マイ ンゴク ホテル (My Ngoc Hotel)

“dont wast your money staying here”

“My Ngoc Hotel”

“my ngoc hotel - take the good with the bad.”

if you're vietnamese this would be a fantastic place to stay. for the rest of us, there are some drawbacks. the staff english is pretty limited, and they seem annoyed at having to try. the whole family must live here, so it's a bit like a high-rise homestay. for the amazing view, i chose the 6th floor "penthouse". unfortunately the wifi doesn't reach up there. so my very limited surfing was done during breakfast or other meals, if at all. the "included" breakfast is pretty lame, but overall the first floor restaurant offers good food at great prices. many visitors from other hotels came here to eat for the good prices. my ngoc offers the usual local tours, and does a good job. (no english speaking guide, of course.)

“Just avoid this place...”

The good thing is that is cheap. The bad thing is all the rest with a remarkable unfriendly staff. In addition,avoid to book your way to Ha Noi with them, they will give you the slowest fare at the highest price (I spent 3 hours more to come back to Ha Noi compare to my way in at Cat Ba, they got for the western tourists an absurd trip with 3 busses and 1 boat instead on 1 bus and 1 boat as usually it is).

“Not bad, not the best”

We were wary of this hotel after reading some of the poor online reviews, but it's gotten something of bad wrap that it doesn't entirely deserve. The lady who worked the front desk while we were there was very helpful and arranged good tours for us. The bay tour was fantastic with great food on the boat and lots of things to see and do. She made sure our personal items were safe when we gave them over, but we did feel a little wary when she herself said "don't leave anything in the room you will get stolen from." We went at the tail end of winter which is rainy so the rooms were COLD, damp and a bit uncomfortable, but that is hard to avoid wherever you stay during that season. The hot water, however, didn't last for more than 2 minutes which was a little annoying. The food wasn't the worst I've ever eaten, but they do serve instant noodles which isn't the best when you want something authentic. There are better and much much worse places on the island...it is one of the cheaper places to eat so it was nice not to be completely ripped off for our food. The only annoyances we ran into were when we rented motor bikes and mine ran out of gas 20 feet from the hotel; they expected me to push it the 1/2 mile to the gas station and fill it up on my tab which I refused to do and when we checked out the only person at the front desk was a guy who couldn't speak English and he insisted I hadn't paid when I had- it was an ordeal we didn't want to deal with. Otherwise we had a nice time. Its a good deal for what you pay and that is whats most important; especially if you are budget traveling like we were.