This was our third visit to Amanoi and the best ever. We stayed 6 years ago, 3 years ago, and last week. The owners kept staff on during their shutdown. They worked on maintenance projects. I wonder if they gave English classes as we found far more employees with good English fluency. It really made a difference. Joy is assembling her own team and is making wise choices.

• New executive chef, Chef Pip, joined in July. She is a friend of a London friend so we got to sit and visit with her. She currently has a team of 38. Amanoi is undergoing expansion with the Beach Restaurant to open both noon and night, and a new venue to open. Her staff will increase to 52. She hired a Vietnamese sous chef a week earlier and was really looking forward to strengthening their Vietnamese options.
• New assistant GM, Phillipe Borde, joined this summer. Has a 20 year history in SE Asia at varied hotels including larger chains such as Westin. Still finding his feet in the Aman way. Easy to find as he made the rounds at the restaurants, chatting with every guest. We had overgrown shrubbery obstructing some of our view. He had staff there within an hour cutting it back.
• New manager of customer service, Nhi Tran, joined four weeks prior to our trip. She is a star. She was in the Seychelles at Six Senses for five years. Due to Covid, she had to return to her home country. She and I used WhatsApp to communicate and it worked out perfectly. I can't sing her praises loudly enough. We were blessed to have her personal attention throughout our four day visit.
• On customer service team, Hanh, six months at Amanoi. She is a fresh college graduate who did her internship at Da Nang Intercontinental. She is great.

At first it felt as though everyone was new, but that wasn't the case. Many of the drivers, housekeepers, and cooks have been there for many years.

We were upgraded to Villa 12, an Amanoi ocean pool villa. This was our first time in this category and we liked it very much. It has an extra room which looks like a library and would be perfect for those traveling with children. It has two day beds. I wish that the TV was in that room as it would be perfect to have it there. We had booked an ocean villa. We love our water view; you see me make that comment in many of my hotel reviews. With no pool, there was a railing on the side of our deck that really detracted from our view. There was quite a bit of availability and they very kindly looked at what was open and offered us this. The day after we left, the property was fully booked so we really were fortunate. I will book this category in the future.

Let me give a examples of great service.

1. If you've stayed at Amanjiwo, you might have tried their ginger soda. My husband likes it. We asked for it six years ago and Joy brought it over to Amanoi. On this trip, for the first time, they kept our villa supplied with it. Every day they brought fresh bottles.
2. I had written ahead and asked that they make sure to have a foot stool in the villa. I always like to have my feet up while I am reading. I've found food stools surprisingly rare on our travels throughout the world. On arrival at the villa, they proudly showed me the footstool THAT THEY MADE for me. Unfortunately, I should have used the term ottoman. The foot stool was only a few inches above the floor. They took it away and brought an ottoman that did not need to be custom made.
3. I very much like certain tropical fruits and find them a treat to have in SE Asia. I like mangos, finger bananas, young coconuts, rambutans, and custard apples. Mangoes were already available and they added the others to their shopping. It took til the third day to have each of them but get them they did.

An activity that I recommend is going out in their zodiac to see the coastline. It is an hour ride. They bring the zodias up to the Beach restaurant. It's fun to see Amanoi from the water and even more interesting to see all the fishing vessels and the beautiful rocky shoreline.

The property is being expanded. They opened 10 new villas in the spring. They are about to open a 2 bedroom and a 4 bedroom villa. They are building a children's club that will include a rock climbing wall. During Covid, they had a lot of Vietnamese families visit. They found that they come as multi generational groups. Thus, they need larger villas and they need activities for the children.

Every night we had a turndown gift. I particularly liked the Cham toiletry case that reflected the local culture. We got the normal luggage tags on departing. As a third time guest I thought we might get some Aman gifts but did not.

Joy reports to the manager who runs the Bhutan properties. We head there in a few months. She has already sent a lovely note of introduction. We headed to Phnom Penh next, flying from Nha Trang to Saigon to Phnom Penh. A day earlier, our flight was delayed an hour, giving us an illegal connection in Saigon. Nhi sprang into action, and found a flight that left 10 minutes earlier and got us rebooked. But it was still an illegal connection. She talked to Joy who proactively gave us expedited service at Saigon. We didn't realize we had to walk between the domestic terminal to the international one, then face a lengthy line at immigration. With expedited service, we were walked around the immigration line. We made our Phnom Penh flight only because of these two actions.

What more can I say? This property goes from strength to strength under Joy's leadership. It is a very special place, both for its extraordinary natural beauty and for the graciousness of the entire team.