We stayed at the hotel for one night. The art deco design is wonderul. It is such a pleasure to walk in the hotel and look around. Also the rooms are very nice. But the staff!!! At first when we arrived, nobody was at the door to pickup the luggage... etc... Our driver had to do it. Then I asked if we have internet in the room (as it said on the website). They told me they have to charge me 30$ extra per day because it is a different room (!?!?) but I can have free wifi in the lobby. Arriving to our room, the safe was lock. So we called the reception to unlock it. The lady told we "someone will be with you within 5 minutes". 15 minutes later, we are still waiting so I called back. The answer "she is on her way, she will be there within a minute"... To make the story short, I had to call 4 times before to have someone! I told the lady, she can hust have told me someone will come in 30 mn or an hour and we will have been able to do someting else.

At 6:30 the cleaning lady come to do the bed turndown. I asked her to come back at 7pm. She never came back. I had to asked the reception at 9pm.

In the evening, we were a bit tired and decide to tried their restaurant (it is supposed to be a gastronomic rest). Oh my god! The food was good but same thing.. the staff. First she come with a basket of selection of bread. We asked her what are the different kinds.. She had no clue!!! The we order 2 vietnamese soups. One with beef and lemongrass and one with seefood. When she bing us the plate the did not know wich one was wich one! And of course she reverse the plate. I am glad I am not allergic to seafood!

We rolled up at the door of this place having arrived in Hue by train. The first thing that happened was we were sat down in the beautifully-designed bar and given lemongrass iced tea to refresh ourselves. Five minutes later we were taken up to our room. To say we were blown away would be an understatement; a huge bed, dark hardwood floor with inlaid tiles, french doors opening onto a massive balcony looking over the river... the more we explored, the better it got. One sweet touch was the scattered rose petals on the bed, biscuits hand-iced with "Mr" and "Mrs", and a card of congratulations from the management after we had mentioned to the receptionist we were on our honeymoon.

The building itself is stunning, the French art-deco design giving the whole site a unique historical feel. Roaming the tiled corridors or strolling through the fragrant riverside gardens, one can well imagine the opulent luxury in which Vietnam's colonial rulers surrounded themselves. It's almost as much a museum as it is a hotel.

The staff were polite, charming, attentive and helpful. The only exception to this was the "travel concierge" desk, which is effectively a branch of one of the tacky package holiday companies and was a bit too keen to sell us trips, tours and book us in to mediocre hotels in other places. Far better to do your own research and make your own bookings using the free internet terminals in the next room down the hall!

We only ate in the restaurant at breakfast, the buffet being extensive and packed with nice fresh fruit, pastries, good cooked options and cold cuts.

Other reviews here talk about the location being a little out of the way. This is perhaps half true - it's about a ten minute walk to the middle of things down a pleasant street following the river. If that's too arduous there are always rickshaws and motorbikes touting outside the gates, otherwise the hotel will rent bikes, which can be a great way to get around if the heat doesn't get you. Whichever way, the position was certainly not inconvenient for us.

All in all, I have to recommend this hotel about as highly as any I have stayed in. It's not cheap and so it's right to have high standards, but there was very little that did not surpass my expectations. I can't wait to find an excuse to go back!

It was very rainy when we stayed here, so we didn't get to enjoy the great views we had. If you can, stay in a room with a view of the Perfume river, it's very pretty. The room itself was very nice, although nothing special. The double doors to the bathroom added a nice touch, although we're still wondering why they provide bath salts when all we had was a stand up shower.

The rest of the hotel is very clean and the staff was very nice (I found that if you stay in nicer hotels in Vietnam the staff is generally above average). We actually sent out some shoes to be cleaned that we thought were destroyed with water and mud and they came back 3 hours later in better condition than they were before the trip.

The restaurant was very good and had a nice mix of Vietnamese and French food. It was very reasonably priced too.

It wasn't the best place we stayed at, but it was perfectly nice. I would recommend this place.

We thought La Residence was decent, but a bit on the stiff and formal side. Everything about the room was fine, except the shower needed constant adjusting because the water temperature kept changing. Experienced travelers know that this is a common third-world issue even at 5-star hotels, so we weren't too bothered by it. We were taken aback by the lack of a hotel shop where people could purchase routine necessities like shaving cream, batteries, etc. Naturally there is a shop for high-end scarves and souvenirs. But there are adequate vending stands right across the street. The shopkeepers know enough English numbers to conclude a transaction, and better they should get your money than the hotel.