Beautiful Property and Elegant Rooms

“Villa Song is a boutique hotel situated in a quieter part of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) overlooking the Saigon River. We stayed in the Sanctuary Suite, which consisted of three rooms: a sitting area with a fully stocked mini bar, kettle for tea making, a Nespresso machine (unfortunately no decaf pods), and a small couch; a bedroom with a very comfortable bed and fine, soft sheets, and a very large balcony overlooking the outside dining area and the river; an enormous bathroom with two sinks, a shower, and a large soaking tub and a closet with a safe. The floors in the main rooms are a dark wood. Each room, the sitting area and bedroom, has its own air conditioner.

The hotel itself is beautiful. It looks very unassuming when you first drive up and walk through the solarium like area to get into the lobby. Once you walk into the lobby you will realize that you’ve walked into a special place. The hotel is a combination of bright white ceilings and dark wood floors; there’s outside and inside dining areas, a pool, a spa and a gym. It’s not a large resort like property, it’s small and intimate, but has everything you need. Others have mentioned the water shuttle, which we did not use because we had set up some private tours. Given the traffic in Saigon, we would have used it if we weren’t touring.

The staff is gracious and helpful. Our flight out of Ho Chi Minh City was very early in the morning, and the woman at the desk had the kitchen staff prepare a “”to-go”” breakfast for us. We were grateful for the thoughtfulness. We happened to be there on the weekend. On Saturday night, the property hosted a wedding. The hotel management offered to pay round trip cab fare if you wanted to dine off the property. We chose to order room service, sit on our balcony, and watch the wedding. But their offer for round trip cab fare is a good example of how customer service oriented the hotel is.

Breakfast was included in our room charge. They offer the traditional American type breakfasts with eggs, French toast, pancakes etc, along with Asian fare. We ate dinner one night at the hotel; my braised beef ravioli (an appetizer I had as a main course) was very good and the pasta was homemade. I added a pea soup as a starter; the soup was puréed and came with chopped shrimp nestled on the top of the soup. We sat outside on the deck overlooking the water, which I’d recommend. (We were surprised that there were no bugs.) It was fun to sit out there under the palm trees watching the traffic on the river float by.

Two drawbacks–there’s no elevator, at least I didn’t see one, which wasn’t a problem for us, but it might be for people who have difficulty climbing stairs, beautiful dark wood staircases, mind you, but stairs nonetheless. (I think the hotel only has three floors.) And the property next door is a bit noisy with karaoke signing in the evening. Our tour guide told us that karaoke is very popular in Viet Nam. While it didn’t last past ten p.m., and it’s not something under Villa Song’s control, it was loud at times.

The hotel is expensive, and you get what you pay for–excellent service, elegant rooms, and a top-notch experience.”