Last March, we spent a couple days at one of Saigon’s newest luxury hotels, located right in the heart of District 1 and most of the important tourist attractions. The InterContinental Asiana Saigon Residences had opened shortly before our arrival and surprisingly we found a much better rate than many of the older, lower rated hotels.
As one would expect from a 5 star hotel – the service, staff, food, room, and amenities were top notch. The pool is not a high rooftop like many of the others in town, but certainly nice with a view of the Notre Dame Cathedral.
Recommend paying the $30 extra a night if you can for the club access. Includes breakfast, canapes, cocktail hour, refreshments throughout the day, etc. The club level entitles you to higher floor rooms (obviously with better views) and free Internet (which was pretty pricey otherwise).
The room price was actually significantly less than some of the more known hotels in the area and even less than our usual pick – the Sofitel.
The hotel gym is state of the art with weight stations and more machines than I have seen in some regular gyms!
The hotel restaurants are good – we ate at the main Market 39 one for about $25 pp for the lunch buffet, which included local foods, sushi, fresh oysters, grilling stations, and a dessert selection that was my downfall.
There is also a Chinese restaurant on site with pretty good dim sum offerings, and a brunch on the weekend. For $10 more, unlimited wine, beer, and sodas are served.
Room service menus pull from the main restaurant menus and I did not notice a significant price jump like many hotels do.
The concierge is helpful and can arrange a variety of group or private tours, along with restaurant recommendations.
There is a lot of shopping options near by, along with major tourist attractions like the Post Office, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Reunification Palace, City Hall, The Opera House, War Remnants Museum, etc. This is key to getting an early start before the heat of the day does you in (some museums open at 7:30 am and since they seem to be lacking in ac, I recommend getting there at opening time).
