Good, friendly staff at Reception and Tour Desk - fairly good English spoken. Newer employee, Huong, speaks best English and he can't do enough for guests. Owner/Manager lady does not speak any English and it would be helpful if she did. She is very pleasant however.

The building is old and tired. Needs redecorating in public areas and rooms (at least the room I stayed in did). I spent 5 nights at the hotel. I had fast Internet in my room which was free but I could not connect to WIFI so I was unable to use Skype. There were also 2 computers available to guests in the lobby. My room came with good, quiet air conditioning, TV and comfortable bed. Pillows were foam filled and too hard for me and likely for most people. Bed came with one sheet covering the mattress and then a duvet covering the sheet so the duvet is directly against your body when sleeping.. The staff assured me the duvet cover is washed every day but I am still partial to sleeping between 2 sheets. Towels were old and needed replacing. My room was one floor up and faced the front street but I wasn't bothered by noise day or night and I slept well. throughout my stay. My room was quite cramped. with little floor space. I am extremely fussy about housecleaning and I would give the hotel a pass generally, however, there were areas such as the bathroom off Reception that definitlely needed more attention. I brought this to the attention of the owner a couple of days into my stay and there had still not been any change when I left 3 days later.

Free breakfast is included in the room prices. Breakfast was fine but some of the items shown in the menu were not availaable. I like orange juice in the morning and it wasn't available.

Hotel is well situated with being only a 10 - 15 minute walk to good shopping, restaurants and Lake Hoan Kiem in the centre of tthe city. There is a street market located a hop, skip and a jump from the front door and also a couple of good small open-air local restaurants 5 minutes away. The location of the hotel, being on a fairly main street is relatively easy for taxis to find although it is always advisable to have a map printed out to show the driver.

During my stay here I met with a couple of the English-speaking staff members and the owner lady to convey a large list of relatively inexpensive changes that should be implemented as soon as possible to raise the standard of the hotel and make it more appealing to Westerners who make up the majority of their traffic. Only time will tell if they are concerned enough about improving their facility.

I would recommend this hotel to a friend with the understanding they shouldn't expect too much. I am 50/50 on the establishment.

My critical eye became even more critical by the time I had reached the Hanoi Astoria as I had preceded this visit with two EXCEPTIONAL one star hotel experiences in Vietnam. One of these was at the CAT HUY HOTEL in HCMC for 8 nights and the other was at the HUENINO HOTEL in Hue for 4 nights. Both of these were absolutely exceptional small hotels.

If anyone in the future has occasion to stay at the Hanoi Astoria I would enjoy receiving your comments to let me know if the hotel owners have introduced any changes. Thanks and Happy Travels.

Warren O'Hara - North Vancouver, BC Canada