Alma Resort Cam Ranh is a resort in Vietnam that is so huge that it is like a city in itself. Spread across 30 hectares of ocean front land it has almost 600 rooms, 12 pools and 6 restaurants and their own food court and mini mart. Last year it also won the #9 resort in the world and the #1 best resort in South East Asia. Come along as we stay in one of the ocean front pavilions and try what the resort has to offer.
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Although I've been to Nha Trang twice, this is my first time to Cam Ranh. This area in the South Central coast of Vietnam has gorgeous sandy white beaches, upmarket hotels and a very relaxed atmosphere to it. Cam Ranh is a bit more laid back sister area next to busy Nha Trang in Vietnam. Alma Resort is also just a 15 minute drive from Cam Ranh airport.
Alma Resort's lobby is buzzing with families and couples when we arrive - with 580 suites and pavilions things get busy here. Its size reminds me a lot of Hawaii with the large acreage, rolling lawns and the sheer number of guests and rooms. There are 12 outdoor pools, 5 restaurants, 4 bars, a spa, gym, mini golf course pro golf simulator, tennis, basketball and pickle ball, yoga, meditation and watersports. There is literally no reason to leave the hotel. If you're looking for a place to "flop and drop" then sign up here.
Alma Resort is also a popular hotel choice with families because of their kids activities, science museum, cinema, splash water park, kid's club, youth club and karaoke rooms. Some of these are free like the cinema but others like the golf simulator and karaoke are chargeable. And even if you are like us and don't have kids, the size of the hotel means that you don't really see much of them and can enjoy a peaceful couple's retreat.
The Rooms/Pavilions
Alma Resort has been open since December 29, 2019. While the hotel has two main curved, semicircular buildings, we are staying in one of the beachfront pavilions or villas. There are three rows of pavilions: beach view, resort view and beachfront. The ground floor pavilions all have their own pools and we are staying in a 3 Bedroom Suite Pavilion 143. It's gloriously expansive and opens out onto the lounge, dining room and kitchen with full sized fridge with complimentary mini bar.
There's coffee and tea making station and a dining room that can seat 6 people. There is also a second full bathroom and three bedrooms. The modular lounge is comfortable and is located in front of the flat screen tv.
The main bedroom is simply furnished and has a king sized bed with soft, smooth sheets and soft, downy pillows. We had a great night's sleep on both nights. The aircon is separate for each room and is a little quirky - if you turn it off it sometimes it will turn itself back on.
The bathroom has a large, standalone soaking bathtub and dual sinks with a comprehensive amenity kit. The shower has a monsoon head as well as a massage head.
Wifi is fast and free throughout the entire resort. Sometimes things can go awry in a resort this size. A request for milk for coffee is met with a suggestion to buy it in the shop or order it from room service. But other than that one thing, it's an amazingly well run resort that somehow, despite its enormous size, runs like clockwork thanks to the 900 or so staff that work here every day.
The Restaurants
Atlantis
Atlantis is their most popular restaurant, not just because it is set on the oceanfront. The menu here is all about seafood whether it be live from the tank. I was curious to see what the menu was like as there isn't a menu online. There's everything from Caesar salad and pasta to Asian favourites like grilled squid with green chilli salt, congees, braised claypot cobia fish or live seafood from the tank and a whole page of grilled meats including Australian beef steaks. And not to mention some excellent cocktails to cool you down with.
The seafood salad is beautifully fresh and made with green papaya, seafood, onion, carrot peanuts, herbs and a fish sauce dressing. Serves are also enormous as they are designed to share and is well priced. This could easily feed three to four people as an entree.
We also share the Alma seafood platter that is perfect for sharing between 2 people. There are 4 cooked oysters (raw oysters aren't available or recommended), 300g/10.6oz cockle clams, 100g/3.5oz scallops, 100g/3.5oz cobia fish, 150g/5oz tiger prawns, 150g/5oz squid and green chilli salt. Everything is cooked very well with seasoning that brings out the flavour of the seafood. I also love this drizzled with the dipping sauces that come on the table too.
We also order a white pomfret from the tank that they grill and season with spicy salt, herbs and rice paper. The idea is to make rice paper rolls using the salad, herbs and fish off the bone. This is very tasty and healthy but the key here is the two dipping sauces on the table that are fantastic powerhouses of flavour (I've shared one dipping sauce recipe here).
The seafood fried rice is delicious with plenty of flavour to it and a good amount of chopped seafood like prawns and squid dispersed throughout.
For greens, we order some stir fried morning glory with plenty of garlic for flavour.
Two things about this meal: the first is that you simply have to order the Sacher torte here. I insist ;). IMHO it's better and more moist than the one in Vienna. And secondly it is what got the local pastry Chef Oanh her job. She was helping out in the kitchen making Sacher torte when the managing director Austrian Herbert Laubichler-Pichler was visiting with Ingo, the EAM for F&B and recreation. He sampled the Sacher torte and black forest cake and was immediately impressed offering her a job shortly after. The cake is so moist and with the unmistakable flavour of chocolate and apricot preserves.
The other dessert that I also recommend is the mango and creamy sago. It has the creaminess and sweetness for this absolutely pitch perfect and Mr NQN and I fight over both desserts. Even though I'm not a sweet tooth, they're both utterly moreish.
La Casa
A popular dinner restaurant at Alma Resort is La Casa right near the Kid's Club and Alma Garden. As the name suggests, this is all about Italian food as well as wine with wines from Italy, France, Portugal and South Africa. The bread basket has tasty breadsticks and breads and they have olive oil and balsamic vinegar on the table. The food comes out fast so that you're not waiting long.
The burrata is made locally by an Italian gentleman. Here it is served with halved cherry tomatoes, rocket and prosciutto and fresh basil. The burrata is excellent and has a glorious creamy curd centre.
We manage to nab the last serve of the signature dish: spaghetti with lobster. It's a half lobster and thick spaghetti, almost like an e-fu noodle texture served in a copper pan. It's a nice dish and just needs a touch of seasoning added to it.
They recommended that we try some of their steaks and we go for the rib eye steak served tagliata style aka sliced and with a side of balsamic dressed rocket and cherry tomatoes.
And while you can get a range of gelato and tiramisu, I stick to my favourite dessert here: the Sacher torte which they have brought over here as I told them how much I loved it!
Breakfast at La Casa
There are two places at Alma Resort where you can have breakfast: Alma Garden and La Casa. Alma Garden is all about a big buffet and hundreds of people. This is when you really see how many people are staying here as there's often a queue to get in and people going every way to get their food.
While I like a breakfast buffet, we opted for the relative calm of La Casa for breakfast and the vibe is like a nice cafe for breakfast. Each table gets a basket of pastries, jams and butter. Then you get a three tier stand with fresh fruit and yogurt pots as well as cold cuts and cheeses.
Mr NQN has the scrambled eggs with burrata on the side on a square of toasted brioche bread. There's a dab of truffle paste on top of the scrambled eggs and the burrata as well. The eggs are well made and I like the touch of truffle and honestly it doesn't even really need the burrata!
As for me I love the chicken croissant with a buttery, flaky croissant filled with chicken and mayonnaise salad, lettuce and bacon. I would order this again in a flash!
American Bar
We visited the American Bar on our second night after dinner at La Casa when there was a trio of musicians playing live music. The menu has a range of shareable snacks like popcorn chicken, fries or mini sliders or fish and chips. The signature cocktails have ingredients like pandan, coconut, green bean pennywort, coriander and red pepper but there are also classic cocktails available.
I am drawn straight away to the Alma Bread Banh Mi made with coriander or cilantro washed tequila butter, homemade red pepper syrup, cucumber and pineapple shrub with lime juice. The cocktail is fantastic and well balanced as it is sweet and spicy with a hit of lime too. And you just have to love a cocktail that comes with a mini banh mi too.
Mr NQN's choice is the mango sticky rice with tequila, mango puree, homemade coconut sticky rice syrup and lime juice. This is a bit fresher than the sweet and spicy Alma bread and also comes with slices of fresh mango.
Food Court
One of my favourite places to eat at the hotel was at the food court that is laid out like a street food market with separate food trucks selling different types of food. There is a truck called An Nam selling Vietnamese classics, a Vietnam Express food truck, the Noodle House serving beef and chicken noodle soups, Little New York offering chicken cooked in a Henny Penny fryer, a French Bakery and Espresso Bar serving coffee, tea and freshly squeezed juice. Tables are laid out just like a food court and you can order from any stand and eat it in or get it to take away. We try some things from each stand.
I start with a drink from the drinks stand in the centre. The mango pandan iced tea is made with mango puree, black tea, lime juice and a pandan leaf syrup and is sweet but refreshing. I really like the aroma that the pandan syrup gives it.
The next stop is Little New York food truck where there are a few different types of burgers available. I decided on the Alma burger with two beef patties, sauce, tomato, pickles and bacon. It's a very good burger with nice thin smash patties.
You can order the fried chicken by the piece or in a box. What I did not expect was how crispy, crunchy and juicy this fried chicken was. I have major regrets leaving it until our very last meal to discover how good their fried chicken was! The fries are also crunchy and just need some sauce or seasoning on them.
I also stop at the Vietnam Express food truck. Usually in Australia you can get meatballs on your actual banh mi but here the meatballs are sitting in a tomato based sauce in a bowl on the side and the baguette is served sliced up. I do like the additional tomato in the sauce and the meatballs are soft and tasty.
And for dessert, we finish with a mango sundae with crunchy toasted granola, yogurt, fresh mango and a scoop of mango sorbet on top. It's absolutely delicious and I recommend ordering one per person to avoid fighting over it like Mr NQN and I did.
The Spa
The spa at Alma Resort is large and has single and couples treatment rooms. Mr NQN are booked in for massages in one of the couples rooms.. They greet us with a cup of ginger and lemongrass tea and we select one of the three aroma profiles that we like. After getting changed in our respective change rooms we are escorted to our couples treatment room.
Mr NQN had chosen the remedial massage while I had chosen the traditional Vietnamese massage for 1,800,000VND/$100AUD/$68USD for 60 minutes. This is all about blood and energy flow. This involves cupping although they assure me that there will no marks remaining although given that I was sick, I did end up with some cupping marks. Still the rest of the massage was wonderfully relaxing and I floated away and it took an hour to really come back to earth!
The Entertainment
Alma Resort has its own outdoor amphitheatre and every night except for Tuesday they have a sound and light show with dancers that outlines Vietnam's history. It's actually well done and quite spectacular although on the evening that we went there were only four other guests which was a bit disappointing given how much effort and skill had gone into the show. Tickets to the show are 500,000VND/$28AUD/$19USD each.
Other Facilities
For little kids there are separate pools, one with toadstools and science museum as well as a farm with lots of animals for them to meet. But the piece de resistance for little ones is the 6,000 square metre "Splash Water Park" which has colourful water slides, a lazy river and a wave pool. It's entirely free to enter for guests and you can order food and drink there like sushi and salads.
For teens there are also plenty of things to do in the Youth Club with virtual reality, video games, and billiards, golf simulation as well as a tennis court, archery and a 70 seat cinema.
The kid's club also holds their own tree planting activity as part of Alma's Green Hands, "Green Future Tree Planting Activity". Guests can choose from three different trees; a Golden Bell, a Bauhinia variegata or a coconut tree and have their own plaque engraved for 1,500,00VND/$85AUD/$57USD. The idea is that you will return in the future to see how your tree is growing!
Alma Mart is the Alma Resort's own mini mart and is the spot to get any snacks or meals. There is everything for kids and adults and there are also gifts as well as frozen meals or souvenirs that you can take home.
Next up: We are doing one of Alma's signature food activities to get to know Cam Ranh a bit more!
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever stayed somewhere like Alma Resort? What do you think of it?
NQN and Mr NQN stayed at Alma Resort as their guest but all opinions remain her own.
Alma Resort
Nguyễn Tất Thành, Cam Hải Đông, Cam Lâm, Khánh Hòa 650000, Vietnam
Phone: +84 258 3991 666
https://www.alma-resort.com/suites-pavilions/
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