Pon Arena Hotel

We stayed only 1 night at the hotel as we were visiting the Island as part of our tour. This is considered the best on the island and i know it's not 5 star but nonetheless it could have been better for its cleanliness, food and service. The Good Parts: Nice Pool, View from our room and Pool of Mekong and the sunrise and sunset was wonderfull. The hotel overlooks with an unobstructed view of the Mekong. The Rooms were Large - but for best views i would take room on top floor ( which we had) . Some of the not so great parts: The room on first appreances looked clean - but we found dust on several items in the room, and there were dead insects in places in the room, especially near windows and coners of the room, The Bathroom had a dead cockroach which my wife had to get a staff to come pick up - staff attitude was severally lacking in apology for it. The balcony had such great views but was dirty with bird droppings like it had not been cleaned for several days. Even though we enjoyed the view this uncleanliness spoilt the enjoyment. We found a number of restaurant staff would ignore you till they saw the hotel manager or the Restaurant manager. There is little or nothing to around the hotel so you ended up with eating at the hotel, but the food was just ok nothing great. The Breakfast buffet was ok and no complaints on it, This hotel with some due care and attention and better service from the staff could be a wonderful hotel, it has magnificent views.

I realise that this is by no means a 5 star hotel, but what I would expect regardless of stars is somewhere clean, good food and good customer service from friendly staff. Sadly this was lacking in all these areas. The good The pool was lovely and overlooked the Mekong The rooms were large and ask for one on top floor for best views The not so good The duvet was wedged between two sheets, rather than duvet cover - whilst the sheets were clean the duvet was stained. The staff seem to lack leadership from management and lacked basic customer service training. They didn’t smile, some ignored you when you said hello (in Lao), didn’t clean plates away, you had to ask for cutlery and at busy breakfast times did not keep an eye on coffee machine (that kept running out of water) or replacing other items like milk, fruit etc. One morning we were woken at 6am by staff clearing away tables of plates of food left on tables from night before. Hate to think what animals had been on table overnight eating left overs. The room smelt of bonfire all the time and you were limited to 1 small bottle of water for 2 people. The towels did not smell fresh and were stained. Outside the sun beds had no cushions and were very uncomfortable. We ate only one night in restaurant and the Food was not great so we ate at the family restaurant just up the road whose food and customer service was first class.