THE EMPYREAN NHA TRANG — Hotel in Nha Trang City

You can tell by reading the reviews on Google that many of them are not genuine or they are written by “local guides” which are not real traveller reviews. There should have to be some way to prove that you actually stayed at a hotel to allow you to leave a review.||||I have no idea how this hotel can advertise a 5 star rating. By international standards, this is approx 3 star ratings. However, the price we paid to stay there was about the same as the cost of a powered tent site at an NRMA Reflections Park, so in many ways, we shouldn’t complain!||||Rooftop pool and bar: I will reiterate what some other people have explained in their reviews: to get there you need to go down the main elevator from your room to the ground floor, then ride a different elevator up to the pool. It is not explained ANYWHERE when you make your accommodation booking (e.g. Agoda, Booking.com) that you will only be allowed one “free” visit to the rooftop pool per day, per person. Any further visits require you to pay a fee! Absolutely ridiculous. There would be uproar in Australia if a hotel tried to pin this sort of condition on you. Anyway, after going up to the rooftop pool you’ll probably be disappointed anyway. No nature or plants up there, just an arc pool that doesn’t join up in the middle. Not enough chairs or lounges for guests. The pool is in a poor condition. One of the safety panes was completely smashed out and covered with safety tape. The pool was really dirty and absolutely nowhere near a 5 star standard. I ended up choosing not to swim in it based on the condition of it. They could do sooo much better with the rooftop pool if they actually cleaned it, put some nice lounges out and some plants so that it would be an enjoyable area to spend time. I didn’t pay to go up there after our 1 free visit per day simply out of principle!||||Elevators: for real, you will be waiting a long time to get anywhere in an elevator. Sometimes the only chance was to hop into one going up, just so that you could be guaranteed a ride to the ground floor (eventually). No aircon in the elevators. There are 8 elevators but it seemed only a couple of them were ever in order. Otherwise, be ready to play elevator roulette.||||Bathroom: The bathroom design makes no sense. Big glass pane separating the bathroom from the bedroom… with a roller blind which you can pull down for some privacy… which has gone mouldy because people have no obviously left it down while showering. Who wants to see their significant other sitting on the toilet and wiping their bum / performing other personal activities. Nooooo! Lots of “I need to go to the bathroom, turn around and promise you won’t look” conversations. ||||Building: must be made of thin materials… we were on floor 20 but could hear every single scooter and sound from outside. The rooftop bar is very loud at night and we could hear that from our room.||||Room: pillows were way too soft and floppy. I ended up getting a crick neck. ||No utensils other than 2 teaspoons in the room. No corkscrew. How am I supposed to open a bottle of wine in this county unless I buy my own corkscrew and then ditch it before boarding a flight? Went to the mini mart to look for corkscrew… (Note: all the bottles of wine sold here appear to be corked… even the Australian wines that would usually be screw top by default these days are corked for export to Vietnam).||||Breakfast: A scam. There are varying posters and signage around the hotel with differing information about the cost of breakfast and various incomprehensible “breakfast combos / packages”. Some signs say 190kpp++, others say 250kpp++ BUT only 215kpp++ “early bird” if you pre-book a day in advance. This information was not clearly explained upon check in. ||First morning, we rocked up at the restaurant to try out their breakfast, intending to get the 190kpp++ rate. We handed over our room card, they press a few buttons on their computer, smile, hand the card back and say nothing. So we go get ourselves a cup of coffee to get started and sit down to plan what we will try to do for the day. ||||Then a staff member approaches us and asks us our room number. We get the room card out and show her. She then tells us we haven’t paid for breakfast and we will need to pay the full rate. I tried to ask what the purpose of the breakfast check-in was that we just did at the counter but all she could do was smile and nod and hold out a calculator telling us if we want to eat (even though they’ve already let us in) we will need to pay full price. I told her this was not explained when we checked in for breakfast. I got the sh$ts, put my cup of coffee down on the table and said, “fine, we are leaving then.” She politely tried to sell us breakfast combo package prices on her calculator and I said “190k each” but she laughed and smiled and said no. So I said “don’t worry then, we will leave”. Happy went out to spend our money in a cafe.||||Pros: the aircon works in the room, the shower had water pressure, sometimes but not other times.||||The overall message of this review is, sure the base rate of your room will be low, but expect to be scammed in nearly every way for anything else you try to do in this hotel. ||However, like I said, $50 won’t get you much of a room in Australia… so it’s all a perspective on value for money. ||Definitely had better value for money in Malaysia for $50/night. But also better than a powered campsite for $50 per night… not sure how this hotel is rated #9 in Nha Trang. Maybe people’s expectations for “5 stars” and standards are low in...

Probably one of the worst hotel experiences I have ever had. We decided to stay here because we needed 3 rooms for our family and the Empyrean seemed like a decent affordable 4 star hotel. Unfortunately I wished we had opted for a more reliable hotel group. Firstly the check in process is ridiculous, as you enter the main entrance of the hotel expect a very busy and crowded lobby. After queueing up to a massive line that we assumed was the check in line only to be told when we got to the front that to check in for the empyrean you needed to go to the 2nd floor. Not a single sign or staff stated this. When we got to the 2nd floor to check in the staff at the counters didn’t seem to care that we were guests. After explaining we are a family that would like to stay on the same floor if possible the staff just nodded and then said it wasn’t possible. No other options were given to us . This wasn’t a language barrier as we also could speak the language. BIG warning about the lifts at this hotel, be prepared to wait 10-15 mins each time you need to go up or down the lifts. The worst operations of elevators I have ever experience. Every guest was frustrated as the lifts would fill up and the waits were horrendous, also no aircon inside so you’re standing in humid heat squashedamongst others. Now the rooms, we paid extra for the king ocean room on the 36th floor and as we entered our room I felt disgusted by the cleanliness. The walls were dirty the bathrooms weren’t cleaned properly and let’s just say the showers also not cleaned. After being so grossed out we decided to asked for a downgrade to a smaller room on the same floor as our family so we could avoid the longer wait times for the lifts but also to get a cleaner room. The check in staff arranged this for us but instead of getting the bell hop to help us with our bags to be moved to the new room, she came up to our room to only show us the keys are ready and said we had to take everything down to the 2nd floor to grab the keys and head to our new room with our bags, I am also pregnant so this was a ridiculous task. She didn’t want to just hand us over the new keys there and then. Also I have to mention the pool and infinity pool photos are very inaccurate, the pool area is tiny and no day beds. To access the infinity pool you have to catch the lift down to level 1 to get into another lift that only takes you to the pool level at 40. This is the only way to the pool. As you get out the staff at the desk will question you about your stay and ask proof with a room key, they are extremely rude and won’t even offer you any assistance. Find a day bed if you can as there’s about 10 days beds for a hotel that sleeps thousands. Don’t expect any sort of service at this pool area, no water offerings and if you want the menu you need to go get it yourself. I really hope if you decide to stay at this hotel it’s purely because everything else was booked out. Overall this hotel is...

Never ever again!!!!!

I had uploaded this review during our stay, but the so called customer support manager put massive pressure on my partner via WhatsApp. We were forced to take it offline...but you can read the whole story below.

We've been travelling a lot through Asia and Vietnam and this hotel was the worst we have ever experienced. But let's start from the beginning, just for fun.

We arrived at 6.30 am and the greeting was very "unasian" as they didn't even greet us properly, smile nor did they offered us a drink (water). If we should need something we should write an email to the owner. No, thanks!

The room was confirmed to us in writing for 1 pm and when we stood at the reception on the first floor at 1 pm we were rudely turned away. The room would not be ready until 2 pm Adios!

At 2 pm we found ourselves - once again - at the overcrowded reception. They were unprofessional, unorganised and unfriendly. As we slowly moved closer to the counter a receptionist told us that the line is now closed. Thank you for your disgrace of "service". So we changed lines and after more than 45 minutes of waiting we finally reached the counter. No "welcome", no smile.

I politely asked for the hotel manager as I wanted to address my negative experience and criticism directly. No response at all. Instead, the receptionist waved a shady lady from the nearby seating area over. She was even ruder and then told us that our reception was on the 2nd floor. That's enough. I also asked her, now a little less polite, for the hotel manager. No response, instead she went to the elevator and we were forced to follow. No "welcome" from her either, no apology or question about our arrival. Her gaze was fixed and could probably have killed babies. Where is the Asian/Vietnamese friendliness that we know and love? Not here!!!!

At reception (on the 2nd floor), it wasn't the hotel staff who took photos of our passports, but her. Then she wanted to photograph our credit card with all our sensitive data, which I only just realized and prevented. This is fraud right down the line. To protect ourselves, we wanted to make a note of her name, but she objected very, very aggressively. I asked again for the hotel manager and she replied with cheeky words. "If we want to complain, we should write an email to Booking.com. She doesn't care." A real scammer!

We went to the room, which had nothing to offer apart from a nice view (the only positive thing about this hotel). The cleanliness is also more than questionable and I stopped counting at the 10th black hair.

We were dazzled by the pool, which is only...