Some hotels in Bangkok are reopening and are coming up with novel ideas to attract some guests.  I noticed an interesting promotion at Marriott Sukhumvit called “Stay for Free”: pay 2999 THB for a room, and get 2999 THB food & beverage credit daily.  Not only I had never seen room rates at this hotel below 3300 THB before, but with the F&B credit on top that was an amazingly good deal.  I noticed on Marriott’s website that they were only selling entry level rooms and that suites would not be available at this hotel until August.  I was willing to take the entry level room and accept no suite upgrade as Marriott Ambassador Elite because of the generous F&B rate package. 

Room

Upon arrival I found out that rather than say “sorry no upgrade” which was my expectation, they were creative enough to find a way to provide an upgrade.  Marriott Sukhumvit is a joined property with Marriott Executive Apartments Thonglor, similar to Conrad Bangkok and Conrad Residences which share the same facilities.  I booked at Marriott Sukhumvit but we ended up staying in a 1-bedroom apartment at the Exec Apts Thonglor property.  Normally I have muted interested in Marriott executive apartments even though the rooms are bigger because of the lack of elite benefits such as breakfast and happy hour but we ended up getting the best of both worlds for this stay.

The room part of the review might not belong in the Marriott Sukhumvit thread since it’s an apartment, but since I cannot split my review then here it goes.  The apartment was not very big at 55 square meters but it had all required amenities for people on a long stay such as full-size fridge, microwave, oven, dishwasher, and cooking equipment.  There was also a washing machine hidden in a closet which was handy to do our laundry after having been travelling for quite a while now.  Back in April and May we stayed a couple of times at Akyra Thonglor (Small Luxury Hotel) not far away from Marriott Sukhumvit where the room was also apartment style, it was a bit larger, a notch above Marriott in terms of quality, and many rooms at Akyra have a terrace.  However since I was booking with Marriott Sukhumvit not the Executive Apartments, having the elite benefits meant that the overall value was better at Marriott than at Akyra despite my preference for the room at Akyra. 

Location

The location of Marriott Sukhumvit is in the Thonglor neighborhood which I personally like because it’s more quiet and a bit more upscale.  The hotel is immediately next to the Thonglor BTS sky train station so it’s more convenient than Akyra which is a 10-minute walk away.  Marriott is not in the middle of the action but it’s only a couple of BTS stops away from busier areas of Bangkok.

Dining

Many hotels have significantly cut back on their happy hour benefit post covid and/or have their club lounge closed.  Marriott’s lounge is also closed so unfortunately we could not enjoy the views from the 40th floor.   They served happy hour in the lobby lounge which is not as nice a venue but instead of a buffet they had a very elaborate a la carte menu which was more than enough to make it a meal, and choices were nice as well with plenty of variety.  It was even better than a happy hour buffet so rather than cut corners, Marriott Sukhumvit has arguably improved its happy hour.  I was very impressed by the menu and I would rank it the best happy hour offering of hotels we have visited in Bangkok post-covid, even leaving Athenee (Luxury Collection) and Anantara Siam in the dust despite both of them being more luxurious hotels than Marriott normally is.

The happy hour was so great that unless we wanted to order premium liquor from the famous and popular rooftop bar, it would have been physically challenging to go spend 3k THB worth of food as a late night snack!

Breakfast was also offered near the lobby and similar to happy hour they rolled out a post-covid menu which was excellent for a hotel of this caliber and cut out the buffet.

Wifi

Wifi worked well with speeds over 50 Mbps.

Overall

Overall the value we got from this stay was fantastic, in fact the F&B credit was probably more than we could handle, and we even had an apartment rather than a small room for a price I had never seen this low.  I will certainly return to this property in the future to try the regular hotel and see the Club Lounge once it reopens.

Last year when I booked at Marriott Sukhumvit I ended up receiving a room in the jointly managed Exec Apartments Thonglor instead, so I had never actually stayed in the hotel portion of the building and I took a second stab at it this year.  This property joined the group of Marriott properties which participates in the Megatix voucher program which made the hotel more competitive and prompted me to book there.  The Club Lounge was still closed during this stay like last year but the food & beverage offering remained quite good.  For 30 USD per night and considering the value of F&B we received, it made the room essentially free.  

Room

Hotel staff told me that all suites are on floors 36-39 and those floors were entirely closed so I knew before going to the hotel that our chances of a suite upgrade were zero.  I booked the entry level room and ended up in an Executive room (I think); I am not sure what is the difference between the first categories of room types because they are all 34 square meters.  Anyway the quality of the room was good and I especially liked the marble floor and limited use of carpet which was only around the bed.  The shower / tub enclosure was very large and also had marble all around.  Considering other hotels in this price range that we visited recently, the room was superior to competitors, in fact I think I liked that room better than some suites we received at other hotels which is unusual.  

Dining

Last year there was no breakfast buffet and the a la carte menu was excellent, this year the buffet has returned.  I found the choices to be above average including a daily rotation of curries, fried rice with protein (not only vegetarian), nice pieces of grilled fish (salmon, sea bass), etc.  

As mentioned above the Club Lounge was closed but Club benefits were offered on the ground floor.  Happy hour has been cut back to 2 hours only (5:30pm-7:30pm) but the good news is that they retained the a la carte menu.  As far as “lounge food” goes, this hotel is hard to beat.  For the price guests currently have to pay at this hotel it was surprisingly good quality, in fact guests could order whatever they wanted from the menu and as many times as they wanted so it could easily be a meal and the menu changed every day.  Drinks included cocktails and not only house wine and beer.  It is possible to pay as low as 30 USD per night for the room if combining with Megatix, I doubt there are many nice restaurants in Bangkok where a couple can get a multiple-course dinner including cocktails for this price, which means you could technically skip sleeping in the hotel and it would still be good value.  

Afternoon tea was nothing to write home about – only soft drinks and cookies.  

Wifi

Wifi speed was unstable during our stay.  Upload speed was generally good, varying between 30-80 Mbps but I clocked download speed as low as 4 Mbps and as high as 30 Mbps depending on the time of day.  This was different than my stay last year where everything was smooth, consequently it seems comments earlier in this thread from @nvoi with slow download speeds are not an isolated issue and has become more problematic since the hotel occupancy has gone up.

Overall

Overall for 30 USD per night the value was undeniable and even considering the many offers in hotels in Bangkok at the moment, Marriott Sukhumvit is one of the best deals one can find even without the suite upgrade.  The little cherry on top for value is that they even provided two free pieces of laundry per day for guests Platinum and above.  Given the above average quality of the room I will be inclined to return in the future when things are back to normal to see their suites.