The hotel is located on embassy-road. US embassy & it's ambassador's residence is just down the road. So this is a slightly upmarket property considering the surroundings. Witnessed a minor protest at the US embassy during our stay but it was small scaled with not much traffic disruption.
The hotel has a grand entrance and it seemed like they are always hosting some high society event at their premises. For a start, cleanliness was very good and you get the feeling of a 5 star hotel upon stepping in. Unfortunately, the 5-star is just a feeling, once you take into account the service quality you'd get disappointed.
We requested for a twin bedded room at check-in and was told it would be ready when the other guests had checked out & the room cleaned. We were fine with that since we were heading out for some shopping anyway. That was at about 11am. By the time we return from our shopping at about 5-6 pm, the room was still not ready and was told that it'll take another 15 minutes. So we waited & waited & waited, after more than an hour and 4 telephone calls, the room was finally available. And we had to personally head down to the reception to get the key. Impression on our first day was dashed. On the second day, the in-room safe was not functioning. Anticipating their slow response, we decided to ask for help to fix it at the front desk as we went for the buffet breakfast at 8am. Told them they could go ahead & come into our room to carry out the repair while we're having breakfast and we'll be out for the rest of the day too. Upon our return in the evening at about 9-10pm, the safe was not fixed. We gave up on asking the hotel to follow-up on the matter. Eventually, it was fixed because we had asked for a DVD player (which came within 15 min, surprisingly!) and concurrently asked if the service staff could also looked into the safe problem.
For the remaing days of our stay there, the passenger lift seems to have broken down with half of them working. Swimming pool on the 4th floor was fine, nothing fantastic since this is a city hotel. The most odd experience I've ever had ordering beer from the poolside was that the beer came 2/3 full! It sure looked like someone had drunk some of it before being served. It's puzzling as to why couldn't they find a correct size beer mug or just fill it up if they're going to use the slightly larger glass.
Anyway, we wouldn't be considering coming back to this hotel the next time because there's plenty of better quality hotels in Bangkok for about the same price. By the way, getting to other parts of Sukhumvit road from this hotel would entail higher taxi charges because of the way the roads are designed, the cab would have to take a longer route as compared to when getting back to the hotel.
One more issue, that's not related to the hotel. Be very careful with the taxi drivers in Bangkok, especially those who offer fake watches & jewellery. These are potential conmen. We made a mistake of not ensuring the taxi went by meter, assuming the hotel concierge had told the driver to go by metered fare. So we were asked to pay much more than necessary & to top it off, the driver did a switch of money on us claiming that we gave him only Bht60 when we actually gave him Bht 300. Preyed on our unfamiliarity with the look of their currency.
Bangkok is great for food & value shopping but be careful of unsavory characters who will strike when you're temporary off-guard.
