Highly recommended

“We arrived at Villa Song after two weeks of non-stop sight-seeing in Laos and Vietnam and we were dirty and knackered by the time we got here. Saigon is a bit of a strange place as there really isn’t much to see in the centre and the one trip we did down to the Mekong Delta in the car (5 hour round trip) to a floating market (and strange tourist trap village) was not worth it.

I think at the time I would have marked more harshly but the benefit of a bit of hindsight and comparing the hotel to all the other 9 stops we did, has given me a chance to mark it more favorably!

Location: I really cannot see why anyone would want to stay in the centre of Saigon. This hotel is in the expat district on the banks of the Mekong in a much nicer area – usually there is a shuttle boat into the centre (which I would have liked to take from their pier) however it’s not running at the moment as the city authorities are re-furbing the main pier in the city centre. There is a shuttle bus but we didn’t bother taking it.

As someone else has said, there is a noisy bar (with terrible food – don’t eat there) across the way. It was only noisy on the final morning we were there, but the hotel could do with sorting this out so guests are not disturbed.

Room: We arrived about 11am and our designated room wasn’t ready. The receptionist asked if we would like to see a different room (they’re all different which is a really nice touch) so she showed us room 6 at the back, which has a secret staircase up to it and also the room we were supposed to have which they were in the process of cleaning. That room had a larger balcony but in the end I picked the room at the back by the pool and I didn’t regret it.

F&B: Breakfast is a la carte – TBH I personally prefer a buffet as I find the food is cold (especially eggs) by the time it arrived with us, and the staff had some difficulties understanding our order. We also ate lunch and we had a top pho – the menu isn’t that extensive but the food was highly quality.

The hotel provides a list of recommended restaurants in the expat area, which we ate at and I agree, they are good! There is a supermarket up the road (about 15 mins walk away) so if you want to bring back some additional beers to put in the fridge, they didn’t seem to mind. On the road towards the supermarket we also found a great French deli with cheese & meats and an Italian pop-up place run by two Italians. These are on the right as you walk towards the British high-school. There is also a craft beer place with a really good local restaurant in the same street – about 20 minutes away (you should be able to find it on the TA map of the area).

Facilities: the pool area was lovely. We had one full day round the pool and it was super quiet – if only the weather had been better (but that’s not the hotel’s fault). I had been intending to book something in the spa but in the end I just didn’t have the energy for it, so can’t comment on anything else.

Finally a couple of points for improvement:

– It would be great if the room came with a proper guest book – there were bits of info scattered about the hotel room. Surely a guest book can be sorted with very little organisation?
– Please use less packaging on your laundry items. We were two weeks in when we stayed and needed to wash a lot of clothes – everything came back individually wrapped in cardboard and plastic – there was mountains of waste. Not eco and very expensive! It took us ages to put all the laundry away and the bin was over-flowing all over the place with all the packaging.

Overall – great hotel, great location. I would stay again...”