Nice place but incompetent staffPosted: Fri, May 30 2008We booked this place for 5 nights but our incoming flight was delayed so much that we'd ended up physically arriving on the 2nd day. We called ahead the day before to check in over the phone so the room would be ready for us when we arrived at 5am. They said that this was totally ok and everything was taken care of.
Unfortunately, the staff had excuse after excuse for why we couldn't get to our room when we arrived, which put us in our *already-paid-for & already-checked-in* room by 9am....making a pre-paid customer wait 4 hours is definitely not good service!
Their big big mistakes:
- Understaffed check-in counter: processing 3 guests ahead of us took 45 mins
- Our room was not ready. They basically pocketed our first nights money without making a room for us.
- After pointing out that we'd already paid for our room for the previous night and already checked in over the phone, they nervously said "sorry" and did nothing else to help.
- We booked a king-sized room but were placed in a double. We were so exhausted from travels, we didn't care by that point.
- To kill the waiting time, my bf tried to get some food from the included breakfast buffet but we had all of our luggage with us and didn't know where to place it. Instead of mentioning there was a luggage hold spot next to the hostess stand, they said nothing and didn't offer any help. Since we couldn't maneuver our luggage through the dining room, my bf gave up...very angry, frustrated and starved.
- The staff can barely understand English and can hardly speak it. Their English still sounds like Thai which makes things very hard to figure out when asking the concierge desk for help.
After the nightmare of check-in, the rest of our experience was just fine since we rarely had any other contact with the staff from that point on.
This hotel is not centrally located and not near a SkyTrain station. Taking a taxi is pretty much mandatory to get anywhere interesting (or tuk tuk if you're really pinching pennies but with the pollution and exchange rate, why bother). Don't use the hotel guys out front to hail you a cab, they are no help to get you a legit taxi driver. Also, they will offer to take you to these random no-name restaurants and such, which I'm positive they get a nice commission for (beware, no one in the touristy areas of Thailand actually wants to befriend you). Instead, take a quick walk to one of the main roads down the street from the hotel and you can haggle to your heart's content for a reasonable taxi ride.