Citadines Marina Halong

I had a very pleasant stay at Citadines Marina Hotel. The rooms were modern, clean, and well-maintained, offering a comfortable space to relax after a day of exploring. The staff were welcoming and professional, always ready to assist with a smile. The location was convenient, with easy access to nearby attractions and transport, which made getting around simple.

Let me share how terrible my stay was at Citadines Marina Halong, a supposed 5-star hotel. Well, they certainly didn’t disappoint—it was just one unpleasant surprise after another. First off, when I arrived on August 29th, the hotel wasn't even that crowded in my opinion. However, the bellmen just kept walking past, and nobody bothered to help me with my luggage. It was only after I stood there staring at them for a good while that someone finally stepped in to help. Things only got worse once we made it to the room. The floor was quite wet, so I initially assumed housekeeping had just mopped it. We waited for a bit, but it never dried. We called the front desk to ask for someone to check it out. When the staff member arrived, they spoke to us with a completely accusatory tone, claiming the floor was wet because we had left the balcony door open while running the AC. They even pulled out their phone to take photos of some toys sitting outside on the balcony, insisting the moisture was caused by the temperature difference between indoors and outdoors. While we were out for dinner, they sent someone to mop the room, but they set the air conditioner to an extremely low temperature to dry it quickly. This left the floor ice-cold. Since we were staying with toddlers, this was completely unacceptable and posed a health risk. Later that day, we noticed several other rooms along the hallway. When we asked if we could switch into one of those, the staff claimed they were all out of order—yet the very next day, they checked new guests into those exact same rooms! It wasn’t just our room either—several other guests were having issues with their air conditioning as well. The hotel’s excuse? They claimed their AC was "smart," sensing the room temperature and adjusting gradually to our request. We waited from afternoon until evening. When the technician came up to inspect it, he asked us to wait a bit longer until nightfall. Since the toddlers were getting quite cold, I had to turn off the fan temporarily, which caused the floor to get completely wet all over again. By the next afternoon, no one had come to check the room, and housekeeping hadn't even bothered to clean it. Thoroughly frustrated, I went down to the front desk to demand that someone be sent up to clean the room and fix the AC. It was only then that the technician finally came clean, admitting that the air conditioning was indeed faulty. Their explanation this time? They claimed it was being affected because the floor below us had set their AC too cold! (I’ll leave it to you to judge how logical that excuse is.) The next day, we went down to the 3rd floor for the breakfast buffet, and good lord, it was stifling hot! The restaurant's layout wastes a lot of space, leaving many guests with nowhere to sit, with some even forced to share tables with strangers. After eating there for three days, I'd say the food lacked variety and options, but the dining room itself was absolute chaos—cramped, stuffy, and sweltering. It wasn't until the following day that they finally opened an additional dining area on the 1st floor to handle the overflow. The final straw came on the night of August 30th. After my brother and I went down to complain during the day, a manager spoke with my brother, apologizing for all the inconveniences during our stay. As a gesture of goodwill, they gave us a fruit platter, a handwritten apology note, and a teddy bear. My niece slept while hugging that teddy bear that night. However, after we stepped out the next day, the teddy bear was nowhere to be found (and no, we definitely didn't take it out with us). I honestly don't even know how to describe this situation. I honestly kept wondering how on earth this hotel managed to get a 5-star rating. The room right next to ours didn't even have bathrobes, and the staff claimed that specific room category simply didn’t include them. I've stayed at 4-star hotels that easily provided bathrobes, so to ask if this trip was disappointing? Calling it a disappointment would be a massive understatement.

What a disgraceful, disrespectful reception staff. We ask for help and she said she was unable to assist. When we asked another question she all but screamed as us saying”I have already helped you once. No more help”. We basically went straight to our room, pack and walked out. Upon leaving she had a huge smile on her face and said ”goodbye”. Never have I ever experienced anything like this. We didn’t even stay 1 night. Room had rubbish on floor, towels were on balcony floor, stains on bed. No shops near buy to even buy lunch.

Thanks for Jasmine who has supported me to arrange the very nice room. So good to work with her. Mr. Thưởng and Mr. Long are so friendly and supportive. Just one point is the construction is working 24/24 in front of hotel which is quite noisy.