So just like the rest of my vacation I decided to splurge a bit and not really try to pinch pennies the way that I do with almost everything else in my life. When booking a hotel we decided on something that was around $100 a night which doesn't seem like much to people living North America and much of Europe, but in Vietnam this is quite a high price and honestly, I expected a bit more than we received from Famiana Resort.
This doesn't mean that the place was a dump. It was far from a dump actually and the service is one thing that I will definitely congratulate them on. It has been many years since I had someone waiting at the airport to pick me up with a sign and that is how things began. I was already feeling ill from a cold that I caught while up in Da Lat so I wasn't really in the mood for things to go wrong and for the most part, at least at first, things seemed pretty great. We arrived kind of late at night so at first we just wanted to have a shower and go out to dinner. This is where the fun began.
The hot water in our room didn't work and honestly, there is no excuse for this as even cheap places will at least check to make sure that certain things are functioning before the people check in. It was late and they were going to send a technician by but we just didn't want to be bothered.
I think maybe they should spend less time on folding my bath towels into a swan and more time on making sure that the things in the room that are truly important such as the WATER actually works. Things got worse later on when in the middle of the night the air conditioning just stopped working. I am somewhat familiar with how these units in Asia function so I found the breaker and hard reset the unit, switched it back on only to have it turn itself back off after 10 minutes. I was a bit huffy at this point so I just walked up to reception, demanded a fan and told them that they are going to move us to a new room the next day. This was NOT a request on my part even though I was as polite as I could be.
The next morning we were moved to not just another room, but upgraded to a beachfront villa, which I thought was a nice touch. We were both really happy and went about our day thinking that it was worth the trouble at the first place to get an upgrade of this magnitude.
Things were going great because there was a general store nearby so we stocked up on booze and mixers and set about having a wonderful day in the sun. Everything seemed great thus far and we were quite happy. Unfortunately, things didn't stay great and it was only a matter of time before things started going wrong again.
People don't generally have bathtubs in Vietnam, let alone the jacuzzi type, so my travel partner was excited to take one. She only got the tub a bit filled up before she realized there was a very serious problem with the hot water here as well and not just one of it simply not working. This water stank of iron or some other sort of heavy metal and even though we both had showered before we didn't realize it because it was a shower and I guess the soap smell masked the fact that all the taps in the entire unit were pulling from the same disgusting source. It was only the hot water that was like this so I'm guessing there is a problem with the tank or heating system.
Things got worse later when once again in the middle of the night the air conditioning stopped working in the same manner as the unit we were in previously.
The drinks were paid for by the resort and the environment to drink them in was pretty great too. They came back later to tell us that the problem had been solved but when we went back to the room we found out that they had not fixed anything. The water was still brown and one of the AC units would turn off on its own after 10 minutes or so. There was another AC unit in the villa that worked so we blasted the hell out of that one rather than have the repair staff interrupt our day only to not be capable of fixing what the problem is anyway.
Other minor things that were wrong about the room included the TV's having terrible reception in a way that reminded me of days long past when we would use antennas to get our shows. Also the remotes and the safe had no batteries in them. This is easily fixed but honestly, should be on a checklist for the housekeeping staff to take care of between guests.
The grounds were impeccably maintained and the staff were wonderful so at least the place had that going for it but unfortunately good service only goes so far when nearly everything is broken. I didn't write them a public bad review because that is not the kind of person that I am but when I went to go look at places like Agoda there were a LOT of people that were complaining about exactly what we had encountered.
One funny thing that happened while we were there was that on one time coming back to our bungalow, one of my shoes was missing from the front porch. When I informed the front desk about this I looked around the grounds and saw that the entire gardening crew were searching the bushes and plants and eventually they found my other shoe that I guess a dog had come by and wandered off with. This made me smile that the staff care so much and they did eventually find my shoe.
Overall I enjoyed my time here but honestly, when I am paying $100 a night for a place I expect more than this. The critical elements of a comfortable room in my mind would include clean water coming out of the taps and a temperature control system that actually works.
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I can't recommend this place to anyone staying in Phu Quoc and by looking around the island I think this is one of the more established and older resorts on the island. The place is kind of falling apart and due to competition they might be one of those sorts of businesses that realize that they are not going to be able to keep up with the times as far as modernizing their place is concerned and might just be biding their time with what they have until the eventually just close the place altogether in a few years.
I didn't allow this to ruin my vacation though and we just took it in stride. I don't often go on vacation but I think I will be considerably more vigilant in checking out user reviews in the future. Some of these mistakes are in my mind completely inexcusable. If you have a room with brown water and an AC problem in a tropical country, you should not sell that room.