The room is large, clean and quiet. The breakfast buffet is acceptable although it is not authentic thai food. The staff is friendly. The location is excellent as it is within walking distance to Patpong and Silom road. The price is cheap around 1200 baht. The customers are mostly asians with a lot of japanese tourists.

The only complaints I had was sometimes, the water in the shower is not hot enough. And also there was NO free internet. Overall, its a good hotel in an excellent location given the low room rate.

Absolutly terrible place to stay.
No hot water.
Tired and rundown

I have just returned from a trip to Thailand, and I must say that my stay at the Plaza Hotel is not something which will be forgotten in a hurry. For the benefit of future hotel-hunters, I will attempt to describe my experience in full.

First, the hotel itself. It's quite evident that the building has seen better days. 20 or 30 years ago this would have been considered a grand, top-class hotel. However, it is now very badly in need of refurbishment. The lobby is pleasant enough, but in the bedroom, the décor, the furniture, the fixtures and fittings, were all very "tired". For example, the shower head didn't spray water in the regular manner: it's as if you're simply standing underneath a running tap. In the room there was an old, non-functional radio built into the bedside table. The bedsheets rather bizarrely have the name of the hotel emblazoned in faded blue letters across them - much in the style which one would imagine of a prison. My girlfriend and I amused ourselves by naming the place: "HMP Plaza".

For me, the most inconvenient thing about the room itself was the toilet. It had an extremely strange design, whereby from the front rim, the bowl sloped downwards at a disconcertingly shallow angle - instead of dropping clear away. Female guests won't have a problem here, but for a man, the last thing he wants, while sitting on the toilet, is to feel cold porcelain touching that part of his body which happens to descend below the seat.

To be fair, at least the bathroom was clean: as was *most* of the room. As there were no spare electrical sockets, we had to move a bedside table forwards in order to access the socket used by a lamp. We were greeted by a carpet full of dust and dirt - showing that the room hadn't been thoroughly cleaned in months - or even years.

Despite the above misgivings, I would have regarded the hotel as at least reasonable, considering the price. However, our experience at HMP Plaza will be remembered primarily for...

The Service

1) On arrival, I asked (very slowly and clearly) for a NO-smoking room. We were shown to a smoking room. I told the porter that it would not be acceptable, and asked why my request had not been understood. No explanation was given - but we were eventually shown to a non-smoking room. In later nights, though, we smelled smoke seeping through the door to the adjoining room, which I considered as unacceptable. The entire floor should have been non-smoking - which it wasn't, as there was an ashtray in use next to the lift.

2) One night we ate in the hotel's restaurant. On the menu I saw "Chicken noodles". I was dismayed to find that it came riddled with mushrooms - which I can not eat. In Europe, restaurants will invariably list such ingredients on the menu, because significant numbers of people dislike them. However, the hotel's menu made no such mention. When I complained to the waiter, he did not understand me, and I had to ask him to find another member of staff who did speak (some) English.

3) The hotel has electric kettles in its rooms, and tea and coffee are provided. However, Housekeeping neglected to replace the teabags and coffee sachets along with their daily clean-up, and we had to request replacements - every day.

4) One day we discovered that Housekeeping had taken away the teaspoons in the room. The cups and saucers were there, but the spoons had been removed. A telephone call requesting them back resulted in only one spoon being returned.

5) On one of the days without teabags, I ordered tea separately through room service. I spoke very clearly and slowly on the phone that I wanted the tea with "MILK PLEASE: COLD MILK - NOT CREAM". Lo and behold, it arrived with a mini-jug of warm cream!

6) Following the débacle with the mushrooms, I decided to order the simplest thing on the room service menu: "Boiled rice" - to accompany some left-over curry which I had with me. I said to my girlfriend: "Hey - at least they can't ruin boiled rice, can they!"
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, then, when they brought me a bowl of "rice soup". I told the room service waiter that that was not what I had ordered. He then had the audacity to say yes, it was! We came to the conclusion that the problem lay in the fact that the staff do not speak English: the menu is written in English and Thai: however, the staff only read the Thai, and the English is incorrectly translated.

7) When I had eventually received some proper boiled rice, I sat down to enjoy my meal with a Coke from the mini-bar, only to find that there was no bottle opener. I looked high and low, but none was to be found. I called Housekeeping, who did not answer their phones. I called Reception, who did not understand what I meant by "bottle opener". I did not want to try to explain too much, for fear that they might misunderstand and bring me a bottle of drink. I was therefore forced to take my Coke bottle down to Reception with me, in order to demonstrate what I needed. (Remember, all this time my food was getting cold) When the staff member finally understood, he offered to open the bottle for me. I refused, saying that I needed a bottle opener in my room. He said he'd sort it out, and I went back upstairs.
Five minutes later someone did arrive with a bottle opener. However, he insisted in coming into the room to look for the bottle opener which was supposed to have been in the room anyway - as if to ascertain whether I had been telling the truth! And still, my food was getting colder. These people have no concept of service.

8) On the day we left Bangkok, our flight was early in the morning. Therefore I wanted to settle my bill the night before, in order to be able to execute a hasty check-out when needed. I told them that, since the last check by Housekeeping that morning, there had been two bottles of Coke used from the mini-bar, and that I'd like to pay for them right then. I was bewilderd, then, when the cashier refused to accept my payment for the items consumed until a check was done in the morning. I explained that I had an early flight and did not want to be delayed, but she replied that it was the hotel's policy. This is the single most ridiculous policy I have ever come across in any hotel in the world.

In a nutshell, the main problem with the service is that the staff don't speak English. They are able to communicate, sure - but if you want to request anything particular - and I don't mean anything too complicated... just simple, like "tea with milk" - then they do not understand you. This is absolutely unacceptable in a hotel which markets itself for international travellers.