If you are looking for a 5-star luxury resort in Ha Long Bay, one of the top results you'll see is FLC Ha Long Bay Golf Resort. This blog will hopefully help you decide if you want to stay at a 5-star resort in Ha Long Bay.
I had the pleasure of staying at the FLC Ha Long Bay resort in November 2022 and was pleasantly surprised by what $170 USD could get us in Vietnam. The resort itself is on a hilly coastline overlooking the famous Ha Long Bay, but we saw a lot of construction around for villas that were being built and much of the city down below. The location of the resort is far from any type of walkable activity and the city center. We had a bit of a difficult time getting here from Ninh Binh. We had checked with our hotel and the bus operator when we booked the ticket that the bus would drop us off at the door of our hotel. However, due to some communication issues and language barriers, we gave up after trying to work through translation issues and decided to take a Grab since they were fairly cheap.
Since I was in a group of 4 we opted to stay in a presidential suite. This included 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a shared kitchen, and a sitting area with a view of the bay. The rooms at the resort are spacious and modern, the bathrooms have rain showers and the living area offered plenty of space to relax. I would highly recommend spending a little extra for this if you are in a group because it was the first time in our 10-day trip in Vietnam that we could enjoy an evening together after a long day.
Guest Services
This hotel was very generously staffed, as soon as we arrived there were already 4 employees waiting to help with bags and direct us to the check-in area. I felt like I was a celebrity as our bags were unloaded and taken up to the hotel room for us. The staff provided us with some refreshments while we were checking in. At times it seemed like there were more staff members than there were hotel patrons, not that we were complaining. We only stayed Wednesday for 1 night and checked out the next day. I think we only saw about 20 other patrons there and the majority of that was during breakfast time. Before we left we also asked guest services to help us ring up a cab since we weren't close to the city and hailing a cab without any help would have been difficult. We received the same 5-star treatment of having a stress-free checkout and help with our bags. It was also raining so the employees covered us with an umbrella as we loaded into the car.
Golf
Ha Long Bay is cloudy for a good part of the year and it was no different when we went. We still went out to the golf course for an hour before it rained. You will need to tell the front desk that you want to go golfing and they will take a golf cart to shuttle you over to the golf course about 5 minutes away.
Pool
The resort was advertised to have a large outdoor swimming pool. We were sad to find out that the pool isn't heated, doesn't quite go up to the edge of the scenery,y and doesn't give you the true feeling of a missing edge. We were quite disappointed that the water was so cold. Since there weren't any guests we used it as a beautiful backdrop to many photos. There is a heated indoor pool, but the view is significantly worse there.
Massage
We used their spa to get a couples massage; it was by far the most luxurious massage we had in Vietnam. The massage room had a bathroom, shower, a tub sitting room, and 2 massage beds. They had bathrobes available for us to get changed into for our foot scrub and exfoliation. During the massage, they also covered our eyes with a warm weighted eye mask that was so comfortable and relaxing. We wanted to sign up for another massage for the next day before we left but unfortunately, they only opened after check-out time. Definitely make an appointment for a massage before you go if you aren't staying long because I promise this is something you won't want to miss.
Restaurants
One of the other disappointments of our stay at the FLC Ha Long Bay resort was the food. The resort supposedly has several restaurants, each with its own unique style and menu. Unfortunately, since we were there during such a low season, some of the restaurants were closed. The restaurants were higher priced than what you would see if you went into the city and nothing all that special if I'm being honest.
Overall, I thought this was a great stay for us since we were looking for a relaxing time since we had a busy start to the trip. I would recommend staying here for travelers looking to unwind and don't mind paying a bit more for the extras like food and drinks. I wouldn't recommend staying too long if you are a group of young adults since there weren't too many things to keep my group of friends entertained. However, if you are a family with some kids, I think this would be an excellent place to have a vacation catered to your comfort. There's even a children's area where you can drop your kids off for a few hours to enjoy some guilt-free relaxation.
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