Tolia Hotel

It's only been two hours since our stay began. We were greeted and shown to our room, and the weather is great. Everything looks great, like a normal hotel in the United States, and service has been good. The food was delicious, and the ladies who changed our sheets were nice. But on closer inspection, the place is a bit dirty. There's only one bed in our room, and it's infested with bed bugs. We spoke politely to the woman downstairs, but she said they couldn't move us or replace the bed, only change the sheets. That doesn't really help because bed bugs live in the mattress and furniture corners. I doubt they change the sheets often. They looked stained and dirty, and I even recorded live bed bugs to show as proof.

The staff were very friendly, and breakfast was okay. I only had an egg with toast, though there are other choices. Staff don't speak English well and seem to prefer Mandarin. The whole hotel seems aimed more at Chinese tourists than others. Even with no-smoking signs everywhere, you can smell smoke throughout the hotel. They don't enforce the policy strictly. I saw a guy casually smoking in the elevator and leaving the building without shame. Our room smelled like a pub, towels included. The place looks nice and clean, and mostly is, but it seems cheaply built, so noise travels from every floor. We were on the 5th floor and could hear loud breakfast sounds from three levels below. We also heard every door opening, closing, and locking, as well as each shower turning on and off. The elevator ping was the most annoying sound, every 30 seconds. We're definitely not sensitive to noise. In Hanoi we slept for two nights with our window facing a busy street, with cars and scooters honking from 5 a.m., and liked our stay. This was our least pleasant stay in Southeast Asia so far.

The location is the one good thing about this hotel. The service was bad, the rooms smelled bad, and the staff don't speak English. Stay away.

At first things seemed fine, but by the time I left I was very bitter. We went out to a place we thought was nearby, then realized we'd be about an hour late. I went online, found the hotel's mobile number, and called to ask for a late checkout. No answer, and no reply to my text. We got back at 12:35. Reception pulled out a regulation, noi quy, in full Vietnamese bureaucratic style and said we had to pay a 35% surcharge for being 30 minutes late, per room. I asked to speak to the manager. She tried calling and then said she couldn't reach the manager because it wasn't 2 p.m. yet and the boss wasn't working. I showed her the text I'd sent to the number listed on the website. She said no call had come in, although I had called before noon and nobody answered. We asked if, by extending one room, the hotel could waive the two 35% surcharges. She said no. Check-in at the hotel was at 2 p.m., she said, and the 35% had to be paid. She didn't care whether we extended or not. I called Agoda customer service. They apologized and said the website didn't mention a 35% surcharge, so it was the hotel's own regulation and there was nothing they could do. They said to deal directly with the hotel. Fair enough, I agree. But the hotel hadn't posted these unreasonable surcharges in its terms and conditions. I was short on time and angry, but had no time to waste, so I paid VND 332k. I think this hotel is out to trap guests who can't read Vietnamese or are afraid of trouble. You may like the location or the modern look. But don't give them another chance to treat guests as badly as they treated me. Stay away. You can do better in the same neighborhood without this blackmail. Choose the cicilia next door, just a little more. My five stays at cicilia were much better, with no incidents and no awful aftertaste. Avoid tolia unless you want to be held back for ransom. Fed up. Mark sim, Singaporean, 15 years in vn. I've never met a more unreasonable hotel.