutely no room for a rug in a beach resort, and our room has one. Seating option as a couch is completely missing though. Internet keeps dropping out, and the property is literally in the middle of nowhere, so you are forced to have your meals at the hotel where beer costs 5€, and the seafood fried rice 12€, just as a bench mark. All of these are smallish things, but this is how the stars are earned. In my opinion this is a rather clean solid 3 star...

Been mulling over this review for sometime so my opinions are considered (based on 5 Night Stay)

Pro’s :

Contrary to other reviews I believe this resort is well situated, perfectly positioned right between both Hoi An and Da Nang.

Good “Grab” car availability - you never have to wait more than a couple of mins for a car.

Rooms themselves (we had the upgrade King bed with Pool View) are very spacious, well decorated, great bathroom and most likely the most comfortable bed and linen in the industry.

Laundry Service, if you want your clothes to look better than when you first purchased them get these guys to launder your clothes.

Breakfast, good selection (the best hash browns ever) never too busy, extremely attentive staff, possibly the strongest coffee in Vietnam? Great juice selection, very clean - brilliant.

Visuals of the resort, gardens are well maintained, lighting is tastefully executed at night, amazing clean swimming pool.

Last but not least the Staff, these are some if not the most genuine, friendly people you will ever meet in Hospitality, courteous, polite and happy to have a conversation with you - couldn’t ask for anything more (they make the resort).

Cons:

Construction Noise!!!!!!! Yes from the images here and on trip advisor this resort looks complete, no it’s not. There is still ongoing works to the Villas - we’re talking 7:00 in the morning through to (at least on one night) 8pm. Unfortunately this is at the discretion of the owner and resort staff have 0 to nill say in this and basically just have to apologise. I would avoid until the 2020 season to which one would hope this would be cleared up.

Noise cancellation and sound proofing in rooms, if someone is walking around in the room above you, you will hear it.

Shower temperature, seems like a straight forward thing to get right? Your morning shower will go from pleasant to scolding within moments and back to pleasant with the cycle continuing until your out.

There is a distinct lack of atmosphere in the bars in the evening, on most nights we were the only people in the bars - I personally prefer a bit of a buzz when having a drink however others may like this... (once again bar staff are great and make a brilliant Long Island Ice tea)

Overall I would consider this property a “western” 4 star resort and not 5.

During our stay we did have some challenges and would like to thank Thanh & Lan for their understanding and assistance through out - thank you - you guys...