The Empyrean Nha Trang

Denise P6 months ago

You can tell by reading the reviews on Google that many of them are not genuine or they are written by “local guides” which are not real traveller reviews. There should have to be some way to prove that you actually stayed at a hotel to allow you to leave a review.||||I have no idea how this hotel can advertise a 5 star rating. By international standards, this is approx 3 star ratings. However, the price we paid to stay there was about the same as the cost of a powered tent site at an NRMA Reflections Park, so in many ways, we shouldn’t complain!||||Rooftop pool and bar: I will reiterate what some other people have explained in their reviews: to get there you need to go down the main elevator from your room to the ground floor, then ride a different elevator up to the pool. It is not explained ANYWHERE when you make your accommodation booking (e.g. Agoda, Booking.com) that you will only be allowed one “free” visit to the rooftop pool per day, per person. Any further visits require you to pay a fee! Absolutely ridiculous. There would be uproar in Australia if a hotel tried to pin this sort of condition on you. Anyway, after going up to the rooftop pool you’ll probably be disappointed anyway. No nature or plants up there, just an arc pool that doesn’t join up in the middle. Not enough chairs or lounges for guests. The pool is in a poor condition. One of the safety panes was completely smashed out and covered with safety tape. The pool was really dirty and absolutely nowhere near a 5 star standard. I ended up choosing not to swim in it based on the condition of it. They could do sooo much better with the rooftop pool if they actually cleaned it, put some nice lounges out and some plants so that it would be an enjoyable area to spend time. I didn’t pay to go up there after our 1 free visit per day simply out of principle!||||Elevators: for real, you will be waiting a long time to get anywhere in an elevator. Sometimes the only chance was to hop into one going up, just so that you could be guaranteed a ride to the ground floor (eventually). No aircon in the elevators. There are 8 elevators but it seemed only a couple of them were ever in order. Otherwise, be ready to play elevator roulette.||||Bathroom: The bathroom design makes no sense. Big glass pane separating the bathroom from the bedroom… with a roller blind which you can pull down for some privacy… which has gone mouldy because people have no obviously left it down while showering. Who wants to see their significant other sitting on the toilet and wiping their bum / performing other personal activities. Nooooo! Lots of “I need to go to the bathroom, turn around and promise you won’t look” conversations. ||||Building: must be made of thin materials… we were on floor 20 but could hear every single scooter and sound from outside. The rooftop bar is very loud at night and we could hear that from our room.||||Room: pillows were way too soft and floppy. I ended up getting a crick neck. ||No utensils other than 2 teaspoons in the room. No corkscrew. How am I supposed to open a bottle of wine in this county unless I buy my own corkscrew and then ditch it before boarding a flight? Went to the mini mart to look for corkscrew… (Note: all the bottles of wine sold here appear to be corked… even the Australian wines that would usually be screw top by default these days are corked for export to Vietnam).||||Breakfast: A scam. There are varying posters and signage around the hotel with differing information about the cost of breakfast and various incomprehensible “breakfast combos / packages”. Some signs say 190kpp++, others say 250kpp++ BUT only 215kpp++ “early bird” if you pre-book a day in advance. This information was not clearly explained upon check in. ||First morning, we rocked up at the restaurant to try out their breakfast, intending to get the 190kpp++ rate. We handed over our room card, they press a few buttons on their computer, smile, hand the card back and say nothing. So we go get ourselves a cup of coffee to get started and sit down to plan what we will try to do for the day. ||||Then a staff member approaches us and asks us our room number. We get the room card out and show her. She then tells us we haven’t paid for breakfast and we will need to pay the full rate. I tried to ask what the purpose of the breakfast check-in was that we just did at the counter but all she could do was smile and nod and hold out a calculator telling us if we want to eat (even though they’ve already let us in) we will need to pay full price. I told her this was not explained when we checked in for breakfast. I got the sh$ts, put my cup of coffee down on the table and said, “fine, we are leaving then.” She politely tried to sell us breakfast combo package prices on her calculator and I said “190k each” but she laughed and smiled and said no. So I said “don’t worry then, we will leave”. Happy went out to spend our money in a cafe.||||Pros: the aircon works in the room, the shower had water pressure, sometimes but not other times.||||The overall message of this review is, sure the base rate of your room will be low, but expect to be scammed in nearly every way for anything else you try to do in this hotel. ||However, like I said, $50 won’t get you much of a room in Australia… so it’s all a perspective on value for money. ||Definitely had better value for money in Malaysia for $50/night. But also better than a powered campsite for $50 per night… not sure how this hotel is rated #9 in Nha Trang. Maybe people’s expectations for “5 stars” and standards are low in general here?