Hong Bin Bungalow

Before coming to this island, I reserved a room at this bungalow-style hotel in the Long Beach area, which advertises on Agoda that they provide transfer from where guests arrive on the island. I took the eight-hour overnight bus from Saigon to Ha Tien on the southwestern coast of Vietnam, then the three-hour ferry to Phu Quoc. While on the ferry, I confirmed with the hotel that they’d have someone pick me up at the pier. But, as my ferry approached the dock, another receptionist told me that no one would come to get me. He said it in a cold, arrogant, and shockingly unprofessional manner. He acknowledged that their ad on Agoda indicates that the hotel provides such service, but said that the service has been discontinued. He wouldn’t explain why, but just said that they “can’t” do it anymore. He told me that I could get a Grab taxi myself at the pier. And he said nothing about the hotel reimbursing me for the cost when I arrived. In my experience, when hotels say that they provide transportation from one’s arrival point, that means not only that they actually do that, but that it’s covered by the hotel. If not, all they have to do is be clear about such a simple matter. I strongly challenged him in my messages online and when I met him at the front desk. He’s a strangely haughty, vacuous guy in his early 20s with a ponytail. He was completely indifferent to my rights and my situation as a guest. He considered it completely inconsequential that the hotel had coldly broken its promise to me. While I was waiting to check in, I sat in the eating area at a table, and was using my laptop. An older guy with straight white hair walked into the room, headed to the light switch, turned it off, and gave me an evil smirk, as if to say “I’m the boss here, and I do whatever I want. I don’t give a damn about you guests.” Apparently, he works as a cleaning guy there, which explains why the pool water is a dirty brown. In my online dispute with the nasty receptionist, he told me that, if I provided a screen shot of the hotel’s vow to provide pick-up, he’d “do something” about my taxi fare. I did so, and he did nothing to compensate me. My efforts to talk with the owner and/or manager were wasted. No surprise. In so many cases of really bad service in this part of the world, the owners are hiding, and have their lowly underlings cover for them. He also insisted that a hotel’s promise to provide pick-up service is not a promise to cover the cost. That may be the case somewhere, but not in any of the 35 countries I’ve been in. And, anyway, the fundamental issue here was that the hotel promised to have me picked up at the pier and then stranded me without any explanation or remorse. Last on the list of the phenomenal unprofessionalism of the staff at the Hong Bin “Resort” is that they provide no umbrellas in the rooms. On my last day there, there was a heavy rain, and no way to contact the staff to get one. There is no phone in the room, and the reception desk is not near most of the rooms.

Relaxed in this hotel large company of 16 people from February 5 to 22 . Dropped in at different times with a 1-2 day break. The hotel is very outdated, cleaning on the verge of fantastic (I think the goats from previous visitors from the wall could have been removed) . Well, since the price for accommodation was not high, it was possible to turn a blind eye to some of the shortcomings. There was a woman in our company with a leg problem and when we checked in we asked the receptionist to switch rooms because she couldn't get up across the property, it would have caused her a lot of physical pain. Hotel management went to our meeting and made a room change assuring us that everything was fine. The girl should have moved out 24 hours earlier. 24 hours before the eviction, we went to the reception and checked with the receptionist if everything was okay and if we could stay in this 4VIP room for another 24 hours. The administrator gave us a positive answer. Actually, the next day we left in the morning for the beach leaving all our things in the room. When we got back our stuff wasn't in the room, other people were in the room! And our belongings, the documents, were bagged and taken to another room. Asked why they did it, the receptionist said they just didn't have time to call us. We were ready to move out on our own but the receptionist assured us that it was not required and then piggybacked our stuff out of the room!! Things were delivered chaotically! Underwear was lying with street shoes. Food stuffed in a suitcase with clothes and crumbs.

We had a canceled flight so we had to scramble for 3 rooms at a peak time. Hong Bin bungalows to the rescue. Very nice front desk. Other staff helpful as well. It’s certainly not luxury, but it was clean, had a lovely pool and the most gorgeous outlook. Lots of very nice spas and little cafes very close by Our family really enjoyed our stay.