Anise Hotel Hanoi

Excellent "boutique" hotel. The staff were extremely helpful and very well organised.

Stayed for 3 nights at start of Vietnam tour. Located at edge of Old City but walking difficult with the heavy traffic. Room faced an inner Courtyard and so noise not a problem. Good breakfast starting at 6:00 with eggs cooked to order. Ask for map at Reception.

An extensive spread was provided at breakfast which could be enjoyed with excellent views of the city from the 11th floor. The breakfast staff were highly attentive. My standard room was pretty standard; a view re-enforced by a sneak look at the delux room next door. The hotel has a small gym which I found useful; it also has computers for use free of charge that I found invaluable. The hotel is on a busy road but being on high floor will mean that you escape the noise. It is about a 20 minute walk through the old quarter to the lake in the city centre. My word of caution would be about booking tours through the hotel - the reception staff are very good at "selling" the tours, but going directly to the office (APT Travel, 5 Hang Chieu Street) of the same tour company that they use saved me a third of the price that the hotel were going to charge. The tour company itself is very good with high quality tour buses (comfy seats and eefective air conditioning), though the guides vary a little (I went on two tours one with a good guide and the other where the guide did not say very much). The other caution is about currency, I had some money to pay when I left (for one of the tours and the taxi from the airport) and even though I said I wanted to pay in Vietnam Dong, the receptionist charged my card with American Dollars. So all in all, consider going for a delux room, do not book tours through the hotel and careful about the currency they charge you in.

A great hotel; fantastic standard for the bargain price- and breakfast is included.

We stayed here based on other recommedations. Staff were nice and immediately upgraded us from standard room to deluxe. We were stoked with this until we saw the difference in room, which was really no difference. The room smelt of stale cigarettes, and the bathroom not much better. The breakfast was ok, limited variety whilst we were there. We still had one more night in Hanoi and decided to move hotels as this one gave a cold dark feel.

We stayed at hotel Anise on the first night of our honeymoon in Vietnam. When said about the 'honeymoon' they very nicely upgraded us to park view suite with balcony that overlooked small park across the road. It was also a great place to see the madness of the traffic and all the mopeds on street below! They also had nice rose petals scatted on our bed on arrival. Even though we were on the front street, we only vaguely heard the sound of traffic from our bedroom as windows/doors were well insulated and I think we must have been up around the 6th or 7th floor. We also booked our boat trip to Halong bay when arrived to hotel (night before trip) -Halong Phoenix cruiser-which we were well pleased with. Also hotel mentioned to boat company about us being a honeymoon couple and once again found rose petals on bed on arrival on boat and complimentary bottle of wine. Staff were all very friendly and breakfast which is served on top floor -overlooking city -was excellent with a great variety of food. We were just about a 15min walk (slow walking as it's pretty difficult to walk too fast around Hanoi with all the traffic madness!) from the main central area of Hanoi with the big park in middle and variety of restaurants.