Satri House — Hotel in Luang Prabang

I arrived at Satri House late in the afternoon, my first visit to Luang Prabang.||I stayed only one night, but I wanted to experience the property given its heritage and style. ||I loved it. It is one of the most romantic and authentic places I have ever stayed. You never ever feel it is a hotel. It is like a diplomatic residence.||It isn’t pure luxury, like Amantaka where I also stayed: that should be stated at the outset. But it isn’t sold at Amantaka prices. ||It is of a style of luxury that you will love if you love heritage hotels filled with atmosphere and antiques. It has individuality and a huge sense of place. ||Room||My room was on the first floor. A four poster bed with mosquito netting dominated the room, to the side was a writer’s desk. The toilet was separate to the bathroom, next to the wardrobe. This area was a little dark and only lit by a curious green wall light. ||The bathroom was of a vintage and though not especially luxurious, functional and clean. ||The floorboards were very squeaky but I didn’t mind, and laughed as I crept across them at night making horrendous noises. I actually preferred the wooden floor to the tiling at Amantaka. ||The room had a lovely terrace overlooking a quiet garden area next to a street. It was a lovely place to sit if you happened to be there for more than one night I imagine, as it was quiet in the evening.||The room has old furniture and antiques dotted all over it. It feels like the kind of room Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham would find themselves in. I played 1920s big band jazz as I dressed. ||Facilities and experiences||I had a massage in the spa, which was fairly decent value, compared to the other luxury hotels in town including Amantaka, which were charging London prices. Silly. ||The spa itself was fascinating, and the interior had the feel of an old French colonial hospital with fabric screens separating the beds.||The restaurant is in the centre of the hotel, and is wonderfully charming. I had dinner there that evening, which was traditional Laotian food. It was a lovely, quiet atmosphere and the food was fine. Don’t expect much company: I was the only one dining at around 8.30pm. I also had the breakfast here which was very good. Non-buffet, which I much prefer.||They give you a little guide to Luang Prabang which also has little Laotian phrases. Useful as English is not widely spoken. ||Staff||Staff are lovely. Really friendly and speak English well. One of them used to work at Amantaka beforehand.||Summary||A beautiful, heritage stay with bags of atmosphere and beauty surrounding you. The most authentic hotel in town, but don’t expect super high-end luxury. For a short stay, you don’t need it. Even then, I wish I had...

Satri House is a higher priced accommodation that’s further away from most of the main attractions than many others. While it is in a restored old house, it didn’t live up to our standards when compared to the lesser priced place we stayed at in the old city.

They conveniently forget to tell guests that they are constructing new buildings right in front of many of the rooms and the view is of workers making noise all day.

While not unfriendly per se, staff all seemed their job was routine and didn’t go out of their way to help with much of anything. English skills could definitely be improved given the increased popularity of Laos. Rooms are quite dark and in the old colonial mansion style which makes them hollow and somewhat impersonal.

The breakfast was far inferior to the one we had at our other LP accommodation. Very small menu and good has no flavor at all. Fruit is very skimpy and not good. The restaurant itself is insanely overpriced relative to many other comparable eateries with limited local choices and should be avoided unless you’re too lazy to venture out of the hotel

Speaking of which, the pool area has very few loungers and many guests apparently came to Laos to sit there all day thus monopolizing the space. I’m unclear why you’d spend a pool vacation in a landlocked nation filled with interesting things to see and do but I suppose the high prices attract the snobbier set since many others seem to rave about the hotel. All guests we saw were European boomers who were clearly not in Laos to take in the culture and sights.

While not the worst experience we’ve ever had visiting a new place, there are many comfortable and friendlier accommodations all over Luang Prabang so we can’t...

This is a really beautiful hotel, in an "old colonial" style. Lovely traditional rooms with dark furniture and individual terraces. The gardens are wonderful as are the pool areas and the water was a great temperature to swim in. There are lots of lovely little areas to sit and take your ease and soak up the atmosphere. The dining room was lovely with plenty of places to sit outside over-looking the pools or the lily pond. It has the feel of someone's lovely home (which it was). The only think lacking was the attention to detail on the service. There did not seem to be a guiding presence on the management side directing the staff. In fact the impression we got was that the staff were rather demoralised. Very few people seem to eat or drink in the hotel as it is competing with a lot of excellent offerings in the town a lot of which are, frankly, a lot cheaper. That said, we did eat in on a couple of nights of our 3 night stay as the setting is so special and the food was good. Drinks were very expensive though and I do feel that if at least some of the drinks were more reasonably priced a lot more people would stay in and eat and drink. Lacks the little touches which would raise this hotel above the merely good to the truly excellent. Come on management - get your act together you have a beautiful property and lovely but demoralised staff. It didn't help, of course, that we came to Satri House direct from Jaya House River Park in Siem Reap - a hotel that provides a master...