First published May 2020 | Words and photos by Vietnam Coracle
This post was last updated 3 years ago. Please check the comments section for possible updates, or read more on my Updates & Accuracy page.
INTRODUCTION | REVIEW | MAP | RELATED POSTS
A handsome, colonial-style hotel on the banks of the Mekong River, walking distance along a waterfront promenade to the centre of the Mekong Delta’s largest city, Victoria Can Tho Resort is an excellent place to stay. Travellers can base themselves here to explore the city and surrounding countryside, but Victoria Can Tho Resort is also a great refuge for expatriates from Ho Chi Minh City, which is just a short flight or bus journey away. The Victoria Can Tho isn’t a heritage hotel: rather, it’s built to resemble one, an undertaking which, in the wrong hands, might be kitsch and unappealing. But Victoria Hotels (a modest chain with properties in Vietnam and Laos) knows how to do this with taste, style, elegance, and competence. Considering the standard of accommodation and amenities (two swimming pools, a spa, and large tropical gardens among them), room rates at Victoria Can Tho Resort are quite reasonable. Depending on the season (high or low) guests can expect to pay between $50-$100 per night for double occupancy, including a great buffet breakfast. [To check current rates, availability & make a reservation for Victoria Can Tho Resort please BOOK HERE]
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REVIEW: VICTORIA RESORT, CAN THO
Address: Cai Khe Ward, Ninh Kieu District, Can Tho City, Vietnam [MAP]
Average Rates: $65-$100 | Email: reservations@victoriahotels.asia
*Please support Vietnam Coracle: All my reviews are independently researched & financed. I never receive freebies of any sort in exchange for positive reviews or listings. If you use the links on this page to book your accommodation, I make a small commission. All my earnings go straight back into this website. Thank you.
[Click the image below or BOOK HERE]
MAP:
Located just north of Can Tho city centre, in Cai Khe Ward which is separated from the metropolitan area by a channel, the Victoria Can Tho sits at a junction of waterways: the confluence of the Song Hau (one of the main branches of the Mekong River Delta) and the Can Tho River, a smaller tributary.
One of the ‘problems’ about staying in accommodation as handsome and comfy as Victoria Can Tho is that you’ll want to spend most of your time at the resort: wandering through the tropical gardens (with the resort’s own flower compendium), promenading up and down the riverfront – watching the boats come and go at dawn, and the sun dissolving on the horizon at dusk – lingering over breakfast under ceiling fans on the tiled patio, swimming laps in the big pool or bathing in the small one, enjoying a cocktail in the attractive wooden bar during the sunset happy hour, or simply exploring the property with its spiraling staircases, wooden floors, long, light-filled corridors, shaded courtyards, and cosy communal areas. For this reason, I would suggest using the Victoria Can Tho Resort as a ‘treat’: a place to relax after having done your sightseeing in this part of the Delta, rather than as a base from which to explore the city, its waterways, markets, and surrounding fields. The Victoria Can Tho is also a great option for expatriates living in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) as a brief escape from the heat and activity of the southern hub. Frequent and inexpensive bus and air connections make a two- or three-night break at Victoria Can Tho a real possibility, and a relaxing, refreshing respite from Saigon. It’s well worth it and, although Can Tho itself is one of the biggest cities in Vietnam, it’s comparatively calm, quiet, organized and cool, particularly if you’re staying at the Victoria.
Wheels crunch on the pebbled driveway on the approach to the porte-cochère of Victoria Can Tho. The plain yellow ochre facade is enlivened by the exotic shapes of traveller’s palm trees that rise from the gardens splaying their fronds dozens of feet from the ground. Thickets of bamboo grow up around the walls and rustle in the breeze. The Victoria is a chunky, large, solid-looking but attractive building. Its style is faux French-colonial, but it’s impressively conceived and executed: restrained rather than ornate, and everything appears to be very well-made. Constructed in a ‘U-shape’ around a central courtyard opening onto two swimming pools, lush, extensive gardens and the riverfront, the building features lots of wide spaces (many are open-sided and naturally ventilated), polished wooden floorboards, tiled patios, and whitewashed balustrades. It’s a bit functional and heavy from some angles, but handsome and appealing nonetheless.
In general, the Victoria aesthetic chimes well with me – indeed, I expect it does with many European visitors. This is because Victoria plays to the nostalgic, French-colonial aesthetic: the romance of ‘the West in the East’; the familiar and the exotic: European-style architecture and furniture in a tropical, Southeast Asian setting with local motifs. I’m a European (although, I suppose that’s debatable post-Brexit), and I do find this style appealing and enchanting. However, I feel Victoria might want to rethink some of their hotel artwork: a couple of the black-and-white photos adorning the walls show French colons dressed in white suits with pith helmets overseeing their Vietnamese subjects undertaking manual labour on their behalf, for example; and some of the Victoria brand posters portray haughty-looking Europeans standing over a landscape of hardworking ‘natives’. This is pretty disturbing and may cause you to pause for a moment of reflection, especially as you look around and see mostly middle-aged, middle-class Western guests (myself included, of course) being waited on my young, working-class, Vietnamese staff.
The hotel is just two-storeys high. All rooms are arranged off long corridors lit by soft lamps, the sun streaming in through wooden-shuttered windows during the daytime. Indeed, the corridors themselves are nice places to sit, resembling, as they do, the interior hallways of an ocean liner from the golden age of transatlantic sea travel. Suites are the most expensive room option ($100-$120). Featuring more than twice the square footage of Deluxe and Superior rooms, Suites are located at the front of the property, with views taking in the garden, pool, and river from their balconies. Deluxe ($70-$80) and Superior ($60-$70) rooms differ only in their views: the former look over the courtyard and pool towards the riverfront (hidden by foliage), and the latter look out to the sides over the tropical gardens.
Superior and Deluxe rooms are neatly arranged, nicely appointed, and comfortable. The furnishings are quite elegant with a general European feel, but with Vietnamese flourishes here and there, such as colourful textile sashes on the beds. The decor isn’t fancy or stylish, but its restrained, tasteful and coherent. All rooms have several table lamps generating soft, ambient lighting, as well as natural light during the day. Every room has a decent-sized balcony on which to sit out and enjoy the views. Although the rooms are spacious enough, bathrooms are a bit cramped, mainly because each one has a bathtub jammed into it. Personally, I love a bathtub in my hotel room, but perhaps in this particular case a shower cubicle would have been sufficient. Each night, turndown service leaves a chocolate on your pillow and a scroll with a short Vietnamese folk tale.
However, more impressive than the rooms at Victoria Can Tho, are the communal spaces inside and outside the resort. There are two swimming pools, both of which are attractive and good for bathing or swimming laps (the bigger of the two is around 20m in length). The large and airy reception area is open on all sides with a lovely, cool through-breeze, and leads onto the main courtyard where the pools are. The bar – a handsome, wooden affair, like something out of Toulouse-Lautrec painting – occupies one corner of the courtyard, with a pool table, darts board, and covered patio with stylish wooden chairs and poolside seating too. This is a great venue for cocktails or a snack in the late afternoon (there’s a sunset happy hour). The elegant restaurant fronts the garden, with inside and outside seating. A little quiet and echoey at dinnertime, the restaurant is really wonderful at breakfast, when the birds are singing in the trees and the boats are chugging on the river. In the large, riverfront garden, copperpods, flame trees, casuarinas, and tropical fruit trees dot the lawns, providing shade throughout the day. Tiled pathways lead through the foliage and out to the public riverside walkway – a lovely place to stroll in the early mornings or at dusk.
Although the Victoria exists in its own little bubble, it’s connected to central Can Tho via a pleasant 10-minute walk due southwest along the embankment promenade, which is accessed directly from the resort’s gardens. This paved walkway leads along the waterfront, via a modern bridge resembling a lotus flower, to Can Tho’s riverside markets, restaurants, shops, boat piers, and tourist centre. Alternatively, you can walk the embankment promenade in the opposite direction from the resort, which will take you along the banks of the Hau River – one of the largest branches of the Mekong – from where you can look downstream to the impressive Can Tho suspension bridge or upstream to the jungled banks and cargo boats negotiating the current, as well as a fair few industrial zones. The Victoria also has many local excursions for guests to choose from. [To check current rates, availability & make a reservation for Victoria Can Tho Resort please BOOK HERE].
*Please support Vietnam Coracle: All my reviews are independently researched & financed. I never receive freebies of any sort in exchange for positive reviews or listings. If you use the links on this page to book your accommodation, I make a small commission. All my earnings go straight back into this website. Thank you.
Disclosure: I never receive payment for anything I write: my content is always free & independent. I’ve written this review because I want to: I like this resort & I want my readers to know about it. For more details, see my Disclosure & Disclaimer statements here
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