We stayed at IC Phu Quoc for 8 days in the beginning of January. We booked the hotel with IHG points from my wife's account. She is platinum member through CC. As a plat they upgraded us to a slightly larger room, with ocean view, as far as I can tell. We got a free drinks-coupon and they sent up a bottle of red wine and some cake.
Pro:
- A beautifully designed hotel, with a very thoughtful layout
- The rooms are very well designed, with a lot of thoughtful details. I can't recall ever staying at a nicer "basic"-room than this. There is a walk-in closet where you can have all your luggage, a very nice bathtub that also fit people taller than 190cm. There are bluetooth speakers in the room, and a very nice balcony.
- Great pools, with plenty of space and, at least around the children's pool, always cabanas available. The staff at the pool are great and very proactive. My 2 year-old son thoroughly enjoyed the pool and the toys they have there.
- Very nice beach, also with plenty of beach chairs. They did a nice job of cleaning the beach each day, since some of the beach areas outside of the hotel's space had trash in the water's edge.
Con
- The general service level at the hotel is quite poor, especially considering it's a 5 star IC. We might have come in with slightly too high expectations (and from being spoiled at Park Hyatt Saigon), but the overall level here is really lacking. There are some genuinely nice people working there, but almost all of them are at best unpolished (or at worst, not really suited for working in the service industry). A few examples:
- They never kept the time, they had promised for e.g. room service, picking up the finished room service plates, cleaning our room, getting a new bed etc.. They would always be delayed by 30 - 60 mins or more. Every single time.
- Some of the personnel there spoke quite poor english, which was a problem especially over the phone. It would take ages to order room service or even just ask for water bottles.
- Depending on where you are seated in the restaurant, you might be completely out of the waiter's view, and they rarely come check on you. Some mornings it would take forever to order coffee for breakfast, and it was always hit & miss whether they would actually bring the coffee. One morning I had asked two different waiters for coffee, which after 30 mins still hadn't been delivered, I walked over to the person making the coffee and asked for them myself. He said that I should ask a waiter, but after mentioning that I had already asked two waiters, and still had no luck, he eventually made them for me.
- These are just a few examples, my overall issue is mainly that a majority of our interactions with the staff never felt easy. Which is not what I would expect at a 5 star IC-resort and it's not something I have experienced before. My theory is that they hired a lot of locals from the island to fill the many positions they obviously need for such a big operation, and they then hope to train them on the job. We had great service in all of the other Phu Quoc-restaurants we visited, so I doubt its a general issues on the island.
- This is a very specific issue for people travelling with young kids: We had ordered a crib for our son to sleep in. However the only crib that the resort has available is tiny. It seems to be designed for 1 year old and below (we have brought our son to ~30 different hotels, including several in Southeast Asia, and we have never had such a tiny crib before). The only other solution they had was a single regular-size bed. We then asked for a single-bed, but the staff demanded that we pay 100$ per night for the bed. I then wrote to IHG-service on twitter, who contacted the resort, and they ended up offering the bed for free. I would recommend anyone who is travelling with a kid older than 1, who still needs a crib, to bring their own bed.
- The food pricing at the hotel is quite expensive.
We had a mixed stay. We enjoyed the room, the beach and the pools a lot, but the service at the hotel meant that we never felt great there.