Paralia Hotel Phu Quoc

The one thing I truly enjoyed was the SPA. The ladies there were wonderful, professional and friendly, and I went every other day. You can get a massage there even if you aren’t staying at the Paralia hotel, so I highly recommend them. The location is good too, but my stay itself was a terrible experience. My room had almost no natural light. There was a window, but all I could see outside was an artificial rock wall, so in the morning I couldn’t tell whether it was night or day. A pipe ran along the outside wall beside my bed from the kitchen. Every morning at 6am, when breakfast preparation started, they switched on the extractor pipe. It filled the room with food smells and made a sound like a Boeing taking off right next to my head. Sleep was also impossible because the hotel next door had renovations every day from 7am until 5-6pm. There were bedbugs and ants on the bed and throughout the room. The bathroom drain was blocked, so after a shower the floor was like a swimming pool. Breakfast was average, neither good nor plentiful. Reception and restaurant staff need to improve their communication. None of them could speak English, and most came across as arrogant, as if guests should just know the hotel rules. On our first day, there were no beach towels, so they told us to use the ones in our room. We returned them when we came back, but forgot to mention it at reception. A week later they accused us of stealing one. It turned out a receptionist hadn’t written down that we’d returned the towels. We tried to explain we hadn’t stolen anything and didn’t know what had happened to the towel, but they harassed us about it for days and never apologized or admitted their mistake. The language barrier got so bad that I eventually stopped trying to explain and ignored them. After the towel issue, they blamed us for taking a silly paper bag with the hotel logo. Why would I want a bag advertising an awful hotel? They even held our taxi from leaving for the airport over it. After searching the room more carefully, they found the bag. The staff need to work on their attitude and learn basic English for a hotel reception job.