We booked 8 nights at the Aonang Goodwill, because it has a great reputation on this website. Imagine our surprise when we were were picked up at the airport by Goodwill, and then driven to this place, Aonang Smile. The same owner owns both properties and said Goodwill was fully booked (never mind that we booked 3 months early!) so we had to stay here. With all of our luggage, and it being peak season (we arrived on Christmas Eve) what could we do? It wasn't an obvious dump, so we checked in.
The first day sucked. There was no hot water, the wifi was down for more than a day (we wanted to talk to our families on Christmas!), the room was full of mosquitoes, the neighboring hotel was loud, and the room had a major ant infestation. Like hundreds of ants marching right into our fridge!
The room is very basic. That's okay sometimes if it's clean, but bug-ridden is not clean in my books. The furniture and TV are old and unattractive, but the bed is comfortable and the AC works well. The location is pretty close to the beach, so we were happy about that.
When we checked out we were annoyed once again by the amateurish staff. We had booked a taxi to the airport for 10:15, but the taxi driver wasn't available until 10:30. The staff didn't bother telling us this information. When it was time to pay the bill we were told that we had to go up to the Aonang Goodwill to pay it! So we're checking out to catch a flight and they don't tell us our cab would be late OR that we have to go 10 minutes up the road and back to pay our bill. It was ridiculous. We had a flight to catch. If they'd told us this the night before we could have taken care of it no problem.
The worst part was coming home to find out that the hotel had charged our credit card three times for the stay! The hotel could have been fine as a very basic place to stay, but the amateur staff really affect your stay too much. With all that, I'd say for a little over $50 a night (or $150 if those charges don't get refunded!) it was our most unimpressive and the most expensive room of our 3-week southeast Asia trip... you could find something better... or at least something better run!
