Huyen Chau Hotel — Hotel in Hà Nội

This hotel advertises that they speak English, they don't! Check-in and check-out were a nightmare. When we arrive we gave the old man at the desk our booking.com printout, he didn't seem to know what to do with it. He wrote US$20 US$30 on a post-it note and gave it to us, and didn't seem to think it was in anyway his responsibility to do something about it when we didn't understand what the heck he was on about. We had to ring a tour operator we had been dealing with to get him to intervene for us. Strangely he did understand 'non-refundable' when John suggested we find another hotel. Ultimately, after 20 minutes or so, we were taken to room. When I opened the curtains, I realised it wasn't the room we had booked - no balcony. So back down stairs, and blank looks and smiles. Eventually someone, who may or may not have been connected to the hotel, heard my increasing volume and tone and intervened. We were taken to a different room, with a view of a road construction site rather than the lake view I requested, but I was to worn out by that time to care.||Check-out was the same nightmare. We needed to get it sorted the night before, as we were leaving early. I only managed to achieve it by making it clear that I wasn't going to leave the desk or allow him to watch TV, until he took my money and gave me out passports. He looked like he was going to have a stroke when I insisted on a receipt, which took him a good 15 minutes to achieve. Would never stay here again or recommend...

We chose to stay at Huyen Chao because the advertised photos of the rooms looked wonderful and comfortable. When we arrived our room looked like a completely different hotel compared to the photos we saw. We tried to make the best of the situation but once we pulled up the photos of what we thought we'd booked, we felt duped. Attached photos so you see what we mean. - please note that we found photos online of what we expected of the "standard room" which we had booked. |The bathroom especially was horrific - the bathtub was filthy, lights broken, couldn't use the sink as the plug was broken. |The walls in our room were filthy and there's a glass window into the hall so when you turn off the lights, the hall light is intrusive. ||We had originally booked for three nights but we checked out the next morning and booked elsewhere. ||We had booked with free breakfast, when we asked what time breakfast was the next morning we first had to prove that we'd booked in with free breakfast, then were informed breakfast is from 7am - 8am. Not for us as we prefer to get up later while on holiday. |The reception does not speak English well so there is a language barrier. |We lost money on this hotel as we'd paid in advance. We hope our bad experience will make...

I decided to live it up a bit after a long road trip and I'm so glad I did. This hotel is lovely, the staff are amazing, and it's really close to everything - right around the corner from Truc Bach lake, a few minutes from West Lake and the old quarter, and they took extra good care of my motorbike out front. Would definitely...