I remembered staying here first in 1997 and then recently again last week (Sept 2011). In between I have stayed once or twice, but there are so many varied selection of hotels in Bangkok depending on your specified travel needs (and traffic consderations!). Oh yes, I deliberately chose Tower 2, as it is along the main road, and is part of the main towers of 1 and 2. No comments about tower 3, as I never stayed there.
This time around, it is no longer a business trip but a family vacation for 3, and we booked through its website and the rates keep on increasing week after week, a ploy i guess, to ensure that you book early and prepaid to boot!
In any case, we managed to book a junior suite of 56m2, that comes with breakfast for 2 (we were 3..). Room was as I remembered it, spacious with basic amenities, except now they have a DVD player in room, LCD TV, and luckily, water pressure in the bathroom was good for a shower! Room is clean (what a blessing!), and have a musky smell when you first enter the room without the aircon on. A blast of the aircon soon clear the smell, and it is otherwise liveable and convenient. We were lucky as the room came provided with a Teka washer/dryer machine, though it made a huge amount of noise as it tumbles your clothes, but hey, it is a convenience to get clean clothes night after night, so no big complains!
We were given free wifi, which is only assigned to one pc, so it's either my wife's iPhone or my notebook. But to their benefit, they offer to disconnect the connection to my wife's iphone so that I can connect with my pc instead. Otherwise, connection is good on 10th floor, and you have choice of either LAN or wifi. Oh, and the room come with a rather large electronic safe, good for storing any valuables for peace of mind when you leave the room during the day.
Staff service is pleasant, and the concierge manager brought up our luggages himself as they were short handed at times! House keeping does a good job, although I have keep calling them every night to ask for extra set of towels, even though they know I have booked the room specifically for 3 persons. It got to a point that they even stopped giving a kitchen towel on the 3rd day. Maybe it is because we did not give them a tip each and everytime they came with the extra towels..??
Food otherwise for 2 is adequate to its benefit, and caters for patrons from Middle Eastern culture and muslims alike, with food specifically marked 'Halal'. Free coffee and tea together with juices complements the plates of fruit spread, with cheeses and hams and a small selection of pastries. Eggs station is manned by one chef, and he gets innudated with request for omelettes.
It is a few mins walk to Nana BTS, which make up for all its other shortcomings, and along the way we came across local vendors selling cooked food to the locals by the streets, so we are assured of the safety of the streets.
By the fact that it is a few mins walk to the main road where the BTS is, noise is kept low, and you will not be kept awake from the blare of the nearby pubs on Soi 4, or the never ending traffic snarls on the main Sukhumvit road. A service apartment that caters for families and offer the convenience of a kitchen with a large refrigerator to store all our fruits and icy cold drinks, and a separate living room to space out after a day of walking and shopping. For those city folks, you will get a bit of a surprise when you hear the rooster crowing in the morning when sun breaks! Not a racket, but you will know that there are some live stocks nearby. Definitely suitable for free and easy stay with all short comings easily overlooked!