Hotel Reviews Bangkok

[18past19]

8 hours ago, reader said:

It rarely gets mentioned but I find the Amara hotel (on Surawong immediately before Red Planet) an excellent choice for quality and value. Wonderfully comfortable bed, modern decor and a short walk to Patpong area. There's a rooftop infinity  pool and adequate gym. The buffet breakfast is served in large dining room. Hotel website and Expedia offer good range of prices. Guests are no problem. Club level rooms available and worth the splurge. The lounge is on the 20th floor and has an outdoor terrace.

Many thanks for the info on Amara hotel. I found very good deals on hotels dot com and Agoda for Amara hotel, so I reserved a club room through hotels dot com. since I didn't remember seeing their policy toward joiners on this forum, I emailed to them directly. but I didn't get any reply from the hotel at all, so I dropped my reservation a few days ago and finalized my reservation with the Raya instead. it was a way more costly choice.
If i ever knew Amara is fine with joiners, I would have much loved to stay there.

[reader]

3 hours ago, Jasper said:

That is “laundry service” right?

My understanding is “laundry facilities” usually means DIY coin operative laundry machine & dryer room inside the hotel.

Think I understand now why you’ve become flustered over this. You seem to have endured an emotionally wrenching laundry experience at some point.

Allow me to suggest a solution that should alleviate both your fear of laundry uncertainty and your friend’s irritability about being ignored.

As soon as your friend’s next off completes his obligation, have him immediately delivered to your hotel. In return for the privilege of luxuriating in your tub, he takes your soiled stuff to the nearest coin-operated, DIY facility and returns it neatly folded.

There is no need to thank me.

[witty]

6 hours ago, Jasper said:

That is “laundry service” right?

My understanding is “laundry facilities” usually means DIY coin operative laundry machine & dryer room inside the hotel.

 

DIY laundry services are mostly found in Japanese hotels. Some for free and others for small tokens. 

[hank75]

8 hours ago, reader said:

You hang your bag on the knob.

I use the knob for other things....oh wait....

[Jasper]

Does anyone stayed at Holiday Inn Silom?

I know this hotel is ok with joiners as a Tawan boy told me he stayed overnight and used fitness facilities with customer.

They also advertise having  “Laundry Facilities”and I wonder anyone used it.

Yes I do have laundry obsession !  lol

 

 

[Jasper]

4 hours ago, witty said:

DIY laundry services are mostly found in Japanese hotels. Some for free and others for small tokens. 

Oh ok but  many Bangkok 3-4 star rated hotels advertise having laundry facilities including Amara Hotel but rarely shows photo of the facilities in hotel booking site. That is why I am interested to know if anyone has used it.

 

[manuelmendez]

the more luxury the hotel u stay, do your joiner would like to stay overnight? 

[hank75]

1 hour ago, manuelmendez said:

the more luxury the hotel u stay, do your joiner would like to stay overnight? 

Not really. I usually stay in 4-5 star hotels and to my chagrin, my two regular boys have zero interest in the posh facilities. They use the shower fast and functionally, have never asked to try out the gym or free jacuzzi/sauna in the spa. They enjoy the buffet breakfasts but only for the mountains of free rice, and equally enjoy Took Lae Dee. It really depends on the joiner’s personality. 

[hank75]

5 hours ago, Jasper said:

Yes I do have laundry obsession !  lol

I do too haha. I’ve never subscribed to the “daily new $3 T shirt from Patpong” philosophy. I assume this means an in-room laundry service rather than coin laundry because you can’t DIY dry cleaning. 

[Guest]

Wherever I stay in SE Asia, there is usually some convenient laundry place.   This wouldn't have any influence on my selection of hotels.

For example, in Pattaya there is a shop just around the corner from Mosaik and they will wash and dry a bag of my laundry for 100 baht.     Although, it is necessary to specify no ironing to get that price.  Ironing T-shirts is completely unnecessary as they end up crease free if hung out to dry.

I also DON'T approve of buying a new T-shirt every day.  It's wasteful and goodness knows what chemicals might be used before I get the T-shirt.   When I do get a new item of clothing, it normally goes straight in the laundry bin to be washed before I wear it.

 

 

[floridarob]

Anyone know of a laundry place around Silom/suriwong?

[Jasper]

Hilton tailors opposite Tawana Hotel/ next to Glitz hotel  near Tawan.

I haven’t tried them but I think Numazu used their laundry service.

 

[BiggusDikkus]

3 hours ago, floridarob said:

Anyone know of a laundry place around Silom/suriwong?

There’s one down the soi from Le Siam. Walking up Soi Convent from Silom, go left at Le Siam. Eventually, you’ll see a laundry sign on your right.

[anthogay38]

Someone tried Bavana Hotel Thaniya Soi2 ? This hotel seems to be well placed and not so expensive.

[colmx]

We ended up staying in the D'varee Pula express at Songkran...
Lets just say we won't be back!
The 150B beers in the (nice but exorbitant) beer yard were ridiculously overpriced....
But the staff demanding that we gave back the additional 2 towels that we "stole" from them at checkout takes the biscuit.
One b*tch stood there and absolutely swore that she gave us 2 extra towels at 17.00 the previous night
It was only when I pointed out the fact their hotel was well known for doing this to guests on TripAdvisor that the manager called off the Rottweiler's who were attempting to strip search us!
I would rather stay at the Tarntawan in the future!

[Guest]

I don't care what hotels charge for the beer, as I generally go somewhere else for that. 

As for the towels, it might be an idea to write a complaint e-mail to the hotel chain management.   Their e-mail address is at the following link:  info.corporate@dvaree.com

The bitches on the counter should be fired for maliciously harassing customers and screwing up the hotel reputation.

 

 

 

[reader]

Above incident serves as a good reminder for all of us. If planning to visit around high-season events, it's worth it to make reservations well in advance. Some booking sites like Agoda allow cancellations within a specified time frame. In any case, it's better than ending up at a place that ties to extort you.

Even if you had paid the crazy demand the cash would have never ended up in till but rather in the pockets of front desk staff.

[paulfort]

I love the Raya and other than a bit of noise from there never ending refurbishment cant fault the place. 

However as mentioned earlier on this thread I am nervous that as the redevelopment of Soi Twighlight starts demolition and construction noise will be a problem and during my holiday I am certainly not an early riser!

Does anyone have any experience of the Tawana Hotel as thought I might try that in my next trip in October and in the main is there any issue in taking a boy back there?

[Nikom]

On 3/26/2019 at 4:56 PM, colmx said:

Tarntawan - everyone knows here, but should comment that the AC is brutal. It has 2 modes, OFF or ON ad nothing in between.

colmx, could you be talking about a different hotel? 

The Tarntawan has had the same A/C for years and still in April when i stayed there on my way to Myanmar.  Yes, the A/C has on and off but also you can adjust the temperature up or down by degree.  Also the fan can be set at high, medium or low.

[ggobkk]

Paulfort is asking about the Tawana which is on the LeMeridian side of Surawong

[Jasper]

8 hours ago, paulfort said:

Does anyone have any experience of the Tawana Hotel as thought I might try that in my next trip in October and in the main is there any issue in taking a boy back there?

Tawana Hotel was known to charge Joiner fee 1000B along with Montien Hotel in the same area few years ago but I don’t know if it’s still the case.

[PeterRS]

On 5/4/2019 at 6:19 AM, colmx said:

But the staff demanding that we gave back the additional 2 towels that we "stole" from them at checkout takes the biscuit.

I once stayed at the Pan Pacific on Rama 4 - now the Crowne Plaza. It was major 4 star hotel but when checking out I was asked to wait while the in room fridge was checked. I always think this is such a demeaning exercise. If you pay by credit card they can always add to it after departure for those who are not honest. The worst guests are those who drink the whisky and vodka and then refill the bottles with weak tea and water. That is much harder to check until the next guest wants a drink.

The point of the post though is that after waiting for several minutes I was asked if I would please return the bathrobe. They refused to believe I did not have it. I had to open my case and let them look through before they processed the bill. That was a disgrace. I never stayed there again.

[ChristianPFC]

Funny stories with the towels (ColmX), fridge and bathrobe (PeterRS). Those bottles have a cap that that shows if the bottle is sealed or was opened. And it's possible to check without damaging the seal. I would rather think that guests eat/drink from the room bar, and then refill it from 7-11 (solution would be the hotel puts sticker on it).

I don't stay in such expensive places, where I stay in the provinces for average 500 THB per night, such problems wouldn't arise.

But my pet peeve is a key deposit. It implies two things:

1 The guest is unable to look after his key.

2 The guest would not pay for the loss of the key.

Even if this is true for 1% of the guests, it's unfair to hassle the other 99%. The hotel can easily bear the cost of replacing one key for 100 guests.

Or am I applying Western thinking and such things happen so often, that the hotel has indeed to take such measures?  Compare mobile phones. In 19 years of using mobile phones, I dropped one once, but I didn't damage it. Whereas the Thai seem to drop (cracking the screen) and lose mobile phone all the time.

Unfortunately, key deposit is spreading, and location and price of hotel is more important to me than avoiding places with key deposit.

[Guest]

My worst checkout experience was in Saigon.   I had paid for a 5 day stay the day before, just to make sure I could check out swiftly to catch a morning flight.   They requested payment again on the day I checked out.   The lady behind the desk was like a female Hitler.    Whilst they were looking for records at the back desk, I eventually found the receipt and showed it to the young man on reception.   Hitler demanded to see the receipt, but I was already heading for the door at this point.  

As for key deposits, I presume there must be a problem with certain customers not returning the key.   If it's a proper key, then losing these is obviously a security risk for other guests.   

If it's a keycard, then no security risk, but there still must be some cost for the card.    I checked the cost and it's possible to buy 1000 key cards for £200 in the UK, so 20p or about 8 baht each.  I imagine they would be even cheaper off Ali Baba.    So even if the loss rate is 10%, charging guests a deposit for key cards seems ludicrous. 

[PeterRS]

8 hours ago, ChristianPFC said:

Those bottles have a cap that that shows if the bottle is sealed or was opened. And it's possible to check without damaging the seal. I would rather think that guests eat/drink from the room bar, and then refill it from 7-11 (solution would be the hotel puts sticker on it)

I have never taken a drink from a mini bar, although I have regular taken the eats like Pringles or chocolate and then replaced them with items bought at 7 11. Do the 5 ml bottles of liquor also have a paper over the cap in Thailand? I reckon it should be easy enough to open that with a knife, unscrew the cap and replace the bottle so the paper looks unopened on a cursory glance. I doubt if hotel staff take each mini bottle out and examine it, but I may be wrong.