Bangkok is one of my favorite big city escapes and the perfect place to indulge oneself in spectacular food, great shopping and every kind of entertainment from mild to ‘oh my.’ As an SPG/Marriott frequent guest looking to wind down, I looked to the company’s portfolio in central Bangkok and settled on The Luxury Collection’s Athenee Hotel for a five-night stay.

LOCATION: The Athenee Hotel is located on Wireless [Witthayu] Road just around the corner from Phloenchit Road, a central artery in Bangkok with major malls and transportation links at its doorstep. There are fantastic dining options in every shape and size, from fine dining at neighboring hotels to mall food courts to street stalls, just outside. The hotel is also next to key business centers like All Seasons Place, embassies and other office installations. All in, city center locations don’t get better than this.

Phloenchit BTS skytrain station is a three-minute walk from the hotel and is on the Sukhumvit [green] line.

Suvarnabhumi Airport is approximately an hour away by car.

ENTRANCE/LOBBY: The hotel operated under the Le Méridien banner since 2004 as Plaza Athénée Bangkok, A Royal Méridien Hotel, but underwent a series of property-wide renovations and upgrades starting in 2014 prior to rebranding as a Luxury Collection hotel in October 2017. Look closely and you’ll still see some leftover touches from its previous incarnation [i.e. signs all over the hotel in Le Méridien’s signature typeface, some teal pens, umbrellas with ‘Le Méridien’ on them]!

The entrance is a wide porte-cochère off Wireless Road and leads into a double-height lobby with a grand staircase and walls of windows. The space is decorated in a very palatial Thai theme but is tastefully and contemporarily done - no over-patterning or heavy use of teak here. The lobby houses plenty of seating options as well as a large reception and concierge to the left of the entrance, the Rain Tree Café to the right and access to the ballroom upstairs through the grand staircase. Four elevators are available for guest use.

As a SPG/Marriott Platinum guest, my status was acknowledged by the reception agents and I was promptly offered to complete check-in at the Royal Club Lounge on the 26th floor. Upon arriving at the lounge, we were offered a welcome beverage while check-in was performed by a wonderfully hospitable agent. I was offered an upgrade to a room that wasn’t ready yet, but the agent offered the possibility of checking into another room to wait until the next one was ready. I politely declined, stored my bags at the lounge and went out for a bite until my room was ready an hour later. A nice gesture that I appreciated nonetheless.

ROOMS: All guest room floors are accessible by keycard only. I was upgraded to from an Athenee Room to an Athenee Suite several categories above. As with the rest of the rooms, these suites were recently renovated and are located on the upper floors of the building offering great views over the beautiful Bangkok skyline. As a corner unit, mine overlooked the stunning new Central Embassy complex to the north and eastwards towards Ratchaphrasong.

The room is decorated a contemporary Thai theme in shades of grey and silver with touches of red. At 86 square meters, the suite was very spacious and offered an entry alcove with half bathroom, a full living room with couch, two armchairs, bench, coffee table, work desk and a television. The separate bedroom had a king-sized Luxury Collection bed, wall-to-wall couch, two bedside tables and separate television.

The bedroom also has a walk-in closet with two large closets, a storage ledge for baggage and several drawers. The attached bathroom had a double vanity with generous counter space, a deep soaking tub, separate shower and an electric washlet toilet. Toiletries provided are by local brand Thann; lovely kit.

Wi-fi is extremely fast and free for SPG members, with excellent coverage across the entire property.

FOOD/BEVERAGE: Guests staying in Club category rooms and suites have the option of taking breakfast in the lounge or in the Rain Tree Café in the lobby. As a foodie with an appetite, the bigger selection at the Rain Tree Café was a no-brainer and I took advantage of it every morning of my stay.

Surpassing expectation, the buffet selection is absolutely excellent: there is a juice bar, fresh fruit station, cereals, cold cuts, fresh juices, breads, pastries, ice cream, a made-to-order egg station and several stations serving Thai, Japanese, Chinese and Indian specialties as well as hot breakfast staples such as sautéed mushrooms, baked beans and sausages. The specialty/national dishes rotate so you’ll find yourself with new variety every morning! Quality is top-notch and you can’t escape the freshness of everything. Coffee is by illy - the good stuff!

The Royal Club Lounge has additional food presentations in the form of snacks during the afternoon - small sandwiches, hors d’oeuvres and mini cakes - and a buffet-style spread with hot dishes, soup, salads, small sandwiches and mini-desserts in the evening. You could easily build a full dinner with the evening selection. The lounge also offers a very generous happy hour from 4 PM to 8 PM with a full list of beverages including cocktails, liquors, red/white wines and sparkling wine. Refreshments [coffee, tea, water, juices, soft drinks] are available throughout the day.

I ordered room service at the lounge on my first evening and found the food selection from in-room dining to be varied, decently-priced and delivered in good time; you can even order dishes from the hotel’s specialty restaurants. As with the rest of the food we consumed at the hotel, everything was delicious, used fresh ingredients and was beautifully prepared.

LEISURE: The hotel has a spa on the fifth floor [didn’t use it myself but saw quite a few guests in the reception area] as well as a well-equipped gym, separate changing facilities/sauna/steam room for men and women, and an outdoor pool on the fourth floor. The men’s changing and wet areas were fine and in good working order but could use a little spruce up to bring them more in line with the rest of the renovations at the hotel.

The pool is a spacious, beautiful thing, surrounded by turf, lots of deck chairs and plenty of areas to mill about - there’s even a small garden to walk through at the end of the deck. If you’re looking for sunlight, there’s only so many windows since the pool is often in the shadow of the main hotel building. The depth only goes up to a maximum of five feet, and the kid’s end of it is only a foot deep, so don’t expect to be able to dive or get up to much that isn’t lounging… which really is the point. You should be able to get some laps in, though.

FACILITIES: As a hotel in the central business district and with major traffic from business guests, the hotel offers well-equipped facilities like a solid business center, printing facilities and ballrooms/event venues that see frequent use for conferences, weddings and other events.

SERVICE: Thailand may be renowned worldwide for its hospitality and for the genuine, warm and welcoming nature of its wonderful people, but the service at this hotel takes that ethos to another level. Everyone - from the gentlemen who rush across the lobby to open doors for you to the reception agents who greet you with a smile to the restaurant staff who memorize your favorite table and food preferences to the housekeeping team who over-stock the items you tunnel most through - is just so amazing to deal with. Courteous, professional and good-natured, with smiles, greetings and acknowledgement across the board - it was such a delight to deal with everyone at the hotel. Language barriers are not an issue here.

The lounge staff - Donna and her team of magnificent colleagues whose names I cannot recall as my ability to latch onto Thai names is abysmal - deserve particularly special commendation for their proactivity, friendliness and willingness to accommodate requests no matter how small or inconvenient they might be.

I was traveling with a close friend who was celebrating a birthday the day we arrived. Although I had arranged for a small cake to be waiting on arrival in the room, not only was the cake there but a full decoration complete with personalized letters, handmade banners, towel arrangements and rose petals was laid out in the bedroom and bathroom! We were absolutely stunned by this gesture and loved every little part of it. This going above and beyond is truly characteristic of the level and quality of service at the hotel.

OVERALL: This is a truly amazing hotel in every respect: wonderfully decorated rooms, excellent food, great facilities, a fantastic location and gems for staff. Leaving the hotel was borderline difficult and despite Marriott’s seemingly endless options in the city including St. Regis, JW Marriott and Renaissance hotels alone in a ten-minute walking radius, I will not consider any option in Bangkok that isn’t the Athenee.

I can’t wait to be back.

Whoa, yikes - that’s NOT how I uploaded that. Let me fix it.

khabah