Sea & Sand Hotel Hoi An

Sea Star Hotel was a strange place. First, we were quite satisfied with it. Rooms were clean, albeit dark (on the ground floor), the staff was friendly, prices were alright (8$ for a double). We had originally planned to stay for 2 nights and then look for something new, but as we got lazy, we just extended our stay there. In the last night, however, the trouble started. When we were going to bed, the face of one of the hotel staff appeared at a little window above our door, spying into the room! We caught the voyeur and presented him to the receptionist first, later also to the hotel manager who both did not believe our version (voyeur spying into our room), but rather the guy's version (he needed to catch a gecko sitting on the ceiling just above our door). The rest of the night we spent in long discussions - but at least got a discount in the end. As it remained unclear whether this scene had any consequences for the voyeur, or whether it was the first time something like this happened at Sea Star Hotel, I would not recommend this place to other tourists. Especially the unprofessional reactions of the staff, i.e. not believing the pissed off tourist but rather the voyeur who was caught in the act and their attempts to prevent anything that could harm their hotel (such as forbidding me to talk about the incident), makes my judgment about the hotel a very negative one. Rooms for 8$ can be found all over Hoi An, so it's easier to go somewhere else where the staff don't spy at their guests!

Unique Quality: none

Directions: close to the junction of Cua Dai and Pham Hong Thai

This place is alright. The bus dropped us off here so we just decided to stay. The rooms upstairs are bright, sunny, and clean. You get a fan, tv, fridge, and bathroom for $10. Of course it was only when we moved downstairs to the dodgy A/C room that we found out our upstairs neighbors across the hall from us were paying the same $10 for their room with their A/C turned on.
Our downstairs room was not that bad. It's a bit smaller, there's no fridge, it smells of mildew and outside the window there's a stinky trashcan. That of course doesn't matter if you have the windows shut and the A/C on.
Unfortunately for us, we came home one night and the power was out only at our guest house. In fact, it was out all night long. It was the hottest night I've spent in SE Asia in the 8 months I've travelling. We had to keep the window open so of course it smelled real bad and I'm not even going to mention the mosquitos. Terrible. Nearly everyone checked out and got their money back. We stayed because all of our stuff was unpacked and the lady at the front desk told us that we'd be charged only $5 that night so we stayed. However, the next morning she tried to make us pay $8 instead. We didn't of course but non the less it wa irritating.
This place is fine if you feel like the bargaining the price with the ladies. And also if the power doesn't go out.

Unique Quality: The staff is smiley but still a bit dodgy when it comes to the price of things.

It is a ok hotel good location, our problem was we went down for breakfast (which is very average) before we went down we counted our money as we do every morning to plan the day, came back up and realized 600,000 dong was missing out of our money belt that we stupidly left in the room, we looked door so only staff had access to room.We went down to reception staff spoke to manager and she tried to tell us that we had the key so the cleaning staff wouldn't have been able to get in, funny that, we stayed 3 nights already and we went out every day and when we return our room was cleaned..... so they do have access to room. We told the manager we dont care who took it, we said we are going out for 2 hours and when we return we expect our money to be returned in our room. We got back NO money returned and room cleaned. (we had key with us) so be warned a thief operates in this hotel.

Unique Quality: Pool is tiny and right on the road, staff not friendly, i would say stay at your own risk...