Somerset Vista Ho Chi Minh City Apart-Hotel

Our room was incredibly spacious, probably the premier suite, and easily fit our family of four. The washer-dryer was the one letdown because the dryer didn’t work. The pool on the third floor was huge with lots of seating, though the water was a bit chilly since it doesn’t get much sun. There’s a small shopping plaza right beside the hotel with a grocery store, haircut salon, coffee shop, and family mart, which made stocking up the medium-sized fridge easy. Getting to Estella Mall was frustrating: it’s right across the street, but there’s no direct crossing, and the long way around isn’t safe to cross on foot. We had to use Grab. The location itself was okay.

The rooms were good and pretty clean, but realistically I’d rate this a 3.5-4 star hotel. Our main reason for choosing it was the large, nice pool, but it isn’t heated, the nearby “jacuzzi” is cold too, and the pool gets very little sunlight between the buildings. There’s no hotel kitchen or restaurant. Instead, they give each person one Starbucks voucher a day worth 150,000VND, about 10AUD, which doesn’t feel like enough to count as breakfast. Shopping centres are 15-20 minutes away on foot, and the walkways aren’t really pram friendly. A taxi costs about 50,000VND, or 3AUD. The kids’ playground could be better equipped. There’s only one channel on the master bedroom TV, and only the receptionist speaks English.

Good value, especially for families. You can choose a one or two bedroom option, and both come with a kitchen and a dining and living room. The playground is kid friendly, and the swimming pool is huge. It’s shared with residents but wasn’t crowded. Breakfast comes as a Starbucks voucher for one drink and one food item, and you can use it any time during the day.

The two-bedroom luxury apartment had a kitchenette, and the pool was amazing. The area felt very safe and has some higher-end places to eat, but there aren’t mom-and-pop street food spots nearby. It’s quite far from the main tourist sights. Although District 1 looks close across the river on the map, the traffic makes a taxi ride there take around 20-30 minutes.