Name: Royal International
Address: Bai Chay Beach Ha Long Vietnam, Halong, Halong, Halong, not available, Vietnam
Rating: 4

Air conditioning

24-hour reception

Elevator/lift

Currency exchange

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Conference Hall

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Sauna

Beauty and wellness

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At the hotel

Room amenities

Cat Bi International Airport

Van Don

Royal International

Halong

child-bed

child-bed-fee

external-private-bathroom

private-bathroom

shared-bathroom

10-beds

11-beds

12-beds

13-beds

14-beds

15-beds

16-beds

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18-beds

19-beds

2-beds

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3-beds

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4-beds

40-beds

5-beds

6-beds

7-beds

8-beds

9-beds

king-bed

queen-bed

limited-time

lounge

treatment

no-window

bay-view

bosphorus-view

canal-view

city-view

courtyard-view

garden-view

golf-view

harbour-view

inland-view

lake-view

land-view

mountain-view

ocean-front

ocean-view

oceanside

panoramic-view

park-view

partial-ocean-view

partial-sea-view

partial-view

pool-view

river-view

sea-front

sea-view

street-view

sunrise-view

sunset-view

water-view

with-view

annex

basement

main-building

1-bedroom

2-bedrooms

3-bedrooms

4-bedrooms

5-bedrooms

6-bedrooms

not-guaranteed

wired-internet-access

smoking

sauna

duplex

safe

mini-bar

breakfast-for-1

breakfast-for-2

pets-allowed

wi-fi

kitchen

The hotel is old and run down. The restaurant attached is dirty with garbage on the floor the cloth chair covers are filthy with food stains that haven't been washed in ages. The restaurant staff were lazy preferring to sit play cards and smoke rather than serve the customers. 

The rooms are large with views but are tired and in desperate need of a paint and repairs. Outside our hotel room we saw rats scurrying around in the shadows! 

We were stuck with this hotel due to a postponed tour and were put up there by our tour company.
AVOID THIS HOTEL AT ALL COSTS

Avoid this dump

Having a nice experience in this hotel since 2001, we booked 11 rooms at this hotel last weekend (in June 2011) and finally had to do nothing but cancel it.
 We booked bour roomes before almost a week and the officer in charge confirmed that our rooms will be on the 3rd floor with sea view. However, when our delegation arrived, the receptionist gave all the keys to the rooms in the ground floor (which include the worst rooms like 102, 104). We asked: "Why is it so different with information the officer - Mrs Lan Phuong confirmed to us before?" We said: 2 rooms - 102 and 104 are too dirty, humid, dark, ugly.... Can you change to other rooms (which were available at that moment). The only answer is "this is what my boss told". We continued "what do you think if we want to cancel this booking and will change the hotel?" One of the 2 receptionists challenged  immediately "Go ahead!" (They thought that this is the high time and we could not find another hotel at that moment). They said "We can not change your rooms as the other rooms are reserved for the "bosses" (high ranking officers or businessmen)!!!  Even when Mrs Lan Phuong (the boss of the receptionists) arrived, she also said something in a very discriminatory manner like: if in your delegations, there are bosses, we will pay more attention to them (!!!)
We then contacted with another hotel which is 4 star at the same rate and  informed them that we would move there. Then, they said "Pls wait for me 10 mins to negotiate with others to change your rooms".........10 mins passed....... another 10 mins passed without any news. We just waited in a (small and hot) receptionist area. Tired and frustrated. Finally, we had to do nothing but cancelled our booking there and moved to another hotel.

Please avoid this hotel!!!

Try to avoid this hotel next time

After a very good experience in 2004, we stayed here again in June 2010. But this visit was just the opposite. By chance we got the same room as we had 6 years earlier, but what a difference: the floor carpet had apparently accumulated the dirt of six years; the same was true for the curtains and the bedspread. Only the sheets and towels were changed daily. Only a broom used for the carpet.
On arrival the receptionist asked for our passports, but refused to give them back the next day. We would get them back only after we payed our bill on the day of departure, which was 4 days ahead. “Instructions from the management” was the only explanation. Imagine, in a strange country with a language you don't speak, you don't have your own passport with you! The next “surprise” was that the hotel did not accept any credit card, only cash. Then disaster struck: the nearby ATM machine swallowed my card when I tried to get the money to pay the bill. And to get your card back, how do you then prove your identity if you have no passport? When we tried to speak to the hotel manager, who identified herself as mrs. Lan, she hardly spoke any English, but promised to find a translator. She never returned, however, and, when telephoned by the receptionist, she always said that she was busy. Thanks to the great personal support by one of the receptionists, who intermediated with the ATM bank, the problem was finally solved, but it had taken many of my holiday hours. Clearly, the staff were very afraid of this mrs. Lan, and feared for their dismissal if they did anything against her rules.

We also experienced a full-day power cut, but the hotel has no generator so the airco did not work. Wifi was supposed to work in the restaurant area, but never did.

Unless mrs. Lan is dismissed herself, and the situation drastically improved, foreigners should avoid this hotel.

Avoid!

Had to spent one night in Halong City, and booked a room at the Ha Long 1, as it from our guidebook seemed like a nice hotel in a otherwise un-interesting town. 

Tried to book via the hotels-in-vietnam.com-page, and the web page said the rooms would cost appr. 30 USD. Got a late reply, after we had arrived, that onlye delux rooms would be availible, to 80 USD. Arriving at the hotel, the receptionist hardly took her time to talk to us, answering phones and making faces at us when we tried to tell her we had booked through internett. She eventualle gave us a rom for 110 USD (!). 

The room had a nice view, but was extremely dirty, with a smell so strong it almost made us gag (smelled like urine). I have stayed at other shabby places over the years, but normally those would cost 10 to 20 USD, and during our one month in Vietnam we stayed in 30-35 $ hotels, all of them clean and significally better than this 110 $ hotel. The floor carpet was so dirty that you had to keep your shoes on. The walls were dirty, doors, and the windows, etc, and even the roof had stains and brown fingerprints. The room had no hot water when we arrived, and the staff had some trouble getting the heater started.

The breakfast was in a small and smelly part of the main building, and it was rather a sad meal. The extensive garden and the great buildings were not kept up at all, and the receptionist were unfriendly. We were asked where our next stop was to be, and answered Cat Ba, an island off the coast. The receptionist looked shocked, and told us there was no way we could get a boat to Cat Ba during the weekend, and she would call "a friend": The "friend" offered to take us to Cat Ba for 150 $, which is even more than a domestic flight costs in Vietnam, and told us we had to make up our mind in ten minutes, or we would not get to Cat Ba at all. Instead we took a cab to the pier and arranged our own transport, on a junk boat, for 40 $, and we also knew that it was possible to pay a few hundre thousand dong to go with the ferry, leaving from Ha Long several times a day.  

When checking out we had to wait for our transportation, and asked for coffee, which had been complimentary (as well as fruits and water) in all our 30 $-hotels. Not at this one! Dirty cups and ashtrays were provided, on a dirty table in a pitiful "cafeteria". 

For 110 $ you could live like a king in Vietnam. Stay away from this terrible hotel!

Royal International

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