Small, quiet hotel, excellent location
Very clean with good-sized rooms. 5 minutes walk to the Skytrain's Phrom Phong station and Emporium mall - you'll get to see street vendors selling everything from grilled fish/sausages/bananas to hair accessories and clothes. Plenty of cabs in front of the hotel (the doorman can get you one too).
For western food, get a cab to K Village near Carrefour/Tesco Lotus about 1 km away (cab fare 35 baht). Its a 2-storey open mall with several coffee outlets, a gourmet grocery store (lovely bread there) and upscale restaurants. Excellent for people-watching.
A tip: not all cab drivers in Bangkok can speak English well but if you can at least tell them the soi (alley/small street branching off from the main roads) number in Thai, you'll get there.
Also, we booked a half day tour from the hotel (National Palace and Temple of the Dawn). The guide came and said that we'll also go to a gem factory (not mentioned in itinerary when we booked the tour), after which they will drop us anywhere we'd like. The gem factory was a complete tourist trap (free soda upon arrival, big bar lounge for dads to hang out and kids to run about while mom checks out jewelry with pushy salespeople). Instead of dropping us where we wanted, the tour guide pushed us to agree to be dropped off at the King Power Duty Free Shop, saying please, he'll get a ticket for every time he brings people there; he's already got 75 and will win a prize if he gets 100 tickets. He even made sure that we brought along our passports before we left for the tour (on the pretext that the police might ask to check them). The only reason he wanted to make sure we had our passports is because we need to register before going into the King Power Duty Free Shop.
Read full St. James, Bangkok review
Summary
-
5/6
Customer service
-
6/6
Cleanliness of accommodation
-
5/6
Quality of room
-
6/6
Value for money
-
Not Rated
Quality of food
-
Not Rated
Family friendly
