I rarely write negative reviews because I understand no hotel is perfect. However, my recent stay with a friend at Duyen Ha Resort Cam Ranh was so profoundly disappointing that I feel compelled to warn other travelers. While this property claims to be a 5-star luxury beachfront resort, our experience felt closer to a poorly managed 3-star hotel.
Here are the issues we encountered during our stay:
-Deceptive Room Availability & Poor Maintenance: We booked a Premium room but arrived to find the balcony flooded above ankle-level and the carpet heavily stained. The hotel sent two technicians who did nothing but talk and told us to "wait for the water to drain by itself." When we demanded a room change to a ground-floor garden view, the manager claimed no rooms were available until tomorrow. Since we had a lot of luggage and didn't want to waste time unpacking and repacking, we told her directly to either find a room or upgrade us to a sea-view building. Magically, a Premium ground-floor room became available instantly. It makes me wonder where that room suddenly appeared from. Unacceptable and dishonest service.
-Ignored Birthday Request: I had noted in our reservation that this stay was to celebrate my birthday. Throughout our 4-day, 3-night stay, there was zero birthday recognition or amenity. Even 4-star hotels I’ve stayed at manage to arrange a small birthday setup. This was a highly disappointing surprise.
-Lack of Basic Amenities: The resort does not even provide an iron for guests to borrow, which is a standard amenity in any reputable hotel.
-Fully Booked Shuttle Service: The hotel offers a shuttle to Nha Trang city center, which is one of the reasons we chose to stay here. However, when we tried to book it for the following day, staff said it was completely full for every slot. We checked for the day after, and it was also full. Consequently, we couldn't use the service at all and had to pay out-of-pocket for private transportation just to get into town.
-Severe Privacy Violations: While we were inside our room changing clothes, a staff member abruptly opened the door without knocking or ringing the doorbell. We reported this massive privacy breach to the Manager, who promised to investigate, but they never bothered to get back to us.
-Ignored DND Sign: We turned on the Do Not Disturb light to avoid being bothered, yet housekeeping still knocked on the door just to ask if we wanted the room cleaned.
-No Housekeeping When Requested: Conversely, when we actually wanted our room cleaned, we turned on the housekeeping switch and hung the physical sign on the door. When we returned later, the room had not been touched at all.
-Language Barrier in Room Tech: The YouTube app on the TV was permanently set to Russian. Every single time we wanted to use it, we had to manually change the settings. If it had been set to Vietnamese, it would have been understandable, but this was just inconvenient.
-Chaotic Breakfast Management & Illness: Breakfast was an absolute mess. There was no receptionist standing by to check room numbers upon arrival (something I have seen at 100% of the hotels I have ever visited). Anyone could just walk in and grab food. The live cooking stations were chaotic; people were cutting lines because there was no system or queue management.
More severely, my friend and I ate identical meals outside the resort except for breakfast. On the afternoon after eating the hotel breakfast, I developed severe diarrhea and vomited multiple times, lasting until the next morning. The buffet food looked unfresh and was served ice-cold. As an avid traveler who frequently enjoys hotel buffets, I have never experienced symptoms like this before.
-Unacceptable Buggy Wait Times: We were told that the buggy service takes about 10–15 minutes. However, on our checkout day, we had to wait for 30 minutes just for a buggy to come and pick up our luggage.
-Ridiculous Checkout Delays: Upon checkout, staff insisted on a "10-minute room inspe
