I arrived on the 17th December and at first impressions, everything was great. The lady on reception was welcoming and checked me in to my room quickly, even though I had arrived quit a bit earlier than the check in time (I had an early morning flight from Hanoi the same day) my room was ready and I was allowed to go straight up. They had a porter took my large and heavy back up to my room for me, which was great. I only stayed for one night, because the next day I had an early morning flight to Bali. In the evening, around 9:30-10pm, I started getting all my things packed up again, as I had a 5am start the next morning, and I realised my passport was missing. I remember handing it over at reception for them to make a copy, and realised that I hadnt received it back. I headed down to reception to retrieve my passport, and was greeted by a very rude lady - a different person to the one that had greeted me in the morning and been so welcoming to me. When I asked for my passport back, she refused and immediately became unnecessarily agressive, and demanded that I give her money for it before it could be returned to me. She insisted again and asked me for 500,000 VND. I again refused to give her the money, and informed her that she had no right to withhold my passport from me, under any circumstances. I told her to go ahead and make a copy, but that I wasn't leaving reception until I had my passport back. I informed her that I was leaving early in the morning to make an international flight, and it was vital that I have my passport with me so that it isn't lost / misplaced / forgotten. Again, she got even angrier and shouted at me, ”no money, no passport!”. At this point, I certainly wasn't going to back down, but despite her aggression and rudeness, I managed to stay calm and polite during the entire exchange, because I knew she had no legal right to keep my passport. As a long term traveller I'm aware that hotels cannot withhold your passport from you under any circumstances. I informed the woman that the passport was not actually my property, that officially, it belongs to the British Crown - which is true. I also informed her that I was fully aware the foreigners in Vietnam are required to carry photo ID with them at all times, and that the police would be interested to know that my passport was being withheld from me. At that point she realised that she had lost, and literally threw my passport at me and it landed on the reception counter. She then shouted at me, ”Go back to your room!”. I asked her what the problem was, and she literally yelled, ”GO TO YOUR ROOM, GO NOW!” I guess she didn't like the fact that I knew she was wrong and made her look stupid. She knew she was wrong, and I know for a fact that had I needed to get the police to help, they would have certainly made sure she returned the passport to me. A real shame, because the greeting in the morning was lovely, the bag porter was kind and helped me wit
101 Reviews