Rimnaam Klangchan Hotel — Hotel in Chanthaburi Province

D Varee represented probably the worst value for money I have experienced in Thai hotels. Not something I expected based on the ratings on TripAdvisor. Chanthaburi is a lovely small town but I don’t think I will return to this hotel. ||I paid over 5000 THB for a night in a jacuzzi room during a public holiday - roughly the same I have paid in many five star Marriotts, InterContinentals or Anantaras recently - and expected a nice experience while of course being mindful of the lower star rating. ||This is what I got:||- The check-in was efficient but the reception lacked any kind of warmth or friendliness. No welcome drink or any other gesture either. ||- During our stay the staff overall was not particularly friendly or proactive. They hardly greeted us and rarely even smiled when seeing us in the corridor or the lobby. Basic hospitality skills were lacking. At check-out, nobody even asked if we had had a nice stay.||- The level of property maintenance seemed not so great: the corridors and the elevator were slightly run-down, poorly lit and not very clean The room had a bit dull, very traditional decor. Not very well cleaned, dust on surfaces. The jacuzzi was a bit dirty too. The safe box did not work and the technicians had to spend a long while trying to fix it.||- The riverside location was nice, albeit it’s not maybe the most picturesque part of the town. We could see a bit of the river from our room from behind the big trees from our top floor room. ||- The breakfast was uninspiring with rather limited options, noodles were cold and coffee was only available from a self-service machine. The staff was not very helpful, everything was self-service. At dinner, restaurant prices were reasonable but my meal could not be eaten because it was ridiculously spicy even for an experienced spicy Thai food eater. ||- On a positive note, the small riverside garden was nice. The pool was closed due to COVID...

The nicest part of this hotel is the green garden setting, with big trees and lots of plants and flowers. They have pleasant seating outside under the trees for enjoying leisurely coffee and breakfast. The facilities are fairly modern and maintained. We had a nice room, upgraded from what we booked online. ||||Despite our email in advance requesting early check-in, when we arrived at 11:00 a.m., we were told early check-in was not possible. The staff deflected, claiming the hotel had been full the night before, people were checking out late and the cleaners would only start cleaning rooms at noon. The staff must have taken us for idiots, because there was not a sign of any other guests at the hotel at that time, and when we were finally given a room at 1:40 p.m., we found the cleaning staff sitting around in the hall outside our room, playing with their phones. Why they couldn't have prepared our room earlier is still a mystery. They also might have given us a welcome drink or cup of coffee while we waited; instead, we ended up paying a steep price for two half-filled cups of coffee. ||||When we got our room, we found the bed sheets were not as crisp and clean as one would expect from a top hotel. Other than that, the room was quite acceptable. Nice shower. Disappointing that their TV cable package included no English channels except Bloomberg Business. The room did have a nice balcony, but the views of the river are partially obstructed by those nice big trees (trade-offs!). While we were there, there was extremely noisy construction going on across the river, so it really wasn't very pleasant to sit on the balcony.||||Complementary breakfast was better than we expected (although the bacon was cold). Good cappuccino. Friendly breakfast staff. Beautiful garden setting...

We have had a terrible stay here. Staff speaks poor English. They did not even understood that we wanted to go to the center/waterfront area by taxi, we had to use google translate. They called a taxi for us who took us to the waterfront area. When we wanted to go back, there were no taxi's in that area. Locals said that was normal. Why did the staff not warn us for that? Eventually a restaurant owner called our hotel with the request to send the same taxi to us. We had to wait for 50 minutes! Back in the hotel staff did not even asked about it.|In the evening we had very loud neighbors above us. We asked them to be quiet and they did but later they were loud again. I walked to the reception at 1.30am and there was nobody! I rang the bell at the counter but no one showed up. We called front office and someone said she would solve it. But then I heard the phone ring at the reception where of course no one answered. We did not receive any message about this. So all is all a bad stay and I would not recommend...