The entrance hall has delightful decorated with a gilded version of Klimpt's Kiss and other artworks. A glass cup of refreshing lemon drink on arrival.
Upstairs in the bedroom, free bottles of water every day because you can't drink the water. Best of all, the empty fridge, just so you can store your leftovers from lunch or dinner elsewhere, or food you bought from the supermarkets and the ubiquitous convenience stores.
Best Views
Tenth floor (top floor). Front room with balcony overlooking city on front.
Second choice, next door with window giving side view over the city.
Room 1001, smaller room - I think it had only one bedside light, small desk but top floor with window and bright view.
I went up to the tenth floor to see the swimming pool and saw an open window in the corridor showing the view over the street and city. As I stood there, the door of the front room opened. An English speaking girl and her husband were just leaving. They were glad to show me their room and discuss its advantages, the view, and disadvantages, noise early morning - either from renovations above in gym - or city noise.
Quietest, Most Private Bedrooms
Fourth floor, above street noise but below top floor renovation noise. At the back with small window and no view. We asked to change rooms but the desk staff said they must ask the manager and we were told they were fully booked all week. However, we saw the two rooms on our floor were empty when people moved out. The people moving in, like us, would not know one room from another.
We moved on the fourth floor, from a room with no window over the desk, 4004, to a larger room, 4006, with a window over the desk and a sofa. We moved into the next room, least trouble for the staff and for us.
The beds are comfortable.
The toilets are are a dream with double jets to make you ultra-clean.The showers have jets at three levels. Hot water was shaky, vanished one mid-day, but came back later.
Lobby of Sunline Paon Hotel, Hanoi, North Vietnam.
Breakfast Buffet
The buffet is plentiful and varied and changes every day. What was best? Boiled eggs, or fried eggs cooked to order. Chopped fruit salad.Yogurt with or without sugar. Sometimes baked beans. Sometimes potato or sweet yam.
Lots of oriental stuff, too. Processed cheese in triangles was shaped just right for a triangular sandwich. Butter in small packs.
Least appealing to me - croissants and chocolatines were not moist and buttery. Small muffins, good size, nothing special. Scrambled egg cooked to order needed the whites whipped into the york with a whisk or two forks. They got it right one time out of three.
Brown toast - not as good as the seed bread in London's Tesco Express. Olives had stones in the middle.
The Christmas cake at breakfast on Christmas day was a surprise. Then I realised because they did not do lunch or evening meals that was the only time the chef could give us cake. Well done.
Best of all was the morning we left when the little lady who circulates collecting plates, reassured me, "You can take anything you like."
She brought me a plastic container with a lid and two white plastic forks and two knives. I'm not the only one. I religiously read through other people's experiences on Tripadvisor and she often does this if she knows you are leaving.
The tea and coffee in the room did not have any little ersatz milk or dried milk powder sachets. Only on the last day did I think of asking if I could take my leftover half glass of milk up to the bedroom.
The chef was not bothered by the loss of milk. (Contrast to the hotel in Madeira which had signs up forbidding you to take water because they wanted to sell bottled water.)
However, he wanted the glass back by 11 am when he presumably shut up the kitchen for the day. (He must be there at 5 or 5.30 to have the breakfast out and ready at 6 pm for all those people on early tours, to Halong Bay and around town, or early flights.
No problem. The bedroom had two cups and two gasses in the shower room. I dashed straight back with the glass.
Best
Japanese owned. Bright, clean and modern.
Friendly, helpful staff on reception. Delightful staff in restaurant.
Location
Perfect. A few steps from the lake.
What could be better? If you were to spend a fortune on a hotel such as the Apricot in what looked like one of three streets in the city with a proper pavement out front instead of crossing potholes. A grand hotel with a lake view from your hotel balcony would cost a lot. You can make do with walking around the lake by day and having coffee or dinner at a place with a view.
Could Be Better
Steps up to reception. They can't change this. All the small hotels are like this.
Once inside on lobby level, the lift from reception goes to all floors.
Swimming pool - no banister December 2018-January 2019. I was really bothered about this. Somebody who had been swimming could slip with wet feet or wet shoes. My mind went into overdrive, recalling people who fall of cliffs taking selfies, and over low barriers on mall escalators after dropping hats and phones or swatting flies and wasps. I could also imagine a workman with a see-sawing load, an arguing couple, or two tumbling toddlers or teenage brothers hitting each other like so many I see sparring in supermarkets and railway stations.
Also I keeled over earlier this year (2018). I lost my balance unexpectedly, fell sideways, and ended up in hospital. I fell on a level floor - no sheer drop!
The banister they installed for me, leading up to the pool in Jan 2019.
Gym
Room View
Rooms at the narrow front look over the city. the building has ten floors. Like most buildings in the old city it has a narrow frontage to do with tax on size a century or so ago. Now buildings extend up 5 or ten floors.
Clean and modern.
Other rooms on the sides and back view an internal courtyard, nothing to look at. Our first room on the fourth floor (402?) had no view from the desk which was against an internal wall. Depressing. We switched to the room next door.
I would go for tenth floor front.
Tenth floor side view window. Small desk area, but chief feature is the window above it.
Pool and Gym
In December 2018-Jan 2019 they were reconstructing the staircase to the swimming pool, and the gym overlooking the pool. This meant some noise from early morning. By December it was too cold to swim anyway. If you are intent on using the pool or gym you might check on current state of construction.
This applies to all pools in hotels, motels and villas worldwide. Ask if the pool has water, is accessible, and if the pool is outdoor whether weather is suitable for swimming in an outdoor pool throughout your stay.
In the USA I picked a motel near a ski resort because it had a pool. The pool was having renovation.
In Vietnam we upgraded in budget to this hotel from another in order to use the pool. We did not use it. The first day or so there was no barrier to the stairs, Then we went away to Halong Bay. When we returned the weather turned too cool for swimming.
On my last morning, I checked for an update to see if they had finally completed the banister. On the contrary, it had been removed.
Summary
Hanoi has more potholes in roads and pavements than London. (Want to avoid potholes - go to Singapore.)
We walked into the lobbies of many hotels, eating in the restaurants and asking the way. We still felt ours was the best.
See more reviews by us and others on Tripadvisor and booking.com
Sightseeing
See other posts.
Food Tour
See other posts.
Airport Transfer
Taxi can be organised by the hotel at your expense. Right next door is a tour operator offering a taxi transfer at a lower price. However, we opted to pay more, knowing our hotel would be on the phone to the taxi company, and would call us from the restaurant or phone the hotel room.
For hotels
Comparison site:
For airlines
For transport
https://www.grab.com/vn/en/
Language
Duolingo.com
(Remember to click on the sound symbol to hear how words are pronounced.)
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please share links to your favourite posts.
