What’s it like to stay at the Bangkok Palace Hotel? Well quite a bit like staying in a time machine, a time machine that is stuck in Bombay. Actually is quite nice here, so like as you like retro and oh so cliche.
To read about Khao San Road click here.
Why stay at the Bangkok Palace Hotel
The reasons to stay at the Bangkok Palace Hotel are two-fold, price and location. The Bangkok Palace Hotel is but a mere 1.2km from the Pratunam Market. My personal reasons were that it boasted a pool and proximity to said market.
Why Pratunam Market? Because when you have been to Khao San Road and China Town in Bangkok you need to stretch further to get your jollies, I wanted me some more Bangkok jollies.
What is the Bangkok Palace Hotel like?
The Bangkok Palace Hotel looks like the best 5 Star Hotel in Bangkok you could say in, if you were a Kennedy or Bettlemania was still a thing. Very, very very retro. I have been in hotels that felt like they were old school North Korean, or Chinese, but this was old school American.
And this was from the reception, a cardboard cut-out of what still passes fro quality on retro Philippines hotels, right down to the ballroom and the payphone area. I curse the day I forgot to take a picture of the pay phones, but forget indeed I did do.
If you do want at least a little authenticity they did have some elephants, so that was nice.
The Rooms at the Bangkok Palace Hotel
Not exactly like a palace, with beds that were passable and a bath that was not. I know Thai’s are shorter than most, but well Hobbits would have had issues here. And then there is the whole wifi situation which literally needs a degree in IT to fix. In fairness this is more a Thailand than a Bangkok Palace Hotel problem.
And as for facilities there was the breakfast that was 2 dollars each, but was worth about 40 cents and the pool. The pool bravely decreed that no outside food or drinks were allowed. I guess in yesteryear the food and drinks part was open by the pool. It not longer is at all. There was a park ranger though, although when I asked him for towels he made me follow him to get them rather than actually bring them to me.
Is the Bangkok Palace Hotel 4 Star, is it a Palace and is it worth staying in?
Is the Bangkok Palace Hotel 4 Star? Well sticking feathers up tour arse does not a chicken make as the famous saying goes. This was once a five star, but not now. This is of the phenomenon of a hotel that was posh and has suffered through Covid and reopened while simply hoping for the best – I call them Covid Haunted Hotels, of which it gets 5 Ghouls.
Is it a palace, no it is not, is it worth staying in. At $30 you could say it was good value in comparison to other counters and that would be very fair, but it is not great value for Bangkok, less so still for Thailand.
It is though really close to Pratunam Market which was why I stayed there. Is it worth going to Pratunam Market? Well if you want to know that you will have to read the next thing that I write.
Want to join me in city of squalor? Check out the YPT South-East Asian Adventure here.