Alagon Saigon Hotel & Spa

Disclaimer: My experience and feedback about this hotel is in no way my experience with Vietnam as a country and its amazing people! I should also add that if you're a Caucasian (or a white) then this is probably not worth your time. My intention here is to spread awareness about the toxic cultural and reverse racial bias and prejudice that the staff of this hotel have towards South Asians in general. Let me first start with some positive experience that I had at this hotel - I stayed here with my family for 4 nights over new year period and loved the location of the hotel - its quite close to the city center (or the Nguyen Hue street which is quite popular amongst tourists). We had a buffet breakfast with our package and our rooms were quite peaceful during night (despite the hotel's prime location) which helped us get an uninterrupted sleep. As far as our experience with the hotel staff is concerned, thats where things went downhill. I would highlight various instances where their staff was extremely rude and curt towards us - (1) On our first day during breakfast my son accidentally spilled some milk while having some cereals. I called out one of the staff to alert them about the spill and he made a really bad facial expression on seeing this (b) During another time, we ordered cocktails for me and my wife while using their pool - when the drinks were served, one of their staff just looked at me and placed the drink on one of the tables rather than handing it over to us (and moments later he served the drinks inside the pool itself to another 'Caucasian' couple with whom he was behaving very nicely) (c) While leaving for dinner on one evening, we spotted some small (250 ml) bottles of mineral water and asked one of their staff near that area if we could take that and she literally shouted "no" at us (as if we were asking those for charity) - those small bottles are practically handed free by restaurants or during tours or while having a spa - We could have paid for it as well but it was the way she made us feel that ruined our night for us (d) On our last day, my wife was near the pool and had ordered a drink. By the time the drinks arrived, my son had finished swimming and she took him to the female changing room to change his clothes; One of the staff then followed her inside the room (ostensibly making sure that she provides the room number to which the cocktail can be charged) (e) When we had checked out of the hotel, the staff at the reception desk told me that I could keep our luggage at their reception and get it back later as we had our flights later in the evening; I then requested the staff if I could get access to my luggage as I had forgotten to take something. She redirected me to one of the staff who was extremely rude when I asked him about the whereabouts of my luggage. He started shrugging his hands and told me off saying "Go, ask at the reception" I wish we had taken some of the very similar feedback & older reviews attesting to the same experience by other guests more seriously and booked our stay at some other place - The hotel seems to have the same template of responding to those feedback which just appears to be a lip service and more of a PR exercise to show they care (obviously if they did then by this time they would have taken some action to retrain or change their staff and their attitude (Given the country's history, especially with America and France, the irony of this reverse racism was probably lost on this hotel staff but not us) - This place was not cheap (we paid about 900$ for a 4 night stay and regardless of the money paid, no one deserves to be treated like this) - This was regrettably our only downside of staying in what was otherwise a very hospitable country with warm and friendly locals.

We stayed there for 2 nights.It has common entrance with their other group hotel ( little confusing at the start) We got an upgrade! But AC in the room was noisy! There was no hot water in the bathroom, telephone did not work. We had one meal in the hotel . The meal was good and tasty. They offer free drinks on arrival on the roof top which was pretty average! They have a small pool at the roof top. Spa services were good. Ben than market is at walkable distance. They have a Starbucks and other coffee options in the near by location. 24 hrs departmental store is just next to the hotel.