Review – Hyatt Regency Danang Vietnam

Introduction

I needed a hotel for 3 nights in Danang, Vietnam and the Hyatt Regency was recommended by a few folks. I also needed 2 x 3 bedroom villas and so I couldn’t use points for the booking. Initially I booked 2 x 3 bedroom residences, but after I saw the beach view villa review on Youtube, I decided to YOLO up to the ocean villa for one of the rooms (about an extra $200 per night.) I later found out that there is the “ocean front villa” too, which would have been awesome since you get more of a breeze at night, but there’s only 4 of them available at the property. They apparenlty tried to upgrade me to it, but I’m sure as a lowly Discoverist, I meant nothing.

Getting to hotel

I had actually booked the ‘family package’ which included airport transfer as well as the breakfast buffet at Osteria Al Mare, so it was nice to have the driver waiting for us at the airport. It took about 40 minutes to get to the hotel.

Checkin

A friend gifted me some club lounge access passes, and so when I went up to the checkin counter, they ushered me to the lounge to check in. I think there was a welcome drink at the check in desks and we also got some more welcome drinks in the lounge. Checkin wasn’t super fast nor was it annoyingly slow.

Wifi

The public wifi was fine, but I couldn’t get the Wifi’s signal on my balcony nor in my bathroom. I pointed that out to the hotel manager on checkout.

Room

Definitely better than I had expected, even after watching the YT video. Just know that for the 3 bedroom villas, the 3rd bedroom is in a detached building aka the ‘nanny suite’ as they were calling it. We used the private pool a few times, but it was pretty cold (Danang weather was around 70-75 so hence the pool water was pretty cold.)

I do need to note that as of January 2024, the hotel uses the big bottles of shampoo/conditioner/body wash that guests can easily open and tamper with. I do hope that they go back to small single use or lock those big bottles up.

Breakfast

The breakfast buffet wasn’t HUGE but I didn’t have many complaints. There was an omelette station, a pho station, a banh mi plate, a sticky rice station, salad area, Korean food area, kids station, pastry, and fruits (passion fruit every day I was there.) They did rotate out about 25% of the food every day. I only noticed how many Koreans were staying here until I got to breakfast. I’d say the hotel is about 75% Koreans.

Lounge

I believe they served a light dinner buffet at around 5pm-7pm every night. It was nice that all 6 guests were able to access it even though Hyatt’s rules says club access is only for 2 adults and 2 kids. I would have argued that made no sense if I booked a 3 bedroom villa with 6 people. We did dinner here a few nights. Selection was mostly Western food – about 3-4 hot plates and then some cold plates. Beer and wine in the fridge. I wasn’t upset that we ate here instead of having local food for dinner.

Conclusion

I’d argue that this is one of the top 5 Hyatt Regencies worldwide; maybe even top 10 Hyatts in world. When cost of labor is about $300-$400 a month, then you’ll notice how well kept the resort is. I do want to point out that the hotel was very kid-friendly. They have a kids play room that I believe you can leave them there up to 2 hours a day. They had a kid’s pool area, a climbing wall, outdoor swings, etc (I mean, 1/3 of the hotel was a kid’s area.)

The hotel is in between Da Nang city and Hoian. They run 2 one-way shuttles a day down to Hoian for 80K dong a person (about $3 and change) and you can take a Grab back for about 200K dong (about $8.) You can walk to Marble Mountains in about 20 minutes. I think a Grab into the city to watch the fire dragon bridge is about 150K dong ($6 USD.) There’s not that many restaurants near the Hyatt (that’s why the club lounge is clutch.) I think you can Grab some food if you wanted. We didn’t eat at any of the hotel restaurants for dinner.

I do want to point out that the nanny suite in our villa’s AC broke the first night at 2AM and so the family that stayed in there had a restless night since the temp went up to 27C (80F.) The family thought it was a fluke and didn’t say anything and so on the 2nd night, it broke AGAIN. On the 3rd morning, they saw housekeeping and pointed it out to them. They sent the electricians over and the AC was working fine. Sure enough, on the third night it stopped working AGAIN. Thus on the 4th day, the electricians came out and was finally repairing it. Prior to checkout, I wanted to speak to the GM about it, but they were in a meeting and I was told to come back a few hours later when I checked out to speak to them. On checkout, they didn’t come out and so the receptionist asked me what the issue was and I told them. They then went back to get the assistant GM who came out and apologized for the room. He then offered me 1M dong ($50) as a goodwill gesture. I laughed at him and said that was ridiculous since 3 nights in that room was over $2K. I told him since 1/3 of our party couldn’t get any night’s rest, then that’s what my discount should be. He said he’d take 30% off (not going to argue further for 3%) for that room and I accepted the offer. He was still profusely sorry for the issue; maybe previous guests have happily taken 1M dong and so that’s the starting offer that they give out. The lesson learned here is that you should have compensation in mind that is fair to both parties instead of just taking their first offer.

With that said, I’d still highly recommend the hotel.