Introduction After a promising start soon after hotel opening when I stayed last year, I returned to Capella Bangkok this year to see what changed. Overall I had a good stay however there were a few small issues which popped up leaving them still below the level where they need to be in my opinion, and not part of the cream of the crop yet. Room Almost all top tier hotels do not have a loyalty program to speak of (Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Rosewood) so in theory Capella being part of GHA which gives plus 2 room category upgrade to Titanium guests could end up being better value than other hotels in part due to this feature. Last year it ended up being the case but not before a somewhat bungled initial room assignment, and this year was worse. I booked the courtyard suite and was hoping for an upgrade to a higher category of suites. In the days before our stay I asked by e-mail how hotel occupancy was and what room type I could expect to receive but they only responded to other questions of my e-mail and remained silent about the upgrade. On the day of check-in I looked at room availability online and noticed that many room types above mine were fully booked so I was not surprised about the lack of upgrade at check-in. When chatting with staff it emerged that it would not have mattered anyway because they made the internal decision that upgrades would not go beyond the courtyard suite which is probably something they should have communicated earlier, and also possibly a lost opportunity to differentiate themselves versus the competition.To be honest after staying in the courtyard suite for a few days I can say it is not my favorite room type and in fact, is possibly why they hesitated to upgrade me to that room type in the first place during our stay last year. First off Capella is a riverside hotel but this room is one of the very few which does not have river views. In some circumstances I might not mind some kind of garden view but the problem is that the room was L-shaped with the windows on the inner portion of the L which made the room a bit dark even during the day. The main positive is that they prepared a great birthday arrangement in the living room for our daughter; I can imagine older children being quite excited at the opportunity to sleep in a hotel teepee. Dining The breakfast menu was largely the same as when we stayed last year with the only notable difference being that the breakfast champagne drink has been eliminated. Cin Cin hour from 5-6pm was at the living room next to reception last year and the venue has been improved to the Stella bar instead. The cocktails they prepared during happy hour were excellent quality and service was great. The lone black mark was that on one of the days of our stay there was a private event at Stella due to a wedding and they moved Cin Cin hour to a poor venue without any seats and people standing up. While children are normally not allowed at Stella in the regular hours after 6pm, the hotel made an exception for our daughter’s birthday and they organized a small party 6-8pm before the bar became more crowded, which was a nice gesture. The manager of the Côte restaurant whom we met last year even went out of his way to stop by and greet us for the occasion. This is something I witnessed in other occasions during our stay as well: various managers are making their presence felt and having contact with guests which is definitely a strong positive at Capella. To conclude with dining I would note that the Côte restaurant has received its Michelin star which I am not surprised at all given our superb experience last year. Too bad we could not take advantage of Côte for this stay, perhaps when our daughter is older it will be more suitable or alternatively we could use the hotel babysitting service. Service One service issue which came up during our stay was that one day we had the do not disturb light on during the morning because we preferred for housekeeping to be done in the afternoon when we had planned a lunch at the Phra Nakhon restaurant. We had a reservation at 1:30pm and I removed the DND light before heading to lunch so the hotel should have known the timing was good to clean the room, unfortunately when we came back at 4pm the room had not been done so obviously nobody went there to check all afternoon. By then our daughter needed to nap so we could not delay housekeeping any longer and we wanted to stay in the room during the evening. To make matters worse, when I wanted a refill of water because we were running low, I called several times before going to sleep but nobody ever picked up the phone so we had an unclean room and lack of water. The next day at breakfast when our culturist (as they call them) asked for feedback about our stay so far, I outlined the positives but commented about the housekeeping plus the phone, and found out that there was an electrical problem resulting in phones not working which explained the issue. I was thanked for my feedback including my (less than stellar) opinion about the courtyard suite and was offered to move to another room type for the end of our stay. I preferred to stay put because it would have been a bit of a hassle to pack up so instead they offered a river suite upgrade for our next stay which I will be sure to take advantage of. Overall All in all it was not a perfect stay and in the future I would book either a non-suite which all have river views, or a suite category higher than courtyard. I continue to believe the hotel has great potential but it’s not a well-oiled machine yet. Nonetheless I still prefer it to the other hotels listed earlier in various ways so I will continue to return to Capella.