Originally Posted by Unterwegs

After a few nights at the IC Bangkok my observations: I am currently at the IC Saigon and was staying at the Kimpton in Bangkok earlier this year and I am using them as reference points:
- They are not selling suites yet, but have several levels of what seems to be the same room (just different floors etc), which makes guranteed upgrades potentially meaningless. (The Kimpton was upgrading me to a real suite, same for the IC Saigon as Diamond Ambassador)
- The renovated rooms are nice, especially the bathrooms. But there are problems. One example is the light switch. They installed some kind of intelligent system where the same button switches on all the lights, a second press switches off a few of the lights, a third press switches off more lights and the forth everything on again - except that some random lights seem to stay on. It will take a while to get the room dark at night. (This in addition to all the lights coming on randomly, that problem went away after a technician resetted the system - and no, it is not a Microsoft product)
- Nice very big intelligent TV, except that it was coming on in full brightness by itself at night. Disconnecting all the cables on the back helped.
- They replaced the workdesk with a round table which is less good for working. In theory you could use this as a dining table, but there is no second chair high enough for the table.
- Club lounge is renovated, more airy, more seats. Food presentation is very nice, but quality and selection leaves a lot to desire. They seem to try to get away with the absolute minimum required by the brand standards and use much cheaper items than before. Also very limited selection. Compared to the offerings at the IC Saigon this is very sparse.
- AC in the club lounge was not working well. One day it was very sticky and humid, the next day a Polar bear would have complained that it is too cold.
- Breakfast downstairs: Same: nice presentation, but less choices, lower quality and cheaper ingridients. Compared to the Kimpton or IC Saigon this feels more like what you would expect in a 3 star hotel.
- Staff is friendly, nice, helpful, sometimes not very experienced or efficient.

I would give them a few month to debug the hotel. But if they don't change the offering I think they should charge only at the lower end of other 5 star hotels in Bangkok.