Rex Hotel

Looking for a hotel in a place you never been before is always a gamble. You never know what in store for you. Well, many internet reviews gives different perspective of the hotel based on their taste and experience and some are thru luck. I pick up Rex Hotel based on the price and location. Prime location district 1 where everything is there.. The price was reasonable. So I click to book...

As in Wiki, The Rex Hotel is a famous and luxury hotel situated at the heart of Ho Chi Minh City. With 284 rooms with 5 story high building, it is close to any place you want to visit in Ho Chi Minh City. Built in 1927 for M. Bainier during French colonial rule in Vietnam, the building started out as a two story auto dealership/garage complex called Bainier Auto Hall. The building showcased Citroen and other European cars. From 1959 to 1975, Mr. and Mrs. Ung Thi renovated the building into a 100 room Rex Complex hotel with three cinema, a cafeteria, a dance hall and a library. It was first open to guest in December 1961.

Rex hotel from the front.

When we first step on the door step, we were awed by the magestic building and it's interior. It was really impresive and suit by it's 5 star claims. After check-in, we were ushered to our rooms. But unfortunately, we were given to the old wing. My wife was abit scared when I give her a quick introduction of the hotel and the antics in it. She was hopfull that no ghost from the building past history come to visit her.

Breakfast buffet

The Room:

View from level 5 walk way

Old wing room is slightly cramp for an asian standard(as we have been pampered by big spaces in hotel rooms). Simple deco with new flat screen TV with all  The bathroom is dececable channels. Standard ameneties such as fridge, safe box, tea/coffee facility, robes and hair dryer is there.The bathroom is decent but complete.The rooms comes with breakfast at the coffeehouse on level 5. Quite impresive range of buffet from American to Asian breakfast is served. For muslim, there are huge variety of cereal, fruits and bread to select.

The Service:

Suits for it 5 star hotel. The personel are warm and kind to assist you in anyway they can. The Guest relation personnel and Tourist counter are very helpfull to assist you. We bought our Water Puppet ticket from the tourist counter. The person serving us was good to to provide us a "First Class" treatment. She gave us the best seat on the theater, and we were given a

 private limo to send and to pick us up from the theater. It was a VIP class.

Setback:

The only setback was the room have no window facing the street, but the have a window facing the walk way to the rooms. So there are no sense of privacy in the room. Another, they were doing some maintenance or renovation work, so it was noisy during working hours with the sound of hammers and wall driller.

Overall:

It is still a great place to stay. It is a walking distancce to Ben Thahn market, restaurant and it is right in the middle of the city. Great services from the personnels.Oh ya.. btw, there were no ghost!!