Best Western International - be very careful
Written: Apr 30 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: reasonably inexpensive, able to book online, rooms are large
Cons: unclean, old, inadequate, poorly located, poorly trained staff
The Bottom Line: This hotel is to be avoided. There is much, much better accommodation available for the same price, and in better locations.
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| singaporeboy's Full Review: Best Western |
This opinion refers specifically to the Best Western Baiyoke Suite Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand.
Best Western, as their website proclaims, is one of the world's largest hotel chains, each of which is independently owned and operated. From my experience with them, this isn't so much a proud statement of conquest as it is a disclaimer.
See, the last time I stayed in a Best Western hotel, an archaeological ruin of a property in Thailand, I had a problem, both with the room and with the bill afterwards...and that's when I realized what it means to be independently owned and operated. I had no idea that phrase was a euphemism for not interested in customer service in the slightest.
Before I go into that, though, here's an account of my stay at the Best Western Baiyoke Suite Hotel, Bangkok (embedded within are the many reasons why I will never return to this property).
First of all, the hotel itself isn't a conspicuous hotel. As others have pointed out, it's either part of a large shopping complex, or the shopping complex is part of it. Either way, the entrance is an almost unmarked door down a flight of crowded steps, leading into a barren and nondescript little chamber. From there, you take elevators up five floors to the bland lobby (waiting for those elevators can be a pain, I'll get to that later). The lobby looks like it's supposed to have a few restaurants attached to it, but they were all closed when I went.
The check-in staff, who were handling a lot of people, were the antithesis of what Thai hospitality is said to be. The two women I dealt with directly, despite working in a hotel line, had great difficulty communicating in basic English, and I had great difficulty understanding their accents. It took them ten minutes to find my reservation: it had been printed on a piece of paper and alphabetized according to last name, and when I gave them my card they started looking under my first name. After they couldn't find me listed under my first name's first letter, they told me that I didn't have a reservation. When I took the paper to have a look, I found my reservation within ten seconds.
After the check-in itself (which took another 10 minutes), I was handed my key and told to go up the elevator to my room. Well, of the four elevators the hotel has, only two serve odd-numbered floors, while the other two serve even-numbered floors. The elevators themselves move at a snail's pace. As a result, I frequently waited more than 20 minutes, without exaggeration, to go up or down.
Twenty minutes later, I reached my room, and looked on it in relative dismay. It may have been cleaned, but it certainly wasn't very clean. The furniture could not possibly have been purchased after 1971, and it was definitely showing signs of its age. The carpets smelled a little funny, and turned out to be a bit dusty. The shower barely worked, and there was very little water pressure when it did work. The toilet was not cleaned. The bed, thankfully, was clean and comfortable, but the clock beside it was broken. Also, the airconditioner had only one temperature setting: too cold. Since I didn't find any obvious way to turn it off without turning off all the power in the room, I had to leave it on.
Checking out of the hotel the next day took almost as long as check-in the previous day, only with slightly less confusion. The check-in agent this time knew how to take a credit card payment, although when I presented her with a frequent flyer card, she looked quite baffled. She tried to use it to settle the bill, getting more and more puzzled when it didn't work. Apparently, she'd never seen one of these before, and she kept telling me that my credit card wasn't working. After taking back the card and giving her a real credit card, she settled the bill, gave me the card and receipt, and then wished me well in the most insincere voice I'd ever heard from a service agent in Thailand.
That was my first, and last, Best Western experience in Bangkok.
Now, I understand that all hotel chains are likely to have one or two bad apples in the bunch. I've got nothing against the chain itself; I've heard lots of good things about them. This one hotel, however, is one to be ejected from the lot.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
singaporeboy
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Location: Illinois
Reviews written: 96
Trusted by: 18 members
About Me:
Just someone who's lucky enough to have lived in several corners of the planet
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