Gemini Saigon Hotel — Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City

I stayed here for 4 nights 4th-9th May. I want to be fair with my review as there were some things that were very poor but I equally was not proactive in reporting these to staff to allow them to rectify. I initially booked the Gemini Saigon around the corner from this one which was a suite with bathtub. When I arrived at 1pm I was told I can either wait an hour for check in at 2pm (standard procedure) or check in to a room around the corner at the sister hotel now. I wasn’t given any information so I had to ask for photos of the room to ensure I wasn’t being downgraded. The room looked comparable and was in a quieter area next to a cafe I love so I took that option. The room was a lot more run down than the photos - not horrendous, but in desperate need of a freshen up. Mould on the bathroom ceiling, stains on the walls and linens/towels, cupboard doors hanging off, stiff drawers. Whether this was a downgrade compared to my first room I can’t say, as I never saw it and that may also not have been true to the photos. Overall the place felt dated and dingy. The shower was powerful and you get complimentary shampoo/body wash, but the water never went hot (although I didn’t mind this personally). The toilet made strange noises in the night and water would burst upwards out of it which would wake me up so I think there may be some sort of plumbing issues (no bad smells, just water). The room cost £84 for 5 nights which isn’t expensive so I wasn’t expecting a luxurious experience. That being said, I’d expect a clean room at the very least. Which brings me to the worst part of the stay - my room was not cleaned once the entire time I was there. On 2 of the days I a lot of time in the room due to health reasons and had the do not disturb sign on the door, however there were plenty of times I was out of the room all day from afternoon to evening and it was not cleaned. I should have raised this with reception earlier than I did but if they weren’t there when I went out I would forget when I got back due to fatigue. This is where I want to be fair, because I didn’t report this however when I did and politely asked for clean towels, I was met with resistance from the night shift guy who was unhelpful and lazy in my experiences with him. He also stunk of weed, which probably explains it. He told me this was due to having the do not disturb sign on the door. I countered that had only been that morning, and I’d been out the entire day with the ‘please clean room’ sign up, to which he said no, I have to tell reception to clean my room. Absolutely baffling. The sign on the door surely explicitly does that job? I said this was not communicated to me during check in. When he reluctantly went to get me some fresh towels, bearing in mind I hadn’t mentioned the fact it hadn’t been cleaned at all, he had the audacity to ask me for my dirty towels rather than walking up the 1 flight of small stairs to my room to collect them for me. In this regard, the service was appalling. The younger girl on reception was lovely and helpful though! I repeatedly saw the cleaning staff sat on the stairs just meters from my room that hadn’t been cleaned, and they had no problem cleaning the room when I checked out, as I had reception repeatedly calling me at 12:04 and housekeeping all but barging in to clean, which was ironic. If I did need to confirm room cleaning with reception, which seems unnecessary, then it’s bad that this was not communicated during check in or at least provided on an information sheet. They were also aware that my room hasn’t been cleaned, so it’s also disappointing that staff didn’t proactively raise this with me to arrange it. There was another situation where the night shift guy was lazy and unhelpful - I’d lost my phone and told him if anyone comes with an iPhone it’s mine. Turns out he nearly turned them away because I “wasn’t there” rather than doing what any normal person would do and holding it for me until I returned. All in all, not the best or worst stay. Probably would only recommend for people on a...

This hotel for sure manipulates the reviews on booking.com. How do we know? Because it happened to us. ||||We stayed there for 3 nights. During our stay we were very disappointed by their service and we told them about it. We told them that we will leave a bad review on booking, because other guests should know about their offer. But after we checked out, they immediately marked as a "no show" guests in the system and blocked us from leaving a review. Booking for some reason could not do anything - we had an invoice, but they still could not unlock our reviews. This hotel is rated 9 on booking.com at this moment, but it should really be more like less than 3.||||What were we disappointed about:||The room was dirty. We had stains on our sheets. ||Our balcony had a view on a brick wall. You felt like in a prison. Nothing like the pictures we saw. ||The breakfast only includes a couple of meals you can order. One meal we ordered was nothing like the picture on the menu.||The staff is rude. They just want to take your money. They overprice everything. We understand this is a hotel and things can be a bit more expensive, but not 100% expensive. We stayed in more and less luxury hotels in Vietnam than this and got better prices than here. ||Staff will act as if they do not understand what you are saying when it suits them. They hope you will let it go after explaining something for the fifth time.||Not to mention that their English is terrible. ||They provided us with the crappiest motorcycle for the highest price. The motorbike was not safe to drive so we did not take it. After returning it 15 minutes later, they accused us of breaking the bike and lying about it. ||||The only good thing about this hotel is the location.||||We traveled all over Asia. And we really are not picky about the accommodation. But considering price/performance ratio - this...

This hotel soured my experience of visiting Vietnam for the first time.

We booked 4 nights and 3 days. I was really looking forward to this hotel since it's my first time visiting Vietnam.

Booked weeks in advance and confirmed multiple times what time we were arriving (7am). No problem if we can't check-in right away, we were willing to leave our luggage and come back once room is ready.

Upon arrival to the hotel from the airport, we were told the room has an aircon issue (no prior message or notice that there was an issue). They said the room AC will be fixed at 8pm, and they can't sell the room, so they will transfer us to a different hotel (???).

Since we just came from our flight and had nowhere to stay, we left our luggage in the lobby and had breakfast around the area. When we went back the hotel, they asked us to cancel our booking on the app (booking.com) since the room won't be ready until 8pm. So we had to find a place to stay (on our own, the hotel did not look for us) until the room is ready.

We still wanted to keep the room, at least for the remaining days, so we went back and asked if we can come once our room is ready. They said we need to book from booking.com AGAIN. Since we booked weeks in advance, our original booking was way cheaper compared to now. They want us to book again and pay the new price AFTER asking us to cancel our original booking (because the room was not ready and they never informed us BEFOREHAND).

I had high hopes and I just really wanted to have a nice experience here, but it's just disappointing. Thankfully HANZ 40/21 Boutique Hotel had a room available (just a few steps in front of Gemini Saigon Hotel).

No compensation, no help, no support. Just left us to figure it out ourselves, despite not letting us know there was an issue until we were already there with...