The vibe
Six Senses Ninh Van Bay prides itself on thoughtful luxury, something that featured prominently throughout our stay. It’s not a private island, but the resort has a bay all to itself, surrounded by the sea and hills, giving us the kind of tranquility we expected.
The rooms
We stayed in the Beachfront Pool Villa, which is a lovely and spacious 1,890-sq-ft property with a private pool. The bedroom and huge ensuite bathroom is located on the lower floor – there’s an outdoor shower and a standalone wooden bathtub we almost didn’t want to leave. A separate lounge area and the view of the bay it comes with is can be enjoyed upstairs.
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Six Senses Ninh Van Bay’s villas are constructed with sustainably sourced materials where possible, and even the bathroom amenities from Six Senses’ in-house brand are environmentally friendly with natural ingredients (lemongrass and kumquat – such a great combo!). We especially loved the coconut shell doorknobs, which added to the villa’s cosy, rustic look, as well as the wooden bathtub (we’re having an amazing bathtub streak).
The resort also has three other villa types: Hill Top Pool Villa, Rock Pool Villa and Water Pool Villa.
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Food & drink
In line with its sustainability practices, Six Senses Ninh Van Bay offers farm-to-table dining, some sourced from the resort’s own produce. They have an organic chicken farm from which we collected our own eggs for breakfast, and the juices at the breakfast spread were made from fruits grown either in the resort or on another local farm.
Of course, many of the menu items are Vietnamese, and guests have the option to dine at one of the many locations (by the bay, by the rocks, by the pool, in the wine cave, by the beach, by the jetty or in your villa). But don’t stop at dinner; we recommend winding down at Drinks by the Beach for an after-dinner cocktail as you watch a movie – the bar also offers its very own rum in different flavours.
Six Senses goes a step further with its Eat with Six Senses programme, which personalises meals for guests and helps guests identify their nutritional needs. We sat down with executive chef Alex Oddy, who showed us how to make a simple but nutritious salad and a Green Gazpacho – both went straight down into our recipe ideas for entertaining!
Wellness
We’re no strangers to bespoke spa treatments, but what we liked here was that a singing bowl was placed on our backs before the massage started. Yes, we’re suckers for little meditative touches. A spa menu and the Six Senses Integrated Wellness programme complements Sleep With Six Senses, which zeroes down on giving you your best sleep during your holiday (special thanks to the amazing bed we had) and showing you how to apply this at home.
The service
Even if you’re the most independent traveller, you’ll find it difficult to resist Six Senses’ service and attention to detail. We were always well fed, even outside meal times (upon arrival at the airport, we were served with snacks and drinks).
The staff always try to predict your movements in the day so they can prepare ahead. You’re not being stalked – they just know guests well enough to identify certain ways you like your things arranged in the villa, for example. Like where you’d probably like your bedroom slippers placed at bedtime. Or that you preferred the drinking water bottle by the study table while you cleared up work emails in the evening. Or that you probably didn’t have time to eat the fruit of the day provided in the villa, so housekeeping kept it for you in the fridge for you to find it in the morning.
For families staying at Six Senses Ninh Van Bay, the resort provides complimentary supervised activities (both fun and educational) that will keep the little ones busy. The resort’s rather big, so you can choose to get around by bicycle or have one of the staff members drive you in a buggy.
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Our favourite part
Sustainability is definitely not just a PR trigger word at Six Senses Ninh Van Bay. Under its Earth Lab initiative, they practice what they preach: there are no single-use plastics in the villas, they use solar panels for electricity, organic gardens and a mushroom hut grow plenty of the resort’s produce, and a water treatment plant and an in-resort reverse osmosis system makes water sourced from a nearby reservoir safe for drinking.
As for that aforementioned chicken farm: the 120 free-range chickens on that farm enjoy music, eat organic food, and have their own chicken gym, just living the (villa) life.
What is even more impressive is that Six Senses Ninh Van Bay makes it a point to share knowledge about environmentally friendly practices and healthy living with its guests and with the communities living nearby the resort. If anything, it’s proof that sustainability and luxury are not mutually exclusive. Our final word? Go to unwind, stay for the wholesome lifestyle.
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