Hanoi Golden Sunshine Villa Hotel & Travel — Hotel in Hà Nội

Summary: Passable hotel in tourist mecca, staffed by well-meaning but helpless children, tyrannized by a machiavellian house-keeper. If you stay here, refuse room cleaning and keep your receipt for payment with you at all times.

We had a bizarre experience at this hotel centered around a small, 20 cent object. We were charged a bogus additional cleaning fee, given a room that did not have the features it advertised, and were asked to pay for our stay twice. Here’s the story…

We had carefully selected a room with a bath and balcony. The room had no balcony. It did have a bath, but the bath did not have a bath plug. We mentioned this to the kids who worked at reception, and they said they would check with housekeeping and get us one. Upon hearing back from housekeeping, they told us there was a plug in our room, and we just mustn’t have looked hard enough. To be extra sure we checked again, and sure enough, no plug. We updated reception on our quest, and they once again said they would tell housekeeping and get us a plug. A few moments later, housekeeping arrived, personified by a middle aged woman who strode into our room like she owned it (perhaps she did) and demanded to inspect the bathroom. She got on her hands and knees, peering in every nook and cranny, certain that the plug was there and that our myopic tourist eyes must have simply missed it. Eventually, exasperated, she snatched up our room phone, called reception, spoke in Vietnamese to them for some time, and then stormed away. There were no updates on the plug.

The next morning we planned to sleep in, so we hung the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. The cleaner knocked anyway. We yelled through the door ‘No thank you,’ but she continued to knock louder still. I opened the door and politely told her we did not want cleaning. She seemed grumpy and left. The following day we allowed her to clean the room. She did a thorough job, and even left behind a plug for the bath! But… the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign had been removed, leaving us at her mercy for the rest of our trip.

This was only the first part of what we can only surmise was her revenge for the plug incident. One day, returning from town in the early evening, the shy girl at reception told us the housekeeping informed her there was a ‘stain’ on a towel in our room, and that housekeeping had demanded we pay 100,000 dong in reparations. There was no such stain, but we paid anyway as the amount was trivial.

Upon checking out, we left a nice scarf on top of the bed, very obviously draped over the mattress. We were not allowed to leave the hotel until the housekeeper did a final inspection of our room. Reception waited by the phone as the check was carried out. The phone rang. We were informed of some further small housekeeping-related charges we had to pay, but there was no mention of the scarf.

Then, the receptionist asked us how we would pay for our room. This was confusing, as I had already paid. The receptionist seemed confused by this concept. Fortunately, I had insisted on a receipt when paying a few days early (the young man processing my payment had not offered one, and I had to wait some minutes while he figured out how to produce one). The receipt seemed to almost convince the receptionist that we had paid, but I also had to describe the person who had processed our payment and sit through a number of phone calls. Eventually, we were released, but I will be looking over my shoulder for the housekeeper until...

I want to thank Kevin and Miss Helen at the reception and the staff for all the assistance and service they provided to me to get my best holidays for the first time in Hanoi, Vietnam. The hotel is very well located in the old quarter with a supermarket in front, a walking distance to the Hoan Kiem Lake. A lot of markets around and restaurants. The rooms are spacious and clean, with windows. They provide a breakfast buffet and menu. I asked to get an airport transfer and everything was so well organised by Kevin. He organised my cabin bus to Sapa and my accommodation at the Homestay, my tour to Ninh Binh, and my overnight cruise to Halong Bay. Sincerely, everything was perfect, the tours were so punctual and did everything that they offered. The staff at the Halong Bay cruise knew that I was celebrating my birthday and they had a cake to celebrate and that was such a nice surprise! Miss Helen recommended me good places to try pho soup and the Eggs Coffee. Also, the restaurant in front called Met is really good. They help me to exchange some dollars and everything I need. Also, I stored my luggage there when I was sleeping in the mountains and on the cruise. I asked Kevin about a city tour and he contacted me immediately with the people in the "Free Private Tour Guide". I did a city tour by motorbike with a free guide (that you can pay for later obviously). My guide showed me important historical places such as the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Stilt House, and Museum. We visited the train station to finish the city tour. It was amazing! I have had the best experience in the Golden Sunshine Hotel and I hope they continue to grow as a business and continue to get this kind of people on the staff. I am really happy that I have found you. Thank you so much and all the best...

I've stayed in many hotels around the Hoan Kiem area (which is full of restaurants, bars, shops, a beautiful little lake, etc), some of them rather expensive, and this is the best value for cost that I've found in the neighborhood. The rooms are clean and well appointed, and the building is set far enough back from the street that most of the noise of Hanoi is muffled (not all, but let's be realistic).

I have stayed in hotels that charged twice as much per night and gave less in return: smaller rooms, bad water pressure, dirtiness, and extremely bad complimentary breakfasts. This place suffers from none of these issues. There is no complimentary airport pick-up or drop-off, but they can organize a private car for you at a price (400,000d for a one-way ride) that is slightly cheaper, on average, than a regular taxi would cost.

Some people here on Google seem to have had some rather unpleasant booking-mixup experiences with this place, but this was not an issue for me. Also, a lot of people seem to think that the rooms aren't big or luxurious enough. I would invite them to stay at any of the hotels around the corner on Ng. Bao Khanh, where they will pay significantly more for a lot less space and fewer amenities.

Finally, I want to say that the desk staff, in particular Anh and Tom, are extremely pleasant and always aim to be as helpful as they can be. Friendliness like this makes a difference, especially if you're planning a long stay, and they made me feel entirely at home the entire time I stayed there. I'll definitely return, the next time...