New Star Inn Boutique Hotel-Near Bến Thành Market

The room was dirty and smelly, with a lot of maintenance problems. It didn’t match the photos on booking.com, and the food was different from what the website showed. There was no internet, and the TV didn’t work. The kitchen guy did help, but he was rude. On my first day at breakfast he kept staring at me, and acted unfriendly and impolite, as if he was unhappy that I was eating his food.

For the price, this basic hotel is okay. Breakfast was okay too, though it was Asian food only.

We had reserved a double room with one double bed for our little one, but on arrival we were told it had been taken because we hadn't checked in earlier. We waited while another room was cleaned. Once we got there and tried to settle our child, loud banging, hammering, and metal cutting nearby made us decide to leave. We had booked two nights but stayed less than three hours, so we asked for a refund and were refused. They said the noise wasn't their responsibility. The receptionist was cold and somewhat rude.

After we paid a deposit to secure a room, the hotel had overbooked when we arrived to check in. The staff member was rude and showed no apology, then told us to find another nearby hotel in the middle of the night, where prices were more than double what we had booked. They also made it difficult to get our deposit back, apparently hoping we'd give up and let them keep it. A security guard came in and watched us as pressure to leave. We persisted and did get our money back, but there was no compensation or apology, and we were left outside with all our luggage to sort things out ourselves. This caused a lot of anger and unnecessary trouble during our trip. Vietnam has many lovely people and is a nice country to visit, but this was a terrible first contact. Other reviews made it seem this might not be the first time they've done this.