The Stay Hotel - Pattaya — Hotel in Pattaya City

Intro

The Stay is currently my favorite place to stay. I’ve been here four nights already so I think I’ve gotten a bit of a feel for the hotel and the location. This is the first time I’ve been in a hotel with a (small) view of Pattaya Beach, so I’m branching out a little. I’m normally closer to the Soi Buakhao neighborhood. The Stay is a nice, modern hotel, with comfortable beds, in a very quiet neighborhood.

Check-in / Checkout

My booking was pre-paid on Agoda. Check-in was a breeze. There was a 500b key deposit. I expect checkout to be equally easy.

Facilities

There is an onsite restaurant with a reasonable breakfast buffet that was included in the cost of my room. I ate there most mornings. There are eggs to order, along with a standard mix of Asian and Western breakfast items. The restaurant also delivers a full menu of both Thai and Western options to the room for a 10% service charge plus 7% VAT. The hotel has a rooftop pool area, and a surprisingly nice fitness room. There is a K-Bank exchange booth in the parking area, and there is ample off-street parking for cars or motorbikes. There is also a 24-hour security person in the parking area. The lifts require a room keycard to move up from the ground floor.

Ambience

I’ve been very impressed by how nice the property is. It’s a new hotel, with a spacious feel to it. There is lots of open space without clutter. Rather than pack 10 pounds of hotel in a 5 pound bag, they have done just the opposite. All the areas I visited have been spotlessly clean, open, and airy. It really is an excellent facility.

Room

The room I booked is the Superior Double with Balcony. The room is 42 sq. meters and is not overpacked with furnishings. Aside from the King bed, there is a full-size desk and ample electrical outlets. The room includes a safe, hot water pot, and a small pre-stocked refrigerator. This room has a large glass walled shower enclosure, but the higher priced rooms can include a bathtub. A rather unique feature of the sliding closet doors is that one direction opens the closet area, the other direction opens up a passthrough ‘window’ into the bathroom area. On the room side, one door has a large mirror and the position of the mirrored door can be swapped but that will take away the bathroom sink mirror which is mounted on the back of the sliding door.) The room includes a balcony overlooking Soi 10 with enough room for a small table (suitable for a room service dinner) and two chairs. The only minor downside to the room is the wall mounted television is 32” and look remarkably tiny in the room. I don’t normally watch television on holiday, so it wasn’t an issue for me. But for the room size and price point, I would have expected to see a 40” or greater flat screen television. On the plus side, both USB and HDMI ports are easily accessible for connecting a laptop, or plugging in a movie drive.

Internet

My test of the hotel Wi-Fi was an 8ms ping, 5 Mbps download and 4 Mbps upload. These stats are only valid for the instant I ran the test for myself and may not be the speeds that anyone else gets at some other moment in time.

Customer Service

All the staff I had interactions with were both friendly and professional. I did not have any less than excellent staff interactions.

Price

The cost on the Superior room should be around 1600-1700 baht per night, which for me is a reasonable price for the quality of the room. I’d be hard pressed to find a value when comparing quality for cost.

Summary

As I mentioned in the introduction, I think The Stay has become my new favorite Pattaya hotel. The first and second things I look for in a hotel are comfortable, and quiet. The Stay excels at both. I also appreciate the cost per square meter on the room. At 42 sq. meters, the room feels huge. There is enough open floor space that you might be able to play a VR game if you packed your VR gaming...

I reserved a “Stay Superior” room with breakfast which I then upgraded to “Stay Suite” as I read good reviews of the Suite. Both the initial room reservation and the upgrade was paid in full in advance as I booked via Expedia.

As we arrived the hotel we were shown to our room. As we were unpacking our luggage I noticed that this room wasn’t actually the Suite but a normal room.

I went to reception and their immediate suggestion was that why don’t I stay in that room because the luggage is already there. I pointed out that I had actually already paid for the upgrade in advance and asked to have the room I paid for. They made me feel as if I needed to negotiate and apologise for this room change.

But without much of further fuss we got the room I had paid for, they helped with luggage carrying and the move went smoothly. Mistakes happen and changing the room wasn’t a big thing for us. The suite upgrade was worth it, it is a very nice big room.

However, they then said that we were not entitled for breakfast any more because of the room upgrade. I find this detail odd – I did pay for the breakfast for the initial room, where did that payment go?

Other than the room mistake and breakfasts disappearing the hotel is good. The room is clean as the common areas too and the suite room is very nice. I can’t update the review regarding the breakfast tastiness and quality, obviously, but I can tell how the food looks like tomorrow morning when looking at the breakfast area through...

The Stay Hotel Pattaya (Room 414)||Overall, I love this hotel and would definitely stay here again if internet access via laptop is not needed.||PROS:|1. In-room secure safe deposit box;|2. Quiet area despite being located in the center of Pattaya and very close to the beach;|3. Good aircon;|4. Reliable Wifi (using phones);|5. Rooftop pool and gym;|6. Spacious room with great lighting options;|7. Balcony with table and chairs;|8. Can tap and pay using NFC contactless digital wallet payments;|9. Many powerpoints throughout the room;|10. Helpful staff; lovely housekeeping;|11. Nice modern bathroom with spacious shower and strong bidet pressure.||CONS:|1. Balcony door handle loose and doesn't lock, which creates a security risk;|2. Many case bearing moths all around the room;|3. Staff rarely greets guests as they enter hotel;|4. Older model laptops have much difficultly staying connected to WiFi network due to network login configuration requirements. Extremely annoying and likely to prevent me from returning here;|5. Bathroom mirror/lighting not ideal for...