Where to stay in Luang Prabang: 3 Hotel Reviews

Luang Prabang city center is relatively small. The area is located between the two rivers. The one up north is Mae Khong River, and the river in the south is Mae Khan River. Both rivers are beautiful and serene. In this trip, my friend and I decided to stay at 3 different hotels with different locations because we were curious to know which location is the best spot of the town to linger around. We booked our rooms via Booking.com and Agoda.com. Here are my personal reviews. Before you are going to read, I would like to ask you to contemplate these comments by your own. This was my experience as of February 2013 and it could be different from yours or anyone else’s. All conditions could have changed and improved.

Villa Nagara

Address: Ban Vat San, Soukkasem Rd., Luang Prabang 06000

Pic: Villa Nagara, Luang Prabang

From Luang Prabang airport, we bought a ticket for an airport shuttle service. The airport itself is not far from the city center. You just need to go a bit further to across the new concrete bridge which would take a round 15-20 minutes to get the center.

What I like about Villla Nagara:

• Location near city center and nice surrounding areas.
• They have 7 beautiful rooms in different colors and decoration styles. All complementary in your room such as cans of coke, beer Laos, water, tea, coffee are free of charge. 
• They have an open terrace to run their restaurant where you can overlook the Khan River runs through before your eyes. This terrace is one of the best spot of town to have such a wonderful view.
• Free breakfast. You can choose to have American style breakfast, Thai omelet with steamed rice, or Laos boiled rice with side dishes.
• Wonderful staff who were really friendly and helpful, although I think that all Laos people in general are really nice and would behave like these kind people. 
• Free bicycle with a lock.

What I think they should improve:

This place is really perfect to have a great stay from my view. However, I have some inconvenience with wifi connection which would get stuck every 3 minutes and I had to use another login. Hope they fix this thing out soon. Another point is that the place is pricey for me while I always wish to budget my trip and keep cost down. As far as I know, there are many guesthouses and hotels in Luang Prabang. You can choose to pay whatever prices that you feel comfortable with and it could be ten times cheaper than this one. For a guesthouse, the price starts at $10. A beautiful hotel with nice location, the price is wary depending on how luxurious they are and quality of their services.
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Villa Meuang Laos

Address: Ban Pakham , Luang Prabang Laos, 06000

Pic: Villa Meuang Laos

 What I like about Villa Meuang Laos:

• To compare with the price, this hotel is somewhat cheap because the accommodation itself is quite nice and clean. It is also located near a morning market behind National Museum as well as it is easy to go to city center, night market, and get access to Mae Khong River.
• Wonderful staff. They helped us making so many calls for making a restaurant reservation, contacting our taxi driver, and even kind enough to call another hotel to pick up us at their address.

What I think they should improve:

I just think that they should have offered breakfast and provided free bicycles to be more attractive to customers. Anyway, I really like the place due to the price and its excellent location. Not to have a bicycle, on the other hand, is good because you don’t have to worry about where to park your bicycle or double checks for a good lock. Not to have breakfast is good too as long as I still want to explore the city in early morning, sipping hot coffee at a cool cafe, and try breakfast menus in a nice restaurant.
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My dream Resort

Address: Ban Meung Nga Village, Meung Nga Street Luang Prabang 85671

Pic: My Dream Resort, Luang Prabang

My Dream Resort's Garden and Mae Khan River

What I like about My Dream Resort:

• This fantastic mid-range hotel is really a jewel, beautiful and very neat. It was really perfect for my wonderful vacation. They provided us with almost everything that fitted well with our needs.
• They have a swimming pool, free delicious breakfast, free bicycles, fast wifi, seasonal fruits like apples, banana, and oranges in your own rooms, free airport shuttles, as well as they could arrange a van to pick you or send you somewhere in the city center.
• Very polite, friendly, and helpful staff.

What I think they should improve:

Although the location is not too far, it is located on the other side of Mae Khan River. It was quite difficult to find the place on the first day of my trip. From the main road (Meung Nga Road), you can access their property by using a small alley which even local people don’t have any idea how to tell you direction. Thus, I think some hotel’s signs would help. When it gets dark, it may be hard to walk back from the city center by using the bamboo bridge to across Mae Khan River. However, one good thing about their location is that you can get the airport within 8-10 minutes.

The following pictures are my tentative itinerary for this trip which I will write on the next post.