Review – Vinpearl Wonderworld in Phu Quoc

Introduction

Vinpearl Wonderworld is one of the top hotels on Phu Quoc, mainly because it’s close to the amusement park and safari. Please note that there is also the Vinpearl Resort & Spas, which is your typical 1 bedroom hotel rooms. I think Wonderworld is their 3-4 bedroom villas. I booked both a 3 bedroom villa and their 4 bedroom villa ocean view, which was nice because you got beach access (100m walk) and not just a view of the ocean. Note that while the room shows 16 guests occupancy, what they mean is 8 adults and 8 kids. The room rate comes with free airport transportation and free breakfast buffet at either of the 2 restaurants (same food at both.) I also added the VinWonders and Safari, which came out to like $55 a person (note that this is a 1 day pass to BOTH locations.) Looking back, I would have bought the VinWonders and Safari tickets SEPARATELY so that you’re not forced to do both in a day.

Getting to hotel

Pretty easy. Walk out of the airport and find the Vinpearl desk. They’ll help push your cart out to the bus.

Checkin

Checkin took longer than expected. They did usher our family to an area in the lobby and gave us complimentary drinks. They do a face scan for each person, which you’ll need to do before breakfast and the theme park/safari. I guess this stops people from slipping in guests. After that, they buggy you to you room.

Wifi

I made the mistake of logging into the WIFI under the public area and could never find a way to log back in saying I was a guest. Because of that, the WIFI in my room was barely usable. I kept toggling between the WIFI and my phone’s 5G, which was more reliable.

Room

When we first walked in, we were very impressed. It had a fridge and stove but no microwave. We later learned that there were no kitchen utensils (no forks, spoons or pots/pans) to use on the stove. Apparently you can ‘rent’ the utensils, but it was something like $20 per day or something, which was ridiculous. Why even have the stove. Then we noticed a pair of slippers was missing and instead of just bringing an extra pair, housekeeping came in to help us locate it (it was pushed to the back of the closet.) I think most American hotels would have just brought a new pair over. Then an hour later, we noticed they put the outdoor sandals in the indoor slippers bag in one of the rooms, but I didn’t want to harass housekeeping again. Oh yeah, the room safe gave us an error, but I didn’t bother to call that in.

By the way, the English at the hotel wasn’t as good as the hotels in Ho Chi Minh or at the Hyatt in Danang. After my phone call to the front desk about the utensils, I gave up and had my family call each time. I’m honestly not sure how the Koreans were able to talk to the front desk staff.

There wasn’t any hot water in my villa a couple of the nights. Luckily the water was ‘cool’ and not ice cold, so it was bearable. One morning, I noticed ants in one of the sinks (I didn’t have any food left out so thought that was odd.)

In the 3 bedroom villa, the toilet was clogged when we checked in. We reported it and they came out to ‘fix it,’ but it wasn’t fixed because that night, the upstairs bedroom smelled like a sewer and my family could hardly sleep. The 2nd day, they came out again and couldn’t fix it and decided to light candles. We asked to move rooms, but they said the hotel was sold out. By the 3rd day, the candles went out and it stunk again.

On the last night of my 4 bedroom villa, the ceiling leaked and was dripping water in one of the rooms.

Anyway, when I went to check out and complained about the toilet sewer bedroom to the manager on duty, he offered me $50 banh mi and water credit for me to take on the bus to the airport. I could only laugh at him since the room was over $500 a night and that was the only compensation for a bedroom that was unusable due to the stench. Luckily my family had a later flight, so I told them to go pick up the $50 of food. Instead, my aunt let the manager have it, who then escalated to I guess the assistant manager, who I eventually recognized was the one who responded to Tripadvisor complaints. He eventually offered us a 25% discount off of the room, which my aunt accepted.

Breakfast

Lots of Vietnamese options. Didn’t change much day to day though. There was an omelette station, a pho station, a banh mi plate, pastry, and fruits. Pick the smaller restaurant instead of the main restaurant in the lobby because that was a mad house.

Conclusion

I mean, I’d only recommend this place if you need the 3-4 bedroom villas. You saw all the issues with my room and the pitiful response. I think the Sheraton is in the area, so if you want to do Vinworld and the safari, I’d maybe stay there. There’s also the Wyndham in Grand World (we ate there a couple of nights.)

The only bright spot is that the buggy service was pretty fast and reliable. Also, if you speak Vietnamese, the buggy drivers can help arrange their buddy to go pick up a case of beer and deliver it to your room. Or they can arrange a 16 seater van to help take you to dinner so you can avoid the overpriced hotel food.

The free bus to Vinworld, safari and Grand World was nice. However, because it runs every 30 minutes, the bus does get packed and you might be standing.