Dear Ms Ha Ngoc
Please find attached our feedback comments in respect of our recent tour.
We hope that you find these constructive and helpful.
Thank you so much once again for your kind welcome and excellent service.
With our best wishes for your continued success
Christine & Robert Mankin
HANOI
Very warm welcome at Golden Rice Hotel, particularly by Lan. Upgraded to lovely room – very comfortable. Helpful door staff took me to shop to buy SIM card.
Dinner at Golden Rice hotel restaurant. Good meal – good chef,
However breakfast buffet disappointing – insufficient choice. Also breakfast service inattentive – chatting and laughing noisily with kitchen staff.
Nice hotel – would recommend.
IMPERIAL HOTEL
Also warm welcome by professional staff. Nice comfortable room but bathroom needs refurbishment. There was no separate shower and the shower-head over the bath leaked water on to the floor.
Very good breakfast buffet and welcoming attentive service.
NIGHT TRAIN
Satisfactory – relieved that we had compartment to ourselves. It would be uncomfortable otherwise ( sharing with strangers.)
SAPA
Sapa View Hotel. Unwelcoming, stony-faced receptionist. Room had no air-con and could not open window so very uncomfortable. Authoritarian attitude prevailed with lots of rules and regulations posted. Impression given that we were privileged to be in their hotel. Porter helpful but hotel generally not recommended.
Went across road to Bamboo Hotel for tea on their terrace. Welcoming and attentive service. Wished we were staying there.
Lunch at roadside restaurant on walk/boat trip not good due to poor hygiene. Wife poorly as a result.
San is a very good guide and,in particular, took care of my wife well when she was poorly the next day when visiting the tribes.
Driver on first day poor – disgusting nasal habits and not a careful driver.
On the second day Mr Xe Dung was excellent in contrast. A nice man, clean with clean,tidy car – he took us to his home to meet his wife and family – a gesture we apprec iated. A careful, polite and considerate driver.
HALONG BAY
An enjoyable trip. A highlight for us was the quality and variety of excellent food we had on board throughout.
HUE
La Residence was the best hotel we stayed in during our trip. Superb room and facilities, excellent attentive service. A memorable stay.
HOI AN
Hoi An Hotel was fine after we had requested a change of room from a supposed upgrade. The first room offered was at the front of the hotel and was noisy and cramped.
Good breakfast choice.
HCMC
The Renaissance Riverside Hotel was the second best hotel and certainly the best breakfast buffet. Professional attentive service. A superb room on 14th floor overlooking the bend in the Saigon river – memorable views from a nice sitting area in a bay window in the room.
Lucy was an excellent guide. Always prompt and very knowledgeable without being over-talkative.
Good driver.
CAN THO
A disappointment. Hotel average.
PHU QUOC
Mango Bay a nice resort but for us a big disadvantage was the basic furniture and lack of air-con. We were not comfortable in the hot,humid weather as a result. Not sorry to leave. A shame as this was intended to be a highlight of our holiday. The hotel is isolated and it is not easy to go out independently, consequently we never left it and thus saw nothing else of the island. We should have stayed somewhere else on the island. Nice restaurant and staff willing but inexperienced at times.
SIEM REAP
Royal Bay Inn is a very nice hotel and we were very comfortable. Mr Vyuth is a knowledgeable guide but can tend to talk too much to a pre-prepared script. He also needs to learn to speak more clearly to be better understandable. The driver we had, Layrattanak, was very good, careful, polite and considerate.
The evening at Koulen 2 was very touristy and not a success for us. The dancing was not of a high standard ( we have seen much better in Bali ), the food buffet was nothing special and the Japanese tourists were a nuisance with their constant photos and videos. Would not recommend. It will have been costly and for that money we would have preferred a quiet evening at a very good restaurant
BATTAMBANG
Battembang was our own initiative. We had intended to spend this time in Singapore but the found that hotels there were too expensive. We are pleased to have had the opportunity to go to Battembang and to see something of the real Cambodia. The hotel we chose, the Bambu, was excellent and we would recommend it. We visited the Watkor old houses and the Sarlkram English school and met the children and would recommend that experience. Lovely people.
SUMMARY
We will remember with pleasure the welcome you gave us, the friendliness of the people, a beautiful country, the energy and hard work being put in by everyone, the generally high standard of hygiene ( which beforehand had been a concern to us ), very good hotels and restaurants, the excellent quality of the food and the high standard of service. We would come back for those things.
Overall we are very pleased with quality of organisation and excellent service we have received from Vietnam Tour Travel and we have already given your details to two different people.
Ms Hai Yen, thank you so much for providing us with such a memorable experience.
Robert & Christine Mankin 14 June 2012
