HOI AN-BLOOMS "BOUTIQUE" VILLAGE

 We had arranged a transfer to our hotel in Hoi an with the grab driver who'd  brought us from the airport at Danang.

He picked us up at 12:30 from the Cafe next door to Senorita hotel (yeah I know),and 40 minutes later (R210) we arrived at Blooms Boutique  hotel.

We've  travelled extensively over the years with booking.com,so I've become pretty expert in choosing our accommodation.

I generally don't  even look at anything scoring below 8,5/10,and ensure that this score was derived from at least hundreds,if not thousands, of reviews.

I've  probably chosen a hundred  (at least) over the past 13 years and had perhaps 5 "lemons".

This one's a lemon!

Not the worst,..but a lemon nevertheless.

I'd  asked for a quiet room in a place scored by a couple of thousand reviewers at an extremely high average score of 9,4. Pretty safe right?

Nope,...about the only redeeming features of our room are the fact that it was unusually large (40 sq m) and turned out to be pretty quiet at night.

At least 3 of the ancient light bulbs had expired and we had them replaced.

The net result has had no advantageous effect. It's like a #$@%ing dungeon in there.

I eventually,...after 2 days without a shave, risked shaving this morning,....in the bedroom as it's marginally lighter,without slitting my throat.

The bath towels are the size of hand towels and pretty threadb are.

We're  on a 1st floor landing and,on returning to the "hotel" last night,Cheryl almost fell on an uneven step leading to our doorway,....none of the light bulbs on the landing were functional.

It has a great pool, but we seem to have a Chinese family staying here who literally take over,and speak (shout?) with megaphone intensity ,so we try to avoid the pool when they're  around.

It's a mystery to me how a place like this obtains these rave reviews?

Blooms looked so good that I had (long ago) booked this place for these 3 nights,... and then another 3 later in our trip.

I always ,if I haven't  yet been to a place,leave adequate room for cancellation.

Needless to say I did exactly this for the second booking around an hour after checking in.

We were at the pool and the owner approached me and asked why we had cancelled,...and would we like to see another room?🤪

Yeah sure,...I just said we'd  changed our plans and managed to get an extension of our booking at our next place ...LIME VILLA.

We'd  stayed there in 2019 and it was awesome,...and actually less costly,... and includes breakfast (this one unusually doesn't).

So we'll  be off to LIME VILLA 2morrow morning for 9 nights which will allow us to settle in,...hire a motorcycle for the duration (R80/day) and explore in detail.