I first went to Thailand in 1997 and immediately fell in love with the country. Thailand at that time to me was mysterious and exotic, full of potentials and pitfalls.
Fast forward to 2010 and here I am after 13 years and many trips to the LOS sharing, with the help of my 
Choosing Thailand Hotels for Songkran
So, Golf and I are planning our next trip to Thailand for Songkran 2009 and I’ve been doing lots of research on hotels in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket. You know there are hundreds of hotels in each of the three locations ranging in price from $10 to over $1000 per night! While it can be a bit overwhelming initially, we know what we need so that helps narrow things down a bit.
Usually in Bangkok we stay at the SD Avenue Hotel, but this time we’re looking for a more central location and the SD Avenue is all the way out in Pinklao which makes for lots of long taxi/boat/bus rides.
Rather than put all of my thoughts into one post I’m going to spend some time looking at each of the short listed hotels and will then let you know our final decision and why we’ve chosen to stay in each of the hotels. And of course you’ll get the follow up posts in May 2009 to let you know our experiences and whether or not we made good choices (I certainly hope so).
Our choices in each of the three places are going to be based primarily on the following considerations:
Location: This is the key to our decision. Especially in Bangkok it is good to be as close to where you need to be as possible. This is true to a smaller extent in Chiang Mai. Phuket presents a different picture as our location decision will be mostly driven by the various beaches.
Price: Unfortunately I haven’t become rich yet from Thailand Musings so I need to keep things within budget. While my budget might not be your budget, I believe my choices provide good value for the money. If you’re looking for the cheapest places to stay then no need to read on as we are not going to be traveling on a shoestring budget. Think of us as more like flashpackers.
Room Amenities: The size of the room and access to Wi-Fi are the most important considerations here, but I can tell you that room amenities are a very distant 3rd place compared to price and location.
That’s about it. I know some of you may be concerned with other facilities and amenities like swimming pools, restaurants, room service and the like, but I’ve found that I rarely use any of these and they certainly aren’t enough to make or break a booking decision for me. Though I will say that in some cases they may make sense and I will certainly include them in my reviews they are my very last considerations when looking at hotels.
So, here is the short list for each location:
Bangkok (Pratunam/Siam area) – Grand Centre Point Rachadamri Hotel, Pathumwan Princess Hotel, Pullman Bangkok King Power Hotel
Bangkok (Sukhumvit area) – Grand Millenium Sukhumvit Hotel, President Solitaire Hotel, Adelphi Suites Hotel
Chiang Mai – Imperial Mae Ping Hotel, Chiang Mai Orchid Hotel
Phuket (Patong Beach) – Millenium Resort, Patong Merlin Hotel, Impiana Phuket Cabana Resort & Spa
Phuket (Karon/Kata Beach) – Katathani Phuket Beach Resort, Mom Tri’s Villa Royale Hotel, Centara Villas Phuket
In the next few weeks I’ll let you know what I’ve found out about each of the hotels and which one’s we’ve decided to book. In the meantime if you have any experience with any of the hotels I’m going to discuss or any suggestions for other hotels we would all be happy to have your comments.
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Check out these similar posts:
- Hilton Celebrates Songkran in Thailand
- Thailand Best Beach Hotels and Resorts
- 12 Great Bangkok Hotels
- Chiang Mai Songkran Festival
- Grande Centre Point Rachadamri Hotel Bangkok Thailand
- Living Vicariously Through Photos
- Thai New Year Songkran Festival or Water Festival
I just want to say that you have a great site here. It has been a great source of information for me.
Thanks for the info; I’ve always heard that Thailand offers a high standard of living for the price, and $10/night hotels just proves that.
Thank for this post really informative, what a nice room and housekeeping! Thailand is my must visit..
Personally, I would avoid the $10 per night hotels. Too cheap…scares me!
C’mon live a little bit…think of it as an adventure! Anyway, $10 goes a bit farther in Thailand and the better cheap hotels are at least clean. Nothing to be scared of :>)
Nice site, good reviews and writing.
I think these days the $10/night hotels are not that clean. For a decent cheap Bangkok hotel I would recommend aiming for the 750 Baht + / per night range.
Now is a great time though, tourism is down in the kingdom.
Thanks for the compliment :>)
I’ll agree that the $10 a night hotels are not all that clean, but if you’re on a strict budget they might be right for you. Honestly though at my stage of life I typically opt for the hotels in the 2000 baht a night range and up. Gold and I are in Bangkok now and staying at Adelphi Suites in Sukhumvit Soi 8 and for the price (1800 a night for a studio) it’s a great place. Very clean, spacious, great location, decent breakfasts…well I’ll be doing a full review once we return to the States, but I can say that I highly recommend it.
It’s also true that tourism is definitely down. Considering the time of year we’ve found most places to be very quiet and while there are still a number of tourist around, it is nothing like previous years.
Well, booking a hotel for Songkran Festival u will certainly make sure that it is waterproof
because of the large amounts of water being thrown at this festival.
The Imperial Mae Ping Hotel and Chiang Mai Orchid Hotel in Chiang Mai are quite expensive hotels, and it is possible to find other hotels with the same comfort for less money.
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Golf’s Translation: “really cool for this kind of website and willing to support…keeping up a good work”
I’ve always been fascinated with the Far East. This article makes Thailand my first stop!
Your post is really helping for people who plan the trip for Thailand; the hotel you tell us about is also very nice. Thanks for sharing with all of us.
I’ve always wanted to go to Thailand. Thanks for the hotel list, comes in very handy. I just don’t trust travel agents, I’d rather find out from someone who’s personally been there.
My parents just went through such an ordeal when going with a tour group to South American (specifically while in Paraguay). My dad is from there, and although they were told they were staying in a classy hotel in Philladelphia, it ended up being a real dive with water on the floor of most bathrooms, and in some cases the rooms didn’t even have bathrooms. Just plain sucks.
Thanks again for the info.