Premier Residences Phu Quoc Emerald Bay Managed by Accor — Restaurant in Phú Quốc

I usually don’t review hotels or resorts that I stay at. However, for this resort, I needed to post a review. I booked this resort based on its reviews. And I was so disappointed when I got to the resort.

Inside the lobby, the first impression I was given was the low ceiling, crowded with all outdated furniture, and dirty, dusty floors. I thought I went to the wrong resort.

The resort is big and crowded. It is too outdated, dirty, and dusty. It seems that in a longtime, nobody cleaned or mopped the floors and furniture.

Too many pool levels. It is not good for disabled and elders. It is good for small kids due to many activities. If you’re looking for a luxury or quiet resort, then consider others.

The room is spacious but looks old and ugly because there are too many colors. The bathroom is the best thing in the room, and the kitchen is the worst (for 3 star resorts). The balcony is big and direct to the ocean, which was a huge plus. However with outdated, dirty, and dusty furniture, it doesn’t allow anyone to enjoy the view from balcony.

Regarding the room, I need to emphasize the poor air quality. My mom’s room was in building D, level 6, and was the worst. The moldy air was so strong. We turned the AC on to the max and opened all doors to allow the moldy air out, but could not fully. The receptionist gave us an option to change to other rooms on day 2, but we had one more night to checkout, so it was not worth the hassle. My room was on level 8, and the air was a bit better. Overall, my mom, daughter, 3 nephews, and myself got sick.

It is a necessity that the resort manager checks the quality of air in the entire building (specifically on the lower levels) and others. This is a serious problem. No one wants to get sick during or after their vacation by being exposed to moldy air in this resort. This issue needs to be addressed properly and promptly, prior to anyone staying here.

The infrastructure of the resort is not good. You can hear the water run on the upper level, and people talking from the lower level. It is very noisy (specifically because there are too many kids in this resort).

The services are fine. All house keeping is fine also. The receptionists are friendly. They helped us with all questions and needs. I am impressed with Nhi, Anh, and Duy. They are very friendly and helpful. They offered me a late check out and bus to airport.

The food was poor quality even though there were many varieties. The restaurants were so expensive in this 3 star resort. Most guests resorted to outside businesses for better prices.

Massages are expensive too. No one wanted to get a massage in the resort since outside prices are much cheaper.

The beach was the best thing. However there were too many public people in the resort beach area, which made the beach so crowded and less private than we initially expected.

Generally, the resort is 3 stars overall. Very poor air quality. Too many outdated things such as paint, furnitures,… Too noisy. Too dirty and dusty. The resort needs to have more people to take care...

Overall, it was a good budget vacation, with the key word being budget. Although there are much cheaper places to stay nearby, it’s hard to complain much due to the cost-performance here, and the fact that it’s a resort and not just a hotel building.

We stayed in the 2 bedroom apartment on the 10th floor with an ocean view.

Highlights:

1. The pool is very large and long with a variety of things to do in the pool, as well as places to sit around the pool both in the sun and the shade.

2. The white sand beach is right in front of the resort, and has a beautiful view of the sunrise every morning.

3. The breakfast buffet is extensive and varies a little each day so that you can try new things.

4. The resort overall is on a quiet part of the island inside a resort area with a few other resorts, restaurants and stores nearby.

Lowlights:

1. Smoking and tobacco butts everywhere. We chose this resort because the Accor.com website, as well as other websites, said it is a 100% smoke-free property. Also, there are no-smoking signs scattered throughout the resort. Nevertheless, people are smoking all around, including on the balconies, at the pool and in the outside part of both restaurants. Also, there are ashtrays all around, including at the restaurants. Furthermore, tobacco is for sale at the resort gift shop. This makes me feel like the local management has decided to go against the management policy of the company.

2. Litter and garbage. Unfortunately, there is garbage scattered throughout the resort, mostly outside by the pool or beach, and it often takes a very long time for anyone to notice it. I saw landscapers every morning cleaning up leaves and watering the plants, and lifeguards setting up their area, but tobacco butts and other random pieces of garbage went unnoticed for hours or days at times. The garbage can by the beach, for example, was overflowing with garbage every morning at sunrise, while the lifeguards just walked by with their towels, and landscapers watered the grass. This makes me feel as though their priorities are off or their attention to detail is not good.

3. Food options. There was only one choice for breakfast (buffet) and one restaurant for other meals. It got very old after a while, forcing us to look outside the resort. We wish they would have partnered with or shared about other food options nearby.

4. Room amenities. Not sure why our room was considered an apartment. Even though there was a refrigerator and a ‘kitchen’ area, there was no way to prepare food, no utensils or dishes, and not even a microwave. There should be more explanation of this as we may have enjoyed eating in the room, cutting some fruit or even reheating some food.

On our last day, after checkout, we decided to grab a few drinks before heading to the airport, but they had run out of most types of fruit for some reason. It was unfortunate as we’d hoped to enjoy some coconut, mango and dragonfruit drinks. Oh well. Maybe that summarized...

This hotel is clearly an ambitious hospitality macro project. Although we had some great experiences here, we also have to say that there were some unpleasant ones as well. It's not the most comfortable location if you wanna go for a walk or find out new landscapes (25 minutes from Downtown & 1 hour from Grand World by car). However, that's not on their hands and we can understand that and paying for an uber. Now, there are some failings which are exclusively on their hands, such as the lack of towels in the pool area as well as at the beach, the disparity in the room cleaning (some days great, some other days awful). The daily water bottles refill in the room or the "far away" pool bar. In addition to these, and as a remarkable mistake, we have to say that the service at the restaurant couldn't be worse. Although they cook more than acceptable food (GREAT woodfired pizza), the staff is awfully organised. No section waiters, long food and drinks waiting, long bills waiting, extremely distracted waiters(forgetting to command your order several times), etc. You DON'T wanna place your order from the pool or the beach because there's a good chance you're gonna wait forever. If you're going to this hotel for a holiday, I suggest you to not eating at the restaurant. It's unbelievable that there can be no other clients apart from you, there can be 6 or 7 waiters and you're still gonna have to wait one hour for your food. Everything was a problem. Besides, and a very important detail, probably just half of the staff speak fluent English. We stayed there for two weeks and the restaurant was probably the worst of our Christmas break. Training is urgent. Remarkable good things are: the great variety of the Buffet breakfast, the cleaning of the common areas, clean toilets at the pool and restaurant, good quality food(service ruins the experience completely), PIZZA, nice and wide beach, kayaks availability and AMAZING pools for kids and adults. About the rest of the staff (I repeat, NOT the restaurant one), you can find good willing in general and a friendly face in the reception. Specially, I'd like to thank Phuong. She solved most of our doubts and fixed our staying with great kindness and expertise. She speaks fluent English and she was helpful during our two weeks in the hotel. I'm pretty sure that she'd be a great manager as it's pretty clear that she'd give the proper training to the rest of the staff (reception and restaurant). Eternally grateful with Phuong. That's the kind of person everyone needs in hospitality.

The hotel has great potential. They only need to find the talent and take advantage of their...