Sheraton Nha Trang: Reviews, Breakfast Price, Pool, Club Lounge and Airport Transfers

1. What Sheraton Nha Trang actually is

It is a thirty-storey tower standing in the middle of Tran Phu, the road that runs along the Nha Trang seafront. It opened in 2010 and has a little under 300 rooms.

People arriving for the first time often assume it is the biggest hotel in town, because the brand is big. It is not. Nha Trang has several hotels with three or four times as many rooms. This one sits in the middle of the pack by size.

What it does have is position. It is close enough to walk into town and close enough to walk to the sand, and for most of what you will want to do in Nha Trang you will not need to call a car.

The basics

The room count is deliberately vague here. The hotel only ever says “280 rooms and suites”, and the booking sites disagree with each other by a handful either way. It makes no difference to your stay.

2. First, a warning: Vietnam has five Sheratons

People book the wrong one. This is not a hypothetical.

There are two in Hanoi alone, plus one each in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang and Hai Phong. The names are close enough that search results blur together, and if you search without the city you will land on a different one.

The ones that get confused

The Da Nang one causes the most trouble. It has “Grand” and “Beach Resort” in the name and it is a completely different kind of place: a wide low-rise resort with a long pool, where you need a car to reach anything. The Nha Trang one is a city tower.

Checking the address for Tran Phu on the booking screen settles it in one glance.

The two in Hanoi are pulled apart in our Hanoi neighbourhood guide.

3. The InterContinental is literally next door

Tran Phu is a wall of hotels. The province alone lists more than thirty rated ones on this single road.

The Sheraton is at number 26-28. The InterContinental is at 32-34, which is a few seconds walk. Havana is a little further along, then the Novotel, then the Muong Thanh.

Who is on the strip

So, Sheraton or InterContinental

Most people comparing Nha Trang five-stars end up on these two. They are the same rating, almost the same size, a few doors apart, and they trade in the same price band.

The difference is temperament. The InterContinental is the quieter, tidier one. The Sheraton has more going on, which also means more people in the lifts and at breakfast. If you have children, or you want the rooftop bar, the Sheraton makes more sense. If you want to be left alone, the InterContinental does.

Havana is a different proposition again. It is far bigger, close to a thousand rooms, so the lobby and the breakfast room get busy. It is also cheaper.

Whichever you pick, the relationship with the sea is identical. All three are across the road from it.

4. The sea is across the road

The property does not touch the sand. Tran Phu runs between the hotel and the beach.

The hotel says the beach is a two minute walk, and that is about right, though waiting to cross can add to it. If you read “beachfront” and pictured stepping out of the lobby onto sand, it is worth adjusting that picture now.

This is not particular to the Sheraton. Every hotel on this stretch is in the same position. The beach is public and the road runs in front of it, so nobody on Tran Phu has a private beach. For sand that belongs to the hotel you have to go out to Cam Ranh or across to the islands.

What you get on the sand

The hotel keeps a small set of umbrellas and loungers in one section of the public beach for its guests. It is a modest number, so on a busy afternoon in high season there may be nothing free. Take a towel down with you.

The beach itself is open to everyone, hotel guest or not. If you wanted quiet and private, this is the trade. On the other hand it is lively, and there is always something happening.

What the beach is actually like

The sand is fine and the water is usually clear. It is not a flat bay, though, so on some days there is surf. When it is rough the flags go up, and a red flag means stay out.

Hawkers come along selling drinks and fruit. Ask the price before you take anything. People will also offer massages on the sand; a clear no is enough.

For a shower afterwards it is easier to walk back to the hotel. It is one road crossing, so something to throw over your swimsuit is all you need.

How the different stretches of Nha Trang beach compare is in our Nha Trang guide.

5. The hotel is organised by floor

The quickest way to understand this hotel is to look at which floor things are on. Nothing is in one place; it is stacked.

The water and the children are low. The pool and the kids club are on six, the gym is on seven. The lounge and the bar are high: the Club Lounge on 25, the rooftop bar on 28.

Floor by floor

You will use the lift a lot. Breakfast, then the pool, then up to the bar in the evening is several trips in a day. It is not a hardship, but it is a different rhythm from a resort where everything opens onto the same garden.

Whether the spa is on seven or eight depends on the source. The hotel says eight; other listings say it spans both. Ask at the desk.

6. The pool is on the sixth floor

The pool sits outdoors on level six, partway up the building rather than at ground level.

The far edge is open towards the sea, so from in the water the surface and the bay line up. When people talk about this hotel, the pool is the thing that comes up first. For what the pool and the rest of the hotel actually look like, the photo set on Trip.com is the quickest way.

There is a separate childrens pool and a whirlpool on the same level, which is a convenient arrangement with small children: shallow water, deep water and the kids club all within sight of each other. The kids club takes ages four to twelve and runs all year.

The pool bar is up here too, open from morning to early evening, so you can eat without drying off.

On the loungers

This is the recurring complaint. There are not many loungers for the number of rooms, and on a busy morning towels appear on them early. Come down late and you may not get one.

The pool is also not large. Arriving from a resort with a two hundred metre pool, it will feel small. What it has instead is the edge and the view over the bay.

Opening hours

The hotel adjusts pool hours by season rather than publishing a fixed time, so check at the desk when you arrive. The pool bar runs from early morning to early evening.

7. Breakfast: pay for it, or take a Club room

This is the decision that actually changes your stay. Breakfast is often not in the room rate.

When you book, the rate that appears first is frequently the one without breakfast. Take it as it comes and you will be paying every morning at the restaurant. For an adult it is not a small amount, and across several nights it adds up.

Two ways to handle it

Club rooms cost more. In exchange breakfast is covered and the lounge is open to you through the day and into the evening. For two people over several nights who would have bought a drink in the evening anyway, the numbers get close, and sometimes the Club room wins. Travelling alone and eating out in the morning, there is no reason to pay up.

Marriott Bonvoy members at the higher tiers get lounge access as part of the membership. If that is you, check what your tier gives before you pay for it twice.

The breakfast prices you see are the ones quoted on the booking screen, and the walk-in buffet price at the restaurant can differ. Confirm the figure where you book.

8. Where to eat and drink in the building

There are five outlets. A buffet restaurant, a Cantonese one, a cafe that turns into a wine bar, the rooftop bar and a pool bar.

The Cantonese restaurant closes between lunch and dinner, so an odd-hours visit will find it shut.

The cafe runs straight through from early morning until late, which makes it the useful one when you just want a coffee or something small.

If a name you read about is missing

Search this hotel and you will find write-ups mentioning Toastina, Connexions or The Wine Bar. None of those appear in the hotel's current dining listing. They are older reviews that have stayed online.

Hotel outlets get renamed often. The table above is what the hotel lists now, and it is worth a glance before you plan an evening around a particular restaurant.

9. The seafood buffet in the evening

After breakfast, this is the thing people come to the hotel for. The same buffet room runs a seafood dinner.

Seafood is laid out on ice and you help yourself, with things like oysters and scallops cooked and brought to the table. The standard version includes a whole lobster per person.

There are several versions

Same buffet, quite different prices depending on what you book. Drop the lobster and it comes down; add free-flow drinks and it goes up; go unlimited on the lobster and it roughly doubles.

Service charge and tax are added on top, so the headline figure is not the final one. Check the total at the point of booking.

Book ahead

It fills on some nights, and there is a last entry time, so arriving late leaves you short of eating time. You can book with the hotel directly or pick a package in advance through a booking site. You can compare the packages and prices in advance on KKday.

Marriott Bonvoy members sometimes get a two-for-one offer on this. Worth checking if you are a member.

The buffet hours are not the same as the restaurant's general dinner hours, and the two sources do not agree. Confirm the time for your date when you book.

Cheaper ways to eat seafood in this city are in our Nha Trang food guide. In town it costs a fraction of this.

10. Going up to the bar on 28

Altitude is the part of this hotel people talk about most. It opens mid-afternoon and runs to midnight.

It is one of the higher bars in Nha Trang, with the town and the coastline laid out below, and it fills up as the sun drops. For a table at that hour, call ahead.

Before you go up

The dress code is smart casual, so coming straight up from the pool will not work. Leave the flip-flops and swimwear in the room.

It is open air, so weather matters. In rain or high wind the seating shrinks or it closes.

You do not have to be staying here. If you are in Nha Trang and want one evening somewhere high up, this is one of the options.

The rest of the options are in our guide to Nha Trang after dark.

11. The cooking school on six

There is a room in this hotel built for teaching people to cook. It is on the sixth floor, across from the pool.

It is understood to be the first purpose-built hotel cooking school in Vietnam: not a function room borrowed for the afternoon or a corner of the kitchen, but a space made for the class.

A session runs about half a day and includes a trip to the market. You choose the ingredients first and cook them afterwards, which is how most Vietnamese cooking classes are structured, and the market part is usually the bit people enjoy.

Prices and the days it runs are not fixed on the hotel's public pages. If you want to do it, ask at check-in, and give a day or two of notice since classes may need a minimum number.

It is also a good wet-weather plan. It is indoors and it fills half a day, which is useful when the sea is not an option.

Vietnam's cooking-class capital is Hoi An, where there are far more of them at a wider range of prices. Our Hoi An cooking class guide is worth comparing before you decide where to do this.

12. Spa and gym

The spa is upstairs and is called Shine Spa. It has nine treatment rooms.

Being a hotel spa, it costs more than the street. Nha Trang is well known for cheap massage, so plenty of people go out for their daily one and keep the hotel spa for a single treatment.

There is also a large indoor whirlpool, which earns its keep on days when the weather has closed the sixth-floor pool.

The gym is on seven and open around the clock, with the bay through the glass. If jet lag has you awake at five, that is useful.

13. Rooms

The rooms split into standard rooms, Club rooms and suites.

The names on the booking screen are long and confusing at first. “Ocean View”, “High Floor” and “Club Lounge Access” are each telling you one thing: whether you see the sea, whether you are high up, and whether the lounge is included.

What to look at

Sea-facing comes first. Most people are here for the view and ocean-view is close to standard, but the cheaper rooms can look inland.

Height comes second. A low ocean-view room takes in the building opposite and the road as well; a high one is mostly water. If the price gap is small, go up.

The lounge comes third, which is the breakfast decision from earlier.

For more space there are suites and apartment-style rooms, including two-bedroom ones that work for a family. The hotel only gives approximate sizes, so ask before booking if exact square metres matter to you.

What the rooms are like

Light beige, wooden furniture, a lot of glass so you rarely need the lights during the day. Rain showers in the bathrooms, and a whirlpool tub in the higher categories.

Rooms are quicker to look at than to read about, though. Window size and bed layout change by category, and the same ocean view is a different thing on a high floor. Room-by-room photos and the rate for your dates are all on Trip.com.

About the balconies

Most rooms have one. They are narrow and there is nowhere to sit, so if you were picturing a morning coffee out there, that is not how it works.

The hotel puts this down to safety in a tall building. The shape is not a neat rectangle either, tapering at one end, so it is somewhere to stand rather than somewhere to stay.

If outdoor sitting matters to you, know this going in. The pool deck and the bar are where that happens here instead.

14. What you can walk to

Location is the strongest thing this hotel has. Nha Trang is compact and most of it is walkable from here.

The beach is across the road and a large supermarket is a few minutes south, which is handy for water and snacks.

The cathedral is about fifteen minutes northwest on foot, a stone church up on a rise, and there is nothing to pay to go in. Dam Market is a similar distance. Go to the market in the morning if you want to see it working.

Long Son Pagoda is further, close to half an hour walking, which is too much in the middle of the day. Po Nagar and the hot springs are not walking distance at all.

Rough distances

The sun is strong in the middle of the day and short distances get long. Walk in the morning and the evening and call a car in between.

If you have not worked out what to do yet, our things to do in Nha Trang splits it into half-days and full days.

15. This hotel in the wet season

Nha Trang gets its rain in autumn and early winter. Come then and what you can use here changes.

The pool is outdoors. Rain makes it unusable and strong wind can close it for safety. The rooftop bar is the same: open air, so weather-dependent.

The beach goes the same way. On a rough day the flags go up and swimming stops, and the hotel packs away its umbrellas.

What survives is indoors. The spa and the gym run regardless, the cooking school is inside, and so are the Cantonese restaurant and the cafe. For half a day stuck in a hotel, this is not a bad one to be stuck in.

Rates drop in this period too, so the same room is cheaper than in high season. If you can take the weather, there is a real saving.

Which months are wettest is broken down in our Nha Trang rainy season guide.

16. Getting in from the airport

You arrive at Cam Ranh and drive up. The airport is a fair way from town.

It sits well south of the city rather than beside it, and the drive follows the coast road, which at least makes it a pleasant one.

The hotel will send a car if you ask. There is a set price each way and it costs more than arranging it yourself. Arriving late at night, or with children and luggage, it can be worth it. There is no scheduled shuttle bus.

Buses, taxis and ride-hailing all cover this route as well. We have written that leg up on its own: see getting from Cam Ranh airport into Nha Trang.

17. Arriving and checking in

Check-in is from three in the afternoon and check-out is at midday.

On a morning flight into Cam Ranh you will not get straight into a room. You can ask for early check-in, but it depends on a room being free and there may be a charge. If it matters, contact the hotel beforehand.

Leave your bags

The desk is staffed around the clock and will hold luggage. Arriving early, drop the bags and go to the beach or into town, then come back in the afternoon. The same works on the last day: out of the room at midday, bags behind the desk, and the evening is yours until the flight.

If you are driving

There is parking on site and guests are not charged for it, which is worth knowing if you are renting a car for part of the trip.

When the desk gets busy

Late afternoon, when a group arrives, there is a queue. Club rooms check in upstairs on 25 and skip it.

18. Staying here with children

One floor covers most of it. The pool, the childrens pool and the kids club are all on six.

The kids club takes ages four to twelve and runs year round, so an off-season trip will not find it shut. Plenty of people leave the children there and go up to the bar.

Breakfast is charged by age. Very young children are free and primary-school ages pay about half the adult rate. The exact cut-offs show on the booking screen.

Things to think about

Getting to the beach means crossing the road, and Tran Phu has steady traffic, so it is a hand-holding crossing. With very small children some people prefer a resort where the sand is inside the property.

The balconies are narrow, as above. Keeping the door locked is the simple answer.

How to choose an area in Nha Trang as a family is covered in our where to stay guide.

19. The honest drawbacks

Only listing the good parts would not help, so here is what comes up repeatedly.

The corridors and lifts are hot

The rooms are cool but the corridors and the lifts are not air-conditioned. Going from your room down to the pool or the lobby you feel it, especially in the middle of the day. It is common in buildings of this age, and guests mention it consistently.

You cannot sit on the balcony

As above. There is a balcony but no seating, and it is narrow.

Loungers run out

There are not enough for a full hotel. In busy periods you need to be down early.

Breakfast divides people

Most say the spread is wide, but there is a recurring note that not much is cooked to order. If you were expecting eggs and waffles made in front of you, it may not match. At peak times you also wait for a table.

It is a busy hotel

This is a full-service city hotel with groups, families and a popular buffet. If you are after a hushed lobby, the quieter neighbours on this road deliver that better.

In-house extras add up

The minibar and the laundry are expensive. There are shops and laundries within a short walk, so unless it is urgent, handle it outside.

20. What to check when you book

The same room shows up with different conditions depending on where you look. A few things to check.

Is breakfast in it

As above. The rate without breakfast tends to surface first. If you picked the cheapest one, assume breakfast is extra.

Which way does it face, and how high

The long room name tells you both. If the gap is small, take the higher sea-facing one. A low sea-facing room includes the building opposite and the road.

Does the lounge come with it

If the room name mentions Club or Lounge, floor 25 is yours. Worth the sums if you plan to eat breakfast and drink in the evening at the hotel.

Can you cancel

Cheaper rates are usually non-refundable. If the trip is not locked in, paying a little more for a flexible rate is the easier night's sleep.

When is it expensive

The dry season from winter into spring is the peak, and Tet and the summer holidays push it up as well. The wet autumn brings it down. Shifting your dates by a few days can move the number noticeably.

Nha Trang prices by area are in our where to stay guide.

What to check on the booking screen

1. See whether breakfast is in the rate. On the cheapest rate it usually is not.
2. See whether the room faces the sea and how high it is. If the gap is small, go up.
3. See whether the room name says Club or Lounge. If it does, floor 25 is yours.
4. See whether it can be cancelled. If the trip is not fixed, pay a little more for flexibility.

21. Who it suits, and who it does not

It suits people who want to be in the city and also want a hotel.

You are in the middle of Nha Trang, so a lot is walkable. Breakfast in the hotel, the day out in town, the evening up on 28 is the pattern that gets the most out of this place. With children, having the pool and the kids club on one floor makes the days easier.

Look elsewhere if

You intend to not leave the resort for several days. The site is not large and the facilities are spread up the building, so a whole day inside gets thin. For gardens, a long pool and sand that belongs to the hotel, look at Cam Ranh or the islands.

The same goes if you want a quiet beach. Tran Phu is busy, there are hawkers, and you can hear the road.

To pick an area first, our Nha Trang where to stay guide goes stretch by stretch. For another tower on the same road see Panorama Nha Trang, and for the island resorts see Vinpearl Nha Trang.

Sheraton Nha Trang: frequently asked questions

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