Hotels near Main Post Office

We enjoyed our stay at Draco. We stayed in a room with a view overlooking the river and cranes that load/unload cargo from large ships. Despite the activity below, it was fairly quiet and we slept well on the comfortable bed. Our early January visit is a slow time of year for hotels in this part of Vietnam, and we felt like we almost had the entire hotel to ourselves. Staff performance was excellent, as one would expect during periods of low occupancy. The Draco is near the docks that service the fast (1-hour) boat going to Cat Ba island, which we did after visiting Draco. There are some good restaurants and cafes about a 5- to 10-minute walk from the hotel. We also enjoyed walks in the snake-shaped park along Tran Hung Dao street. The park is edged by large, smooth granite-slab walkways that enable many of the city's youths to enjoy using rollerblades and hoverboards provided by a rental company. When we visited Haiphong about 3 years ago, it was all rollerblades, but now all the kids are using hoverboards. Haiphong is a highly industrialized port city, and the main road between Hanoi and Haiphong is a prime example of this. The roadsides are ugly, although there are some beautiful buildings along that road. It gets dangerous at night because the road is poorly illuminated and there are lots of people trying to cross the road. Unfortunately, this is the kind of image that shapes many people's perception of Haiphong. There are some nice parts of Haiphong that are worth visiting. The Draco helps make its neighborhood into one of those places.

I chose to stay in Duyen Hai Hotel as it was very close to the Convention Centre. The hotel room was not very clean as the bedsheet had some stains but was not changed daily. Since the hotel room rate is not very high, I booked and paid for a suite and breakfast for two persons. However, seeing that I was alone, I was given a superior/deluxe room which was a cheaper room. I accepted that since I was alone anyway. For breakfast, I was told that each person could order up to VND30,000 which was limited to 4 or 5 different noodle soups only and I stayed in the hotel for 4 nights. However, since I booked breakfast for 2 persons, logically, I should be able to order up to VND60,000 but I was told that I could not do that. To add salt to the wound, when I checked out, i was told that I have to pay another VND60,000 for 2 bottles of mineral water in the fridge which I thought was normally given free by the hotel. I did not mind paying but I was charged VND30,000 per bottle. Even 3 or 4 star hotels charged only VND10,000 per bottle of mineral water so why should this 2 star hotel charged 3 times more! This annoyed me as I felt being reaped off.