I have come back from a 15-day trip to Vietnam and Myanmar. This is the first of two site inspection reports. As always, I will remind my readers that these are my own subjective opinions of the room product based on my own aesthetic; your opinions may and should differ. It's hard to comment on service, as hotels tend to be aware that I am a travel advisor and want to impress.


Sofitel Metropole Hanoi

We spent the first two nights of our trip in Hanoi, staying at the Sofitel Metropole. This downtown hotel is an historic French colonial building in a neighborhood with other buildings of this heritage (distinguished by their yellow facades). The Metropole has 374 rooms and hosts a fair number of groups. The original Opera Wing with its 265 rooms reflects the charm of Hanoi’s French colonial era but doesn’t offer the fully-up-to-date conveniences of a modern build. The new Metropole Wing is a modern build and has a boutique feeling with 109 rooms.

We stayed in the Metropole Wing in a 48 sqm Grand Premier room (pictured below). Designed in a classical style with hardwood floors and a maroon/black area rug, this color scheme was repeated on the wall behind the bed which was covered with a field of maroon silk with a black velvet floral design. The bedroom itself was rather narrow with a parallel bathroom running the full length of the room from hallway to outside wall. The bathroom was modern and well furnished with a claw-footed soaking tub, dual vanities, step-in shower, and a WC. We found the room’s lighting controls confusing.






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Grand Premier rooms and above in the Metropole Wing have Club privileges. We ate breakfast one day in the Club; you can select food from a buffet and also order hot made-to-order dishes from the kitchen. The delivery of those dishes, however, was slow. We ate the second morning in Le Beaulieu (found in the Opera Wing); it has a more extensive buffet with much quicker delivery of made-to-order dishes.

We were shown two rooms in the Opera Wing during a site inspection. These rooms preserve the original architectural details — hardwood floors, high ceilings, and crown moldings along with Asian highlights (notably the oriental bedside lamps and the pattern in the hallway carpeting). The Luxury Room we were shown (32 sqm) felt small; its bathroom had a shower in the tub and a single vanity. Grand Luxury rooms (37 sqm and pictured below) have a step-in shower and a single vanity.






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Four Seasons - The Nam Hai

We next flew to Danang where we transferred to Hoi An. The Nam Hai is just 11 years old. It was purchased by new owners in April 2016, renovated that summer, and re-opened under Four Seasons management in December 2016.

The village of Hoi An has been designated an UNESCO world hermitage site, both a blessing and a curse as it has become a quite popular (i.e., crowded) tourist destination. While there are interesting things to see while walking through Hoi An, you’ll be bumping up against many other tourists throughout your visit. The Four Seasons is the premier resort in the region with the InterContinental Danang rated #2 (although the IC is nearly an hour from Hoi An, located on the far side of Danang).

Four Seasons The Nam Hai is a boutique resort with 60 villas and 40 pool villas. The resort has a lot of space, stretching out along 1-kilometer of a clean white sand beach. It has two restaurants; we had dinner at each restaurant and found the food excellent. The Nam Hai offers a complimentary Kids for all Seasons program as well as a Teen Club. A new and popular addition is the Cooking Academy, just 14 months old. As the curriculum follows a 7-day cycle, guests can attend once or for as many as seven consecutive days. Students will learn how to prepare a different Vietnamese dish each day. Classes begin daily at 8 a.m. when guests accompany the chef to the market, vegetable village, or noodle factory. Returning to the resort, students will prepare and then enjoy the lunch they’ve made. (The cooking academy is not complimentary).






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About the room product — I found it frustrating. Villas are quite spacious (80 sqm), graced with tall cathedral ceilings and beautiful decor, but the generous room dimensions were wasted by the quixotic design created by French architect Reda Amalou — an example of form taking precedence over function. There is a platform, one foot higher than the floor of the room, in the center of the space, with a 4-foot wide passage down each side. So instead of enjoying an 18’ wide bedroom and living room, the actual useable space is just 10 feet in width. While there are windows running down the two sides of the room, they do not open.

Referring to the photo above, the first section of the platform contains a lounging area (see the yellow bolster pillows in the front right), a bathtub (front left), and a sunken desk. The lounging area is wasted space, essentially unusable. Think of a couch 5 feet deep and 6 inches off the ground. You can’t sit on it — you can only lounge on it.

The desk is usable, but its design is inconvenient. Its use requires stepping onto the platform, sitting on an upholstered cushion, and putting your feet down into a recessed footwell.

The bedroom area is similarly designed. The bed consists of a mattress placed directly upon the room’s central platform. But to get into bed, you first step up onto the platform, then step up again into bed — weird. But, worse, if you have to get out of bed in the middle of the night to use the WC, guests have to step down twice … in the dark. Potentially and needlessly dangerous, flashlights are a must when getting out of bed here.

The one useable part of the room is the lounge area at the far end of the room, in front of the french doors leading onto your patio. Finally, the platform is gone. This area is furnished with a sofa that converts to a trundle bed — but the sofa is too deep for people with normal legs. My wife's insight says it all: "There's no place to get comfortable in this room.”

The bathroom has dual closets with dressing areas (but inadequate light), dual vanities, WC, a step-in shower, and an outdoor shower.


Amanoi

Amanoi is a stunning hillside resort overlooking the sea. We arrived at Amanoi’s impressive entrance following a 75 minute drive from the Nha Trang airport. We ascended the grand staircase (pictured here) to the lobby where we enjoyed Afternoon Tea before going being taken in a golf cart to our room.






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We spent our two nights in a Mountain View Pool Villa #6 (which had a partial sea view). The room was stunning, equal or better to any Aman I’ve ever seen. Referring to the picture below, guests enter the room through a door to the left; the door to the pool is to the right. The picture is taken from the entrance to the bathroom, looking down the full length of the room. The living room provides a sofa and two chairs. The bedroom area is at the far end of the room; a desk is provided in the recessed area to the right of the bed. A great bathroom offers a soaking tub centered in front of a window and two large vanities and dressing areas, one on the left and one on the right of the bathroom. The bathroom also provides a large shower room to one side (with a door that can open to the outside) and a WC on the other side. I liked the location of this room as it was close enough to walk to the resort’s central pavilion without needing to phone for a cart.






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We were shown two “Amanoi Ocean Pool Pavilions,” #2 and #3 . These pavilions have larger pools, larger decks, and larger back yard areas. #2 has a bonus room whose two twin trundle beds would work well for families.

Of special interest are the two Spa Houses at Amanoi. These guestrooms feature an upstairs pavilion with lake view. Down a flight of stairs, the lucky guests have their private pool, private jacuzzi, a spa treatment room, and a steam room. The Spa House Package includes three hours of spa treatments per person per day.

Amanoi also has a number of 3, 4, and 5 BR Residences. As these are privately owned, you cannot upgrade into these residences. Each offers a huge swimming pool, a large common living space, indoor and outdoor dining rooms, and a kitchen. A resort chef can cook and serve breakfast and any other meals in your Residence. 24 hour private butler service is also provided.

One of the features I especially appreciated about Amanoi is its landscaping. It has not been made to look like an articial tropical resort. The landscape design makes use of the boulders and natural vegetation already present. With a bit of judicious pruning and discrete lighting, Amanoi has created a natural yet luxurious mountain resort.


Park Hyatt Saigon

The most often booked Virtuoso hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, the Park Hyatt opened in 2005 in a French colonial building that formerly was used as a military building. It has 245 guest rooms rooms and was subsequently renovated in 2015.

I was able to see the Park City View room pictured below (34 sqm). It has a quietly elegant and pleasant residential style with a muted color scheme. Note the colonial windows. The Bathroom was small for a Park Hyatt with just a single vanity and WC with the rain shower and bathtub in the same glass-enclosed area.






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With only nine Deluxe rooms, upgrades from Park Rooms will be infrequent. The only difference between Park and Deluxe rooms: Deluxe rooms have a balcony.

Park Suites have an adjoining living room equal to the size of the bedroom with a door that closes between the rooms. The bathroom is larger, being equipped with tub, a proper step-in shower, and a WC, but only one vanity.

The Park Hyatt has a large garden and pool on the 3rd floor. It feels like an urban resort shielded from the noise and sights of the busy city.


The Reverie

We spent two evenings at The Reverie, a relatively new Virtuoso hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. Found in the city’s tallest building, the hotel has 224 guestrooms and 62 suites. From the lower lobby on the ground floor, guests take an elevator to the main lobby on floor 7. The impression of glitz begins immediately with the backlit onyx panels in the back walls of the elevators, and that impression continues into the guestrooms.







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We stayed in a Grand Deluxe King (570 sq ft), pictured here, upgraded from a Deluxe King (463 sq ft). The picture speaks for itself. The marble-floored entry way has silk wall treatments, while the bedroom has hardwood floors and a round area rug under the bed. The bed has a green silk headboard, the windows are framed in maroon and brown drapes, and the room has lots of mirrors reflecting the centrally-mounted crystal chandelier and crystal candelabra that sits on the floor. The furnishings are a contemporary interpretation of the Louis XV style. The hotel provides Frette linens and Chopard bath amenities. Our room was located on a corner and presented a panoramic view of the bend of the Saigon River.

The bathroom is great — dual vanities, a soaking tub in front of a large window, a step-in rain shower, and a WC with a Toto toilet that spritzes and dries. There is a separate, smaller room off the entrance hall with closet space and room to store one piece of luggage.

The work area was especially well planned with desktop level AC and USB ports, and the desk lamp has three levels of brightness; why don’t all hotels have this? But the room’s light switches were confusing and didn’t seem to work 100% of the time. It took us multiple pushes of a switch to get the lights to turn on or off.


Hotel des Arts, Saigon

A more boutique option in Saigon, Hotel des Arts was completed in 2015. With 168 guestrooms including 16 suites, the hotel’s intention is to recreate an Indochinese ambiance from the 1930s. More residential-feeling than the other two hotels reviewed, the ground floor lobby is subdued with comfortable seating areas. You will not run into cruise or tour groups here.

The hotel has 24 floors with guestrooms on floors 5-22. The thirty rooms on the five upper floors offer access to the Sky Executive lounge as well as Nespresso machines and bluetooth speakers. There is a rooftop salt water pool and bar with city views. There are two dining options in the hotel: Social Club (a British ambiance) and Saigon Kitchen (where we enjoyed an amazing lunch buffet).






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Bottom line on the rooms: luxury guests will want to book one of sixteen Executive Studio Suites (pictured above). 60 square meters in area, the bedroom has a sitting area with parquet floor and round area rug. The bathroom has a tub, step-in shower, dual vanities, WC, and dressing area. However, I cannot recommend the regular guestrooms (pictured below). We were shown a Grand Deluxe room, 30 sqm, whose decor was quite plain. The bathroom area was divided from the bedroom by just a curtain; the bathroom has a single vanity tub, WC, and small shower.