Lakhangthong Boutique Hotel

The laundry was a disaster: they mixed all my white clothes with another guest's and turned them yellow. They didn't even smell clean and came back dirtier than before. The bathroom was filthy, and they took the towels away without returning them, which was strange. Breakfast had very little choice and wasn't great. The room was spacious, but I could hear guests in the adjoining rooms. When I plugged in the fridge, the socket looked dangerous, with wires sticking out, and I thought I might get electrocuted. Few of the room's bulbs worked either. The person at the front desk was unhelpful and unprofessional. You can stay somewhere better for the same price. One of the worst hotels I've stayed at.

A simple, cute hotel with nice staff, though they didn't speak English. They let guests use free bikes, but the ones I saw were rusty. The bed was hard, yet I slept okay, and breakfast was basic. Nights around the hotel were generally quiet, but I heard plenty of noise from the rooms beside and above me. At $52 a night, it didn't feel like good value.

We paid a little more for two nights because we wanted somewhere to relax, but the room was disappointing: it wasn't clean, there were no towels, and the door only secured with a padlock. We didn't complain. We went out for coffee and took laundry to a place we'd used before. When we returned, there was an email from booking.com saying our reservation had been cancelled and the hotel had agreed to waive the cancellation fee. I hadn't cancelled. It turned out the manager cancelled the reservation through my phone while pretending to look for it because he said he couldn't find it. Appalling behavior. He claimed nothing was wrong and told us we could leave a review on Google instead. Booking.com confirmed we were entitled to a full refund since the hotel had already agreed to one. After a lot of arguing, the manager gave us almost all of it. I suspect he'd already pocketed the extra $10 he no longer had to refund. We checked out and moved to a lovely hotel elsewhere. Please don't stay here. Other reviews suggest we're not the only ones who've had this experience.

I booked a deluxe double at Lakhang Thong Boutique Hotel in Luang Prabang for nearly $120 a night, but got a regular twin room that goes for about $50 on Agoda. It was under 20 square meters, had no promised garden view, and was noisy and unhygienic. The manager repeatedly denied what I'd booked, then admitted the mistake only after I pressed him. When I complained, he said, "I don't understand why you care about the size of the room when you're out from morning to late at night." He also claimed he hadn't had enough time to learn the hotel's setup. After I turned down his insulting $30 refund offer, I contacted Agoda. Their support hasn't resolved it, and I'm still waiting to hear about my request for a full refund for the first night and cancellation of the other two. I'd strongly advise people to think twice before booking and recommend avoiding this hotel.