Pandanus Resort — Hotel in Phan Thiết City

This place is terrible. I could've booked a room in one of the cheap motels outside and had better experience than this. Let me tell you everything wrong with our two-day trip on a special "Summer Escape" package that cost a lot of money.

First, we spent 2 million VND (the equivalent of around 90 USD) for a 16-seat car to pick us up and from Ho Chi Minh city. They immediately said yes without caring about the address. Turned out that our street in Ho Chi Minh city prohibits big cars and they couldn't get in the street, so we had to walk a very long distance to the car.

When we got to the resort, we were told that we needed to put down 4 million VND as a down payment in case we use services in the hotel. This was a real problem because nobody told us this when we were booking the rooms. We brought about 6 million VND in cash with us thinking that it would be enough to try out the local food and buy souvenirs. WIth 4 million gone, you can imagine how disappointed we were. We had to spend our vacation spending money sparingly just because of that. And we didn't even use the services in the hotel that much.

The worst problem is the food services included in the package. In our "Summer Escape" package, we had two free dinners. However, in BOTH DINNERS, they FORGOT something. The first time, they forgot the Lau Bun Tha Phan Thiet. We had to wait a long time before finally asking and they just said that they forgot and that they were sorry. No compensation, nothing. At least they brought it to us eventually. However, the second day was wayyyyy worse. First, nobody asked or brought us any water. We waited a very long time until we'd had enough and had to walk to them and ask. Also, they forgot an item in the menu again. They forgot the Goi Thanh Long Thit Cua, and when we asked, they said that THEY FORGOT, AGAIN. We either had to wait 30 minutes for them to bring it up (which is already at the end of our meal), or just leave. We decided it wasn't worth it and just left. This was horrible service, worse than the local restaurants we tried. This behavior is unacceptable for an expensive resort.

Lastly, the thing that sucks almost as much as the service is the wifi. Wifi is very strong and fast, but it keeps disconnecting throughout the day. This became a huge issue with our entire family. Who cares if you have strong wifi if it can't connect to the internet every 30 seconds.

Overall, besides the private beach area and the pool, and maybe the scenes around the resort (maybe the Spa too), this resort fails at the most fundamental things that can satisfy customers. I would never...

Beautifully situated and designed hotel complex with so much potential. However what was really delivered leaves to be desired.

Rooms:

Size and interior was great at first glance. The cleanliness of the rooms could have been better (we found lipstick of previous guests on the coffee spoon!). Beach towels, bedsheets, curtains etc. were quite worn. Mattresses were a tad too hard for us.

Food:

The breakfast had a wide selection of international and asian foods. If only the selection of fresh exotic fruits had been as large. Unfortunately we had to request and wait for a coffeecup every morning because apparently that is not common practice. Concerning dinner, we attended only one of the BBQs and the cooks tried to prepare a selection of asian and western dishes. There was Caesars Salad without parmesan cheese and Spaghetti Carbonara with salmon instead of ham. When we picked up a plate at the buffet, to our surprise there was a largish beetle beneath it on the next plate. Buffet food was often overcooked and the meat pieces hard. Outside the hotel complex there are plenty of little restaurants, which offer comparable or better food quality at sane prices (150K vs 500K+ p.p.). Most hotel guests thus seem to pilgrimage outside for lunch and dinner.

Service:

The back-office had some trouble with processing our credit card. Instead of letting us know in advance, so that we could deal with this from home, they postponed sorting it out until our arrival. They were unable to trace back what actually happened for a week. If internal errors are made, they are simply passed on and the guest is blamed - there is zero service culture at this place.

Conclusion:

The hotel was built with western 4 star standard in mind and the prices seemed quite premium compared to the other resorts there. Unfortunately cleanliness, food and service quality seemed not up to this standard. There are better places for spending your well...

One staff impressed me with her excellent service: Ms Quyen (Reception)

Her service was excellent. Friendly sincere helpful making one feel relaxed.

HOWEVER, I was very pissed off by the Filipino band in this resort (note : I was based in Philippines for business for years and I knew a lot about nice Filipino bands)

After attending the 1st session, I didn't attend for the subsequent nights there.

Why ? This Filipino band vocal and playing skills were average, but their main problem was : THEY JUST LIKE TO SUCK UP TO THE WESTERNERS (AKA CAUCASIANS AKA WHITE PEOPLE).

There were this funny Korean couple sitting behind me. You see, Koreans think they are Asian-Caucasians just like Moroccans think they are Europeans. This funny Korean couple tried to act cool and chat up with the singer but WERE IGNORED. The singer was seen going around selectively chatting with the white people.

maybe they aspire to play in Europe or the US or Australia thinking by doing those suck up political things these white people will bring them there.

Anyway I have seen enough very nice very friendly very skilful talented Filipino bands in Philippines to know this resort band sucks.

Will I come again to this resort? Maybe yes (due to Ms Quyen excellent service) maybe not (due to this resort lousy only know how to suck up to white people Filipino band as well as those male beach and pool staff who also only know how to suck up to white people but were poor in their service, they were just vaping away no service no smile no hello no friendliness from...