Originally Posted by
monahos
The upgrade to the royal villa was pre-Lyle, but was an outlier as the hotel was at 100% occupancy and I was on a short stay which must have matched its vacancy; I was left with the impression this was handled by the Thai reservation manager. IIRC it was my fourth stay there.
I never met the previous GM (saw him last year at the Rangali being, er, selective about guests he would approach), in contrast to Lyle who was available to all. It is under his watch the CKS became my favorite Hilton property, one of the few with no 'why am I here?' rooms, plus personalized, friendly, discreet, thoughtful, but not fawning service, just the way I like it. Here is hoping that mindset survived his retirement.
Lyle was a fantastic host. He upgraded us to the Royal Villa once for around 5 nights. It was a huge and very pleasant surprise.
However, the staff at this property are still superb. They really go out of their way to make you feel special, and their competence and follow-through is very nice-better than at the W or the Four Seasons. We never even met the new manager once during our recent 11-night stay, but were still very well taken care of, and the front office girls checked on us daily.
Originally Posted by
pinniped
I get that Bangkok is like that, but is Koh Samui as well?
My wife had to go to the
Bangkok Hospital emergency room in Koh Samui at around 4 AM last year (gall bladder) and we witnessed two young Frenchmen, who had been in a motorcycle accident (and they were not drunk), having rocks and other debris being removed from their skin by the patient nurses. They evidently gave them no painkillers because they were screaming and crying during the procedure. It was really funny to watch the dutiful and thorough nurses do their work while these young, tough-looking men were mewling. At the end of the procedure, both of them looked like mummies, and they chatted cheerfully with us at check-out about how they were done with renting motorbikes in Thailand.
By the way,
Bangkok Hospital is fantastic. I highly recommend them. My wife was seen by a US-educated doctor in less than 5 minutes, who competently and correctly diagnosed her condition and had her on pain killers by the time I finished check-in. In the end, it only cost $210- with no insurance, including meds, for the treatment.