held the SEA region Sales Conference at Sukothai. high end hotel with nice compound and facilities. Rooms size is large compared to other hotels. Staff was prompt in servicing requests. Overall a good experience. would recommend for business events. not so for personal travel as location is on the outskirts and not in city centre.
We both enjoyed our first stay at the Sukhothai Bangkok Hotel, a quiet respite in the city center. From arrival to departure, the services were all very attentive. The attention to detail in our hotel room, including the arrangement and provision of amenities, was excellent. We loved swimming the large pool and using the poolside services and we worked out at the very well equipped exercise facility. We also enjoyed spending two hours relaxing and dining at the wide-spread breakfast buffet. Services all around were top notch (and we found the degree of english fluency, though not a requirement for us, especially exceptonal). Khun Toommy and all the personnel, from arrival to departure, were outstanding. Thank you for making our stay such a lovely experience.
Excellent venue with very friendly staff who are very helpful. Room and facilities where very high standard with great attention to detail and cleanliness, feels like a resort even though you are located in the CBD
Best service especially when i need to find out place that i’ve been looking for…many thanks for Mr. Toom Chief concierge.. i love the food and room services as well. Will be back to stay here once i go to Bangkok.
Significant construction onsite until 2023/4 (which questionably they have decided not to warn guests about when booking!) and despite most hotels returning to normal in Bangkok the management have decided to prioritise cost control over guest service by keeping most restaurants closed leaving dining options limited to the upscale Italian (with strict dress code) or in-room dining menu which can also be ordered by the pool. Along with lots of niggles and small, but inexcusable service failures the clear focus on cost cutting over guest service made it feel like a beautiful hotel but with ‘standard’ chain hotel service, rather than the seemless experience previously offered by The Sukhothai, one of the leading hotels in the World. For the benefit of management here is some feedback / issues we felt during our 3 day stay: CONSTRUCTION: Although this didn’t affect us (and it wasn’t running during our stay) there is huge construction going on within hotel grounds and they are not warning guests when booking online. At best this is a poor oversight by front office but I suspect at worst it is a deliberate attempt to conceal such construction until people arrive and deal with the complaints then. If this is the case it is a shameless act of deliberate deception and revenue prioritisation over guest service, and not the act of a caring or honest business. Even a Hilton would warn you on the website if there was the chance of construction either onsite, or nearby. VERY LIMITED DINING OPTIONS: I understand COVID issues, but most hotels are now getting back to normal. To reduce choice to upscale Italian (which requires dress code and limited opening hours) or a room service menu (which had very few western items) seemed focused on making hotel operations easier rather than needs of the guest – when its now time to ‘get back to normal’. CLOSURE OF SNACK/COFFEE SHOP” The closure of the coffee shop was particularly questionable. It was open when we arrived, but closed for the rest of our stay This makes me thing it was occupancy related and therefore cost control. You can’t just open and close facilities based on occupancy in a hotel at this level. If you are going to remove most dining options then surely the one you leave option is the Thimian Coffee Shop. If you do insist on doing so then may put a small ‘snack menu’ in rooms or a coffee/pastries cart in reception for purchase. Again a decision focused on cost and not guest service. COLLONADE BREAKFAST SERVICE WAS AWFUL Buffet breakfast was, as always, first class – but service on Tues/Weds of our stay was appalling. Worse than 3 star. We arrived at 6.35am both days (just after opening) and had to walk in and find someone has the host wasn’t at the door. Although most of the buffet was ready, several hot thai dishes were not yet out yet and arrived around 6.45am. Again, not a big issue if this was a cheap Hilton or Holiday Inn – but inexcusable at a hotel of this level. Some staff uniforms were frayed & tired, and some even quite dirty stained uniforms. Service was terrible – had to request a glass of water twice on Tues and 3 times on Weds before it arrived. Seemed the host was having to do most of the work with very inexperienced wait staff just not good enough to be working in a hotel of this standard. Things improved on Thurs (when the usual old time thai staff host/supervisor was there) but even then the inexperienced wait staff meant you had to request things 2-3 times. Bring back the old staff, or hire experienced people and pay what you have to. This is THE SUKHOTHAI, not the Holiday Inn. ROOM SERVICE MENU The room service menu has many more thai options (great) and they’ve included some dishes from the upscale La Scala Italian (as this is now the only dining option). However, I’ve never stayed in a 5 star hotel, let alone a hotel at this level, that didn’t offer any form of grilled meats, fish and sides, etc. If you wanted western food you were limited to burgers, sandwiches, and salads. It was fine, but again removal of things like chicken, steak, fish is clearly for hotel operational efficiency rather than guest service. It felt the wrong way around and certainly different from other hotels like Mandarin Oriental, Penninsula, etc. DRINKING WATER They used to give you 6 bottles of drinking water twice a day (2 in bathroom, 2 by bed and 2 in cupboard). This was then replenished at turn down. Now you get 3 per day between 2 people. Look, not a big deal but there couldn’t be a clearer example of an over focus on cost and a lack of thought to guest service. This is less than you get at the Hilton, Sheraton or Holiday inn! Does the hotel really want to offer less than a Holiday Inn? They ‘kindly’ display a large bottle of Evian available for purchase which was again confirmation that the reduction in drinking water was a clear effort at revenue generation and reduction in guest service. NO WATER BOTTLES AT GYM They’ve removed water bottles at the gym, no doubt under the façade of environmental responsibility. You now get a plastic cup and a water jug. Seriously, what top end hotel doesn’t provide water bottles at the gym! There are plenty of environmentally friendly water carriers available – so again, a clear cost cutting. No water whatsoever was provided in the jacuzzi/steam/sauna area which felt like a health & safety issue also. STEAM ROOM The steam room was broken for our entire stay and looked like it hadn’t been working for a while. Not a covid issue at the sauna was open. Again, if something breaks in a top end hotel you’d expect it to be fixed pretty quickly. Not here. POOL CLEANLINESS The sauna/jacuzzi area in the mens changing room was dusty and not super clean. The main pool area has been resurfaced with a very ‘light’ tile and it really shows all the leaves, etc. I’d suggest it needs to be swept more often and the pool cabanas were covered in leaves and dirt. You would have had to ask someone to clean it before using it, and they were not ‘set up’ to be used despite us having 2 days of sunshine. Whilst this is obviously a failure in design the hotel needs to counter this by ensuring they are swept regularly. Again, something you’d expect would be automatic in a hotel at this level. DOOR BELLS The door bell in our room could be heart next door, and visa versa. So you never knew which door was ringing. Inexcusable issue in a hotel at this level. “CLUB FACILITY” The “Club Facility” didn’t feel like it really worked. We sat to check in at main reception, and then got moved across to the Club for “exclusive” check in. I think had we been escorted straight there on arrival fine, but essentially we sat down at one check in, they did some stuff on the computer, and we then got escorted to check in again. Likewise on check out I opted to check out at the Club room but the lady there didn’t even have the right payment machine and had to send over to the main wing to get one from there. It didn’t feel seemless. The only club benefit we took advantage of was afternoon tea – which was quite sparce, a nice selection of small cakes and scones but no sandwiches, etc. It was OK – but felt like the club service was still finding its feet compared to other similar areas we’ve experienced before. BROKEN ROOM SERVICE TROLLEYS Finally, I think this small issue most clearly demonstrated how guest service is taking a back seat at the hotel. We ordered room service 4 times during our stay (remember, most restaurants are closed) and on 3 occasions it was served on a badly broken trolley which was had a sloping down table (like a comedy clown trolley), was broken and unsteady. This really highlighted to me the dire state of the customer focus at this hotel – what top end 5 star hotel, anywhere in the World, is happy to service a meal costing hundreds of dollars on a broken and sloping trolley? It was so diabolical that no one thought to change it that is almost funny. There is no better ‘small’ demonstration that the management here need to get back to basics here and fix these ‘details’. The above are just a few of the things we experienced – there were loads of other niggles and cost reductions resulting in lower standards. A welcome fruit bowl replaced with a couple of pieces of fruit. 6 welcome chocolates replaced with 3. Just lots of tiny things – all with the same outcome – less cost for the hotel, and a worsened guest experience. There are many things to love about this hotel – the Spa, the Pool, the friendliness of staff, the fact its an Oasis in Bangkok. The Club Room renovations and other renovations are stunning and have maintained the traditional feel yet giving a contemporary edge. However…. It is the details that separates a regular 5 star hotel from hotels like the Mandarin Oriental and The Sukhothai. The hotel management will well know that being such an oasis in the heart of Bangkok and such a beautiful hotel will generate it lots of awards and 5 star reviews online from those people who attend via conferences or for short 1-2 night stays. Perhaps that will help them survive…for now. But… They will also know to make their finances work they also have to attract those clientele, who perhaps are more experienced at staying within such hotels and where attention to detail and the small things make a difference and make you keep coming back – and who are willing to pay the top end rates here. Without such attention to detail The Sukhothai become ‘just another 5 star hotel in Bangkok’ and I’d suggest that’s not where they want to be financially as at that point it becomes about the price per night. I love this hotel and have enjoyed hundreds of wonderful nights here (and spent tens of thousands of $/£’s) over the years but this detailed review is written in the genuine hope it is listened to and the management genuinely examine these issues to restore the service levels to the same level as the beautiful surroundings. I am really not a “complainer”– but some of these issues are inexcusable in a hotel at this level and COVID is being used as a façade to mask all round cost cuts and reductions in service levels. None of these are big issues, they are all ‘details’ but they mount up, one by one, issue by issue. With the deliberate decision not to inform guests about construction, the clear focus on cost reduction, and all these small issues you begin to get the feeling of a hotel where the guest is no longer the focus – and if that’s the case it’s no longer worth the money. I urge the management to stop leaning on the COVID excuse of keeping things closed and staff reduced as your competitors have already reopened so you are lagging behind. Go stay at the Mandarin or Peninsular – or even the lower end hotels like Sheraton Grande where you will find they have restored many services back to pre-COVID standards, or at least well beyond what is currently offered at Sukhothai. When you are being compared, badly, to the Sheraton Grande ($120 a night) it might be time to re-look at things. Your clear focus on penny pinching cost reduction is clear and not worthy of a hotel as beautiful as The Sukhothai – or the price point. Despite being a long term loyal guest over the last 12 years I’m not sure I’ll be returning to The Sukhothai but if I do I really hope they’ll have returned to their former glory.…
Toom is the best concierge I have met! He is always so helpful, I love this hotel, but Toom have been always the best. The swimming pool very nice, so calm, in the middle of this hectic city. I can’t wait to come back.
The hotel is located in the heart of Bangkok but as soon as you hit the premise you feel in a different world. There is no hectic anymore. The staff is very friendly, like typical in Thailand but also highly competent. The rooms are spacious and well equipped. I have nothing to complain at all.
Khun Try at front office is very attentive, she is explaining every detailed once we checked in. Together with her team Khun Bank and his colleagues at front office who checked us in pay a lot of attention to us and it is very impressive for our first stay at Sukhothai. Definitely will come back to experience mores. Thank you for making our anniversary memorable.
Not the first time, and always a pleasure to stay there. The terrace room are very comfortable ! The breakfast is perfect with big choices. The location of the hotel is perfect for us . We hope to come back very soon.
I stayed here for one night during Songkran holiday and was not impressed as per my expectations. Staff is just providing the basic services but I am not welcoming. It is different services that you can feel at The Peninsula or Mandarin Oriental. I brought up few issues to the front desk such as the shower broken, toilet bidet was not working and they just simply listen. After I check out, none of apology email to be acknowledged. I would hesitate to recommend this hotel to other people.
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