Villa Grange in Phnom Penh

Difficult one this! Overall it was fine and has potential. Nice large room, big bed and clean though could do with a lick of paint all round.Friendly, helpful staff- the general manager was a nice chap and great English breakfast available. However, the owner and what seemed to be his friends, middle aged blokes, seemed to gather round reception entrance all day which is right next to the pool. Their constant presence was uncomfortable and made use of what could be a nice pool out of the question as you would feel constantly “observed”. Have to mention too that on one morning we saw an elderly chap walking a young Cambodian lady out of the hotel to a waiting scooter which bought a decidedly seedy feel to what should be a nice hotel.

Let me start with positives first, the location of this hotel is spot on it’s very central to the royal palace, the busy river area and the beautiful and lively parks. The staff are attentive and polite especially Sothea who is real gem of a lady and a hard working one woman band. Breakfast was nice albeit the service was a bit slow and we ate once in the hotel and the pizza we ordered was really well made. Our room was large and had a balcony which was good to sit out on at night and have a couple of drinks. Making up the room was a bit haphazard there seemed to be no routine, it certainly wasn’t done on a daily basis and to us it was almost when the maid fancied doing it. Our two main areas of concern centre around the pool and the bar area. When we booked this hotel it was based upon the reviews relating to the tranquility of the above area, maybe we were unlucky but the pool is open to non residents who can either pay a fee or purchase food and use the pool. The pool is relatively small and has very little loungers to sit on and a number of days we had the misfortune of it being overrun by young families with lots of kids. Don’t get me wrong I love to see kids enjoy themselves but we simply could not use the pool, this coupled with the lack of loungers meant we had no option to just go to our room. The biggest issue we have is that the bar seems to be frequented by a number of ex pat Americans who work/live in Phnom Penh. There were 2 occasions where this group were present and on both occasions they were extremely inebriated and as the time wore on they came increasingly loud using real choice language and almost verging on aggression with each other. There was only poor Sothea on duty trying to pour others drink and generally manage the area. The Americans were so bad we retired to our room. This hotel needs to decide what it wants to be, a hotel geared up for tourists or an establishment where you welcome anyone in, in our opinion the two are not compatible.