Urban Alley Hotel and Travel — Hotel in Hà Nội

The room was very spacious. Much bigger than I was expecting. Especially for the price. It even had its own balcony. I also liked that it was a bit out of the way. Not too out of the way in that you couldn't get to the other parts of the Old Quarter. But just enough to be away from the main hustle and bustle. In the heart of the Old Quarter, there is a lot of street noise, so if the hotel is not well insulated (which this one is not), you won't be able to sleep. This one, however, was a little bit hard to find. It took me a few trips coming back before I really mastered how to get home. The entrance is also not very obvious and does not stand out from the rest of the street, so there were many times I would walk right past it, especially at night. The one thing that really gets me about this place, however, is breakfast. On the breakfast menu, there were several types of pho on offer (chicken, beef, etc.) as well as several types of omelettes. So I proceeded to order a couple of phos and a couple of omelettes. That was when I was told, quite matter of factly, that I could not order both. I had to pick. So I picked the phos because that's what Vietnam's famous for (naturally). That's when they clarified that no, you could not order two phos. You could only order one. I was like, "What?" "You could only pick one item," they said. This took me aback. Why on earth are we allowed to have only one single item for breakfast? Before coming here, I had stayed at two other hotels in Hanoi. Both hotels had offered unlimited breakfast choices. Pho with beef, chicken, pork. Omelettes with ham, bacon, cheese, vegetables. I swore I could easily down 4 or 5 bowls of pho. Several omelettes as well. All made from scratch at the time you ordered them. So when the kitchen staff at Urban Alley claimed they had to limit choices because they made everything from scratch only when the customer ordered them, I was not buying it. Plus, their bowl of pho was much smaller than what I had had at the other hotels. Sensing my frustration, they did offer me an extra omelette afterward but made a big deal about how this was not customary and it was a favor they were going out of their way to grant. That certainly left a bad taste in my mouth, as I found their whole approach completely and utterly patronizing. I mean, yes, they might have been the cheapest to book at the time, but that was because I had wrongfully assumed that the hotel I was staying at would be available for an additional night (and it wasn't), so I had to book somewhere else last minute. If I had booked way in advance, I would've been able to book a hotel with a far better breakfast for around the same price. So personally, I don't see how they can stay competitive if they don't up their breakfast game. Everything else was...

We stayed in the family room with our one year old baby.

1. The room is dirty There is dust everywhere you touch. There is old dried food crumbs on the floor. There is what appears to be liquid or food stains on the TV cabinet. The floor hasn't been mopped, you know how your feet get dirty after walking on dusty floors? Under the bed it's horrendous.

2. The room is smelly. It's the musty smell of an old room that hasn't been cleaned and hasn't been aired out.

3. The linen is old, mouldy and disgusting. The pillows are smelly, the linen is so old it's ripped.

4. The air con is smelly and noisy. You can't adjust the fan speed to make it quiet. It's the sound of the the old fans hitting something inside the unit. It blows directly over our bed where baby is, it's either too cold or too hot if we turn it off.

5. The bathroom It's really bad. It's so smelly. It smells like a public toilet. Taps and shower heads are rusted. It wasn't cleaned properly before we got here.

6. The kitchen on ground floor. I simply have never seen anything like it. I brought my baby's dinner down to heat it up, everything I touched was sticky. It was filthy, absolutely disgusting. It must not have been cleaned, ever. It actually made me sick looking at the state it was in, I lost my appetite so ended up not eating dinner after that. I am just hoping my baby didn't catch disease from all of this.

7. No baby crib, no baby bath I asekd for a baby bath and a baby crib, the hotel had neither despite having a family room.

8. Loud banging noise at 5am Finally drifting off around 2am only to be woken up a few hours later because of the loud banging noise coming from either the same building or perhaps the houses next door.

Despite the friendly staff, nothing can make up for the fact that basic hygiene factors were not met. It has been a very stressful...

We came to stay here for a night hoping for a simple but clean hotel. We were very disappointed... As others have mentioned, the rooms are big, but size doesn't matter as much as what you do with it. First experience was already poor: we saw something we thought was a mouse skitter past from the corner of our eye, so my boyfriend went downstairs to report this. The first thing the receptionist asked was how big the mouse was, without expressing any concern or apology. He claimed that there were no other rooms available. He joins us upstairs and we find a large cockroach (video attached), which he quickly smashes and puts in the toilet.

After a while the owner (presumably, an older lady) comes up and we show her, suddenly there is a room available. Unfortunately we're still quite uncomfortable: the lock on the door doesn't work and the general state of the room isn't great either.

The lady then had us call with the manager, who claimed that if the room was not to our satisfaction, he would give us a full refund. In the morning, they would only give us 50% on the condition that we would mark ourselves as 'no-show' on booking.com, meaning we wouldn't be able to write a bad review... This just seems like trickery to me.

Overall, our biggest issue was not so much the cockroach, which can happen in any tropical place, but more the way the staff handled our concerns. On top of that they were constantly arguing about it together in front of us, which wasn't very professional.

I am confused about all the positive reviews and feedback, because we didn't feel very welcomed at all. They were not apologetic and seemed to just want us to take the blame. Hopefully this honest review will help people make the right call in the future, because there's plenty of nice 3 star hotels in Hanoi that do...