Melia Danang Beach Resort

The pictures are deceptive, the hotel is in need of some investment. There aren't enough sun loungers by the pools, breakfast is packed every morning, the gym equipment is old and rusty and guest services are completely unresponsive. Poolside F&B is poor and the menu has almost nothing healthy to offer. All a bit of a shame as the location on the beach and proximity to Danang is great.

We went supposed to stay 6 nights, just wanted a luxury experience in-between cities and the hussual of Asia . We ended up leaving after 3, everything was hard work and not at all 5* even for Asian standards. Before I go on, I just want to say the young( probably low paid ) staff couldn't work any harder, and this isn't a reflection on them. Arrived at the hotel and the room key wasnt working, it's 1am we've taken two planes from Japan , after working all day and have been up nearly 24 hours. We both travel for work and stay in lots of hotels, various stars and just wanted a really special break Asked for another room as they had to get the engineer to fix the door , no rooms. Scratched off the room number on the card to find a different room number. Clearly put late check in meant that our room was given away. So we ended up in a "level " room with no working door next to the service road. Towels - I'm not sure why you only get one towel , so I had to pay dry my hair with a small hand towel. I asked to chat to a manager, he was asleep. The next day we were offered 2mil ( about £50) compensation, so I suppose they tried. However the start wasn't great. Breakfast - horrific ! Food was ok but there's about 400 people grabbing food and literally no order. The chaos was overwhelming, like a 2* all you can eat buffet from a cheap resort in Spain. As a level member we got to sit in a specific area, but what that meant was next to the busy kids play area ! No thanks . Opted to sit outside away from the chaos. The waitress took orders from us as we were Level members. She was lovely, however the food took 40 min and was canape size at best. Swimming pools aren't managed well and there was 40 level suits around our pool ( so 80 people min ) and 12 - yes 12 !!! Sunbeds ! So on the second day we couldn't get a sunbed at all across any pool or beach, not what you expect from 5* ! They also didn't manage the sunbed hoggers , I'm sorry I know it's a European thing, but it's selfish and should be managed. The lack of sunbeds didn't help and noone checked if people were allowed in the "exclusive area" as noone asked Pool food wasn't available on the second day either, not sure why, but again lacked 5* . The pool bar service worked on who shouts loudest gets served first . We ended up Grab eating and picking it up at reception! Otherwise told we had to get room service to our room and eat there or at the restaurant, we didn't want either. Each morning we were woken up by loud workers on the service road, and there was a large stage getting built, so around 7am we could hear scaffolding and trussle getting moved by chatty workmen. ( Seemed to be a corporate event stage , along with the loudest people ever) We were also made to listen to the gardener cut the same piece of grass all day, we get maintenance but this wasn't , it was noise pollution for the entire day , when we just paid for peace . The restaurant in a night didn't have half the menu, again not the servers fault, but it didn't make it easy to pick or serve us. We were on our 3rd or 4th choice by the time we ate ( nothing came together either, typical of Asia but felt it wasnt the 5* you pay for) Happy hour lounge ..... Joke ..... Enough said . Very few choices of literally a couple of cans of beer, two bottles of wine and a few jars of cookies ( which didn't go with the beer or wine ) The level 5* concept as a whole was pointless, we paid a significant amount more and got very little from it. The place fell short of 5* and possibly it's a 3* at best . A lot of these things might sound petty, but put them all together and paid to have to tolerate them, suddenly it's a really poor experience. I actually think a lot of the reviews making it look good are fake .

The check in was smooth and easy. The beach was nice though not the cleanest (cigarette buttes in the sand). There were life guards on duty which was very good as the water was a bit rough (we enjoyed the waves). There were 3 pools, but not enough deck chairs for all the guests. All the drinks and food were over priced (and that’s saying something for Vietnam). The dinner buffet was mediocre- we are vegetarian and the options were sparse (salad, a vegetable soup and a couple rice dishes) and it wasn’t cheap. We also waited for about 20 minutes for the bill. We reserved an extra bed for my son, but had to ask them to have them bring it to the room. It took a while for them to figure out what to do and it took a while for them to bring it to the room so we couldn’t go to sleep. The staff was nice, but I don’t recommend staying here.