This should be a lovely place to stay. The suites are large and include a kitchen with a washing machine, and the 27-metre pool is uncrowded and cool in the Hanoi heat.

But we won't be staying there again. When we checked in, we thought the two-bedroom suite smelled musty and smoky, but we turned on the air conditioning and thought that would improve things. It didn't; the living room/dining area still smelled and when we went to bed, we found the pillows and upholstered headboard reeked of smoke. Since we were going to Halong Bay after two nights, we decided to put
up with it, but we mentioned it to our guide. We were present when she spoke to the front desk and they promised us a non-smoking room on our return from Halong Bay.

When we got back, we were intially told there were no non-smoking rooms available. The front desk sent us up to one suite which smelled
worse than the one we had vacated. Then they told us they had no non-smoking rooms at all. I said I found it incredible that a large hotel
would not have some non-smoking rooms, and they said it was not a
"hotel", it was an "apartment-hotel". The distinction is one which escapes me. Our guide reminded them of what we had been promised, and they blamed it on a trainee who was new. Our guide then phoned the tour company which had booked the accommodation, who in turn phoned the hotel and finally we were given a suite which did not smell of smoke.

The attitude of the front desk staff seemed to be that we were making
a big fuss over a trivial matter. I find this surprising given
that the facility is used by lots of North American families who are adopting Vietnamese babies and who stay there with these babies until
they get their visas. We know that more people (men particularly) smoke in Asia than North America, but we did not encounter this smell
or problem in getting non-smoking rooms in any of the 5 other hotels in which we stayed in Vietnam or Cambodia.

The place does not seem well run. A whole bunch of little things leads to that conclusion. We received a phone call asking about our request to repair the safety deposit box - we had made no such request. Prior to check-out, my husband phoned for a porter and baggage cart, and had an incomprehensible conversation with someone who wanted to know about our dishwasher. The included breakfast was by far the most mediocre of the hotels in which we stayed in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the staff seemed pleasant but disorganized. Every morning after we had placed our order and presented our breakfast card, we were asked by at least one other staff member what we wanted
to order and to see our card. The area used for breakfast is the pub/restaurant at night - it retains much more of the pub atmosphere unlike the nice breakfast dining areas in all the other hotels we stayed in.

As I said, this should be a nice place to stay. But improvements are needed, and a good start would be to thoroughly clean a couple of floors and reserve them for non-smoking guests.

We stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment for 3 nights. The accommodation was fine and the service very good. It is miles better than the big hotels because you get a whole apartment - decent lounge and dining area where as I would need to take 2 rooms at a hotel. The pool is huge and the breakfast very good - choice of ala carte from Jaspers which serves decent pub food. The place is full of expats but managed to watch the Wallabies /All blacks game in Jaspers bar. Location is excellent - between old quarter and french quarter.
Only drawback was they tried to charge us for a broken hairdrier that was broken by housekeeping - still they caved in in the end.