Review, Blue Diamond Hotel, HCMC Vietnam, 9Sep19 to 12Sep19
Stay: 9Sep19 to 12Sep19 (3 nights)
Rooms: 2 Superior Double, 2 Superior Twin
Travellers: 7 (Family n Friends), 5 female, 2 male

I have difficulty sleeping in a new place, even if it’s a 5-star hotel. Given the constraints of booking a 3-star hotel and for <USDxxx per night but having to balance with cleanliness, location, security etc that most female travellers look for, it was an uphill task. I was trying to find a 4-star hotel but paying a 3-star hotel price! B4 reaching Blue Diamond Hotel, I had a lot of reservations.
But when we reached the hotel and our rooms, all my reservations were banished. The hotel lobby looked clean and almost new, the FOM Matthew and staff had all our rooms and keys ready –our group of 7 checked in within < than 10mins. This is greatly appreciated as our flight was delayed by about 3 hrs and hence we reached the hotel, tired and just wanting to get to our rooms to refresh. All 4 rooms were next to each other, as requested – we just have to knock on each other’s doors.
I walked into my room with that “it’s fresh, comfortable, clean, spacious and secure” feeling. Even though there is “no window view”, we did not feel claustrophobic . Except for the usual flushing, our rooms were QUIET. For 3 nights, when I get into bed, I slept soundly and woke up refreshed and energetic for the day’s tours, feasting and shopping…..
Breakfast: good variety, ranging from Vietnamese (without doubt, Pho every morning and our usual dish as well, pork, chicken, fried banana), Asian (noodles, beehoon, porridge with condiments), veg, Western (spaghetti, rotated with French toast, omelette, hard boiled eggs, sausages, bacon, bread n toast, with the usual spread). I can’t remember everything as I focus on my usual favourites but all 5 female travellers (get the hint??) agree that the breakfast is excellent esp for the price that we paid.
To summarize:
Location: WE ALL AGREE “excellent, excellent, excellent”! Walking distance to Ben Thanh Mkt (where we did a lot of shopping, drink avocado, soursop), good Pho restaurants for lunch or dinner, terrific buffet dinner at this 5-star restaurant, delicious Hue food restaurant….. many things, no time to see every place that we wanted.
Cleanliness: Excellent, more so for a 3-star hotel.
Service: Excellent. We had no major issues. But if there’s any matter, I just had to inform the reception counter. My friend’s room had cigarette smoke smell, courtesy of the guest who checked out that morning! The hotel was willing to change the room for my friend (on a different floor) but she chose to room next to us. The hotel tried to air the room and sprayed freshener and did so the next day as well.
Value: Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!
If I had the chance to come back to HCMC, I would book this hotel (if they don’t change their service standards). My friend is recommending to her family who may be travelling to HCMC.

I have reviewed this hotel twice before and so I am making this one short.

In our recent HCMC trip, we also stayed here, the 4th out of our 6th HCMC trips. We decided to come back here because of it's reasonable pricing, nice room, good service and excellent location. Everything and staff are so familiar and closed! Reception and porter staff were friendly and helpful! Kudos to the team! Room cleaning services were as usual excellent!

We noticed that the hotel and room had undergone some renovations (such as the lifts, flooring, layout etc) and now is nicer and better. We had a great sleep throughout our stay here. You can check my earlier reviews of it and compare the pictures of the room to see the difference.

Breakfast was fine while high tea, though very limited food items, but it's a nice gesture and goodwill for hotel guests to layback and enjoy some finger food to relax.

But we had 2 feedback. The TV reception in the room was still very bad, as the images were blurish and not clear for all the channels! I had reviewed this issue before but all this while the problem remained "unsettled". Next, on one evening, we had went to the restaurant to request for some ice cubes for our fruit juices.

Despite of the fact that we had 3 persons presence at the cafe, we were only given a small glass of ice cubes by a male staff wearing spectacles and if we wanted more, we needed to pay like US$2 for glasses of ice. What kidding me? Even in Europe or Japan, where the hotels have ice machines for guests to freely take the ice, and even if they don't have one, the cafe will happily give us free ice cubes. Well, it's not the money that matters but somehow it's customer service since it's just ice cubes and not a free drink or wine. But the following day, we saw the same staff, chatting happily with some Western diners and provided them with free ice cubes with each holding on to a glass! I hope the restaurant staff will take note of this.

Nonethelss, the overall stay was pleasant!