The hotel gave me the wrong information that resulted in me missing my overnight train to Chiang Mai. Because of their mistake, I have to book last minute accommodations at higher prices and re-book my train to Chiang Mai. The overnight train was booked a month ago to ensure there is A/C during my trip, I now have to book a last minute train ticket in a non-air conditioned cabin. And I have to pay for one unused night at my hotel in Chiang Mai. This hotel is located near BTS, major shopping malls, and importantly other hotels. I would have recommended this place to all my friends and family by default, now it's the only hotel in the area that I will tell you and them to stay away from. Like all service jobs, we know it's fake smiles but you can't fake the way you handle customer aftercare. Save yourself from the potential headache because it will happen to you. Read the other 1-star reviews about how they handle things and you'll know.
I understand that it is ultimately my responsibility for making the train, but I gave myself enough time. At no point before leaving the hotel was I in a panic that I was going to miss it, I was calm and confident based on what Grab was telling me since their estimates have always been fairly accurate. I had planned to use Grab and was closely monitoring the estimated time throughout the day leaving a margin for delays. However, the information given to me by the staff was the sole reason for my decision to not use it. If they said nothing and I carried on with my initial plan, I'm 100% confident I would have made the overnight train to Chiang Mai.
The hotel refused to take some accountability for their misguidance and basically blew me off and hung up the phone. I don't think I was unreasonable to ask for a free or discounted night to sleep so I could gather my thoughts around my travel plans for the next day. But their response has compelled me to write a review. Again I am very meticulous and I made sure I had enough time to leave the hotel and take a Grab to Don Mueang Train Station, Grab quoted me 35 minutes to get there. I asked the bellboy for the best drop-off point for my Grab about 1 hour and 30 minutes before my departure time, he suddenly recommended that I take the SkyTrain because it's cheaper and quicker. The bellboy physically looked at my eTicket and saw the departure time 20:22 when I asked him about the drop-off point, I mentioned that it departs in 1 hour and 30 minutes and that Grab quoted 35 minutes. Well, the SkyTrain ended up taking 1 hour and 45 minutes. It was my mistake for not verifying his claim because I fully trusted the hotel's concierge service since they are experienced with traffic in Bangkok and its quite difficult to nail down an accurate estimate with the train system. If someone who lives in Bangkok tells you it's cheaper and quicker, you should listen and trust them out of respect. The lady on the phone insisted that the bellboy was correct and said it was my fault for not leaving on time. So I asked her, "If I had booked a private in-house taxi through your concierge desk instead of taking a Grab or the SkyTrain at that exact time, what time would you have quoted me?" She said they would've quoted me 1 hour and 30 minutes or longer and therefore it was my fault that I left late, and the bell boy was correct that the SkyTrain would've been cheaper and quicker.. on a Saturday after 7:00pm aka not rush hour. If it's 1 hour and 30 minutes or longer, why even suggest I take the train or a Grab at all? Just tell me I missed it so I wouldn't have wasted my time and taken responsibility for being late. Instead, she said, "Okay you can just write us an email about your experience" and then hung up the phone. It's because of that simple reason that I don't believe they are telling the truth and they are just trying to cover their mistake. Anyway, I just ordered a Grab from Don Mueang and it'll take 40 minutes to get back to a nearby competitor. Take accountability for your mistakes and don't blame your customers for the advice that was...
Read moreEverything was ok until we found bed bugs in our room on the 4th night of our stay. I started noticing some itchy bites on my arm on our 3rd day but didn't put much thought into it as I was the only one getting them out of everyone in the room and simply thought they were just mosquito bites but on the 4th day morning I started noticing more of these bites so I suspected there were bed bugs in our room. Before sleeping on the 4th night I made sure to check the bed and sure enough there were bed bugs. Live bed bugs were crawling around so we called the lobby and requested for a change of hotel room, they said to give them some time and their staff would come by to check. They made us wait more than 10mins just for their housekeeper to come with a towel to kill the live bed bugs with no intention to change our room. We had to call the lobby again to reiterate that we want a room change as there's no way we're sleeping in a room filled with bed bugs. They told us to wait for 15mins and sure enough they made us wait for long again to the point we had to head down to the lobby ourselves for them to serve us...even after heading down, only a trainee staff was available and she was clumsy in handling us so we could only wait for her manager who was busy checking in other guests. If they took this issue serious enough, he could have asked the trainee staff to take over the check in process and attended to us immediately but they made us wait another 10mins standing at the lobby. After he was done checking in the guests, we had to go over to him personally which made it seem like their team didn't understand the seriousness of this case...mind you this incident happened between 11pm-12am, we were sacrificing our precious sleep time dealing with their slow customer service after a long day out. Even when handling our situation, he didn't seem very apologetic about it but he did help us to make a room change to a newly renovated room. He told us that his bell boys will follow us up and help shift our stuff to the new room so we headed up and yup once again...after 5mins of waiting in our room their bell boys were not up yet so we decided to just shift our things ourselves. This whole experience left a pretty sour taste in our mouth.
Other aspects of our stay were passable but I wouldn't say it's exceptional. For example, we would make a cup of complimentary tea using the free tea bag in the room everyday but we noticed that the cleaning staff doesn't refill the tea bag and they also didn't change out the dirty towels until we requested for a change. Aren't these the basic responsibilities of the cleaning staff? The check out process was also long-winded which we found quite unnecessary. From our other hotel stays, check out is always a breeze as we just had to let them know our room number and hand them our key card but at Rembrandt, the staff told us to wait for 10mins for their staff to check if we have used any chargeable items in the room. However, I think she wasn't getting much response from her team so after a while she double checked with us that we didn't use anything in the room and let us go.
Overall, the stay was ok for the price but when there are unforeseen situations like bed bugs, the team doesn't seem skilled in handling them in a way to ensure high customer satisfaction. I wouldn't highly recommend the hotel unless you're ok with this level of customer service if you were to be in the same situation as us. Claiming to be a 4.5 star hotel does seem to be too over the top as our original room was dated and their customer service obviously didn't live up to what a real 4.5 star hotel would offer...disappointing. Now I'm back from holiday with arms filled with itchy bed bug bites, not a very...
Read moreThe hotel is great in service, 5-star qualified. And this review gives you the info that you cannot find elsewhere while doing the research on Bangkok accommodation, especially when you are traveling with an infant. Main road that you must pass if you need to go to the hotel is always busy, best shortest way is to walk. The hotel locates in a quiet road compared to the busy Sukhumvit area. It gives you the tranquil vibes and definitely not need to worry about traffic noise, about 200m walk to the main road but isolated enough. Noise insulation is also good. Few 7-11 around the corners, 5-min walk. The hotel is old, so the furnitures and room design are outdated. Still comfy enough, but aware that: The TV is cable only, no access to Internet or Youtube. I do white noise to put my baby to sleep and had to improvise since I cannot open Youtube to play the sound. If you come from SEA, no toilet bum guns, be prepared The bathroom wash basin is made of marble, it gives the cold touches. If you have to quick wash your baby it might be too cold. No proper closets, only a small space to hang clothes. No bathroom robes. Pool is there but a bit small. It’s not busy most of the time except during the afternoon when some go there for tanning. Staffs are indeed super friendly and professional. Hotel provides free shuttle tuktuk, unlike Movenpick, it only rides on Sukhumvit 18 and 20 roads, which are small roads that connect with the main road. So if you plan to go to Terminal 21, you need to walk instead. I book the hotel partly because I expect to use the tuktuk but end up never using the service. Stroller is possible but you will need to wheel it on the road most of the time because the pavement is not convenient
Overall, the experience was 4 star for me, some minor uncomfy details and most of all, the busy area that is the minus...
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