Originally Posted by
MegatopLover
This example just points up the tremendous risk businesses run in prejudging people and shooing them away. The great service we enjoyed across the river, which subsequently improved with each stay and is now stellar, quickly turned us into lifelong devotees of the Pen. Considering the at least ten years (of increasingly frequent stays, sometimes with friends and family coming along) that will elapse between that first stay and the time I finally buy a place in Bangkok, it's a serious loss for MO.
Agreed. I've never stayed at these two hotels. But have visited them both - perhaps 7 times or so to the MO. I'm originally Thai and find that Thailand is very class-oriented. During all my visits to the MO (except for the one time that I was staying at Shangri-La with my partner when we just walked over), I arrived in a car with a driver (usually for lunch) and was always warmly greeted - our driver usually also waited in the lobby. On the same trip with my partner, we also took the shuttle boat over to the Pen and felt the staff less welcoming than at the MO. I also agree that if you use public transport, the location makes less of a difference, but if you're not using the public transport, I wouldn't deal with the issue of crossing the bridge constantly.