eccentricfusion

Been staying at the W Hotel a majority of my time here in Thailand - on average less than 60 guests in the hotel. Slightly more busy on Friday and Saturday, but during the week it's less than 50 guests. Upgraded to a Marvelous suite. Things are very quiet here with the lobby bar closed. Upgraded to a Marvelous suite my last stay here as well, before the JW Marriott and hopping around using my free night certs. The BTS Saint Louis station is finally open - they were putting the finishing touches when I left ASQ and was staying here, it opened on the tail end of my stay, although not all the stairs up are open yet. One of the stairs goes down right in front of Healthland, which is great!

Thanks for the recommendation for King and I Spa - the Thai massage there is fantastic.

Upgrades are plentiful for Marriott elites right now - a good situation for those able to come into Thailand. I do hope things get better soon though, the impact on the local economy is very noticeable.

Assimilated Cajun - hope you are making progress on the Thai language. Since the hotel staff haven't been busy, they have all been helping me practice. My basics (numbers, basic phrases, greetings, etc) are good enough now that if I only stick to those phrases, I can fool people into thinking I'm Thai. Being Asian helps. Just have to play the strong, silent type and keep the talking to a minimum. Can definitely understand more than I can speak, but buying items at the mall and haggling have been much easier.

SKT-DK

You're very welcome! - Glad to hear that you got to try it out and liked it!

eccentricfusion

Have been going every few nights! It was actually completely booked up one night - I had to skip the Thai massage there and head back to Healthland. Seems very popular. I still think the foot massage at Healthland is better though, especially the recliners they have there.

I do see "social distancing" being practiced in Healthland now too - far less recliners in the foot massage rooms and the recliners are spaced out. It isn't as busy without tourists though so at least the reduced number of recliners doesn't really affect things. No customers to sit in them in the first place.

BinSabai

did not assume that this is of general interest...
it's this one: Ambassador City Hotel Jomtien Pattaya (ambassadorcityjomtien.com)

Assimilated Cajun

Thanks for asking. I did pay $39 for the Drops "Premium" plan, since the non-Premium only allowed 5 minutes of practice per session. Spent an hour or so each day of ASQ learning some Thai while walking back and forth in the room for exercise. I would say I learned about 100 new words and phrases, of which I now remember perhaps 80. But the tones are definitely a problem for me. I was at dinner with two Thai friends tonight and tried out some of my new words, but they only recognized maybe 50% of them. Nor am I Asian, so no one will ever mistake me for a native speaker. But I know what you mean: my wife, who is Asian but not the least bit Thai, spent a few months here on an assignment about 15 years ago and learned how to say such things as the numbers, turn left, go straight. Taxi drivers and merchants still regularly mistake her for Thai, which has the unintended consequence that they respond rapidly and loquaciously to her brief and measured remarks. But she grew up speaking a tonal language, so her Thai pronunciation is way better than mine.

washeelers747

I’m looking at hyatt place sukhumvit as my potential asq during summer but struggle to justify the costs and waste my 15 day in room. I am curious am I allowed to order snacks and drinks from 7-11 for room delivery? I drink like fish when it come to liquid such as soda and water.

I hope Thailand come up with more traveler-friendly policy soon for vaccinated travelers given growing evidences of reduced hospitalization and transmissions. I’m ok with few nights of quarantine with multiple negative tests to comply with health and security theater; though.

eccentricfusion

Great to hear the app worked for you during ASQ. Drops was worth the premium, the drills helped a lot. I can speak some other Asian languages with varying degrees of fluency - Cantonese being one of them. Not the best at it and my vocabulary is definitely limited compared to a native speaker, but my tones are right for the most part. The R sounds in some of the Thai words really throw me off though. Far more present than Chinese and Japanese. With the lack of tourists due to the pandemic, I think most people just assume I'm Thai since I look Asian and there haven't been many tourists around. I've also been wandering into many areas that tourists didn't go even when there were tourists. I'm taking advantage of the Thai pricing as much as I can when haggling - once tourism comes back I don't think I will be able to pull it off as easily. Taxi drivers still argue over turning on the meter though, whether they think I'm Thai or not.

The hotel staff wherever you are staying will probably be more than willing to help you practice - they don't seem to be busy anywhere and the ones I have practiced with have appreciated the break in monotony. I asked all the staff at the W to speak to me in Thai only and it has been... well, they have had a lot of laughs at my struggles, but I don't think I'll get the chance to immerse like this again anytime soon.

Assimilated Cajun

Congratulations and welcome. Having now been out of ASQ for three days, I can attest that the pain involved is not nearly so intense as how good it feels when it stops.

Assimilated Cajun

The written rules, which the Hyatt Place management says are imposed by the government, say that friends and family members can drop off "home cooked" food but that "packaged" food is prohibited. And among the many other things prohibited during ASQ is "online shopping". So I would strongly suspect no delivery orders from 7-11 or anywhere else, although I guess it would not hurt to ask. (In order to make an ASQ reservation you will have to email the hotel; I used this email correspondence to ask for a few clarifications of the rules, so you might want to do this as well.) The hotel does supply abundant bottled water, and you can buy soft drinks and San Pellegrino from their a la carte menu, albeit at several times the price you would pay at a grocery store.

washeelers747

Qatar Airways currently offer nice J deal from LAX, which I could utilize toward AS MVP75K status, then stay at HP Suk to get myself hyatt globalist status. No surprise that soft drinks are mark up at higher prices than 7-11 but same time, could use the time to quit soda addiction Any chance you know TV have HDMI? Could bring my xbox and play all day without any distractions.

You have to self-report your temperature via app or video call? It's up to each person to decide if 2 week quarantine is worth it for multiple weeks of vacation without a lot of restrictions. For me, I think 3+ weeks are worth it for quarantine but I'll wait till April or May to see what Thailand decide to do about vaccinated tourists but i assume asq process is here to stay for while.

eccentricfusion

Most of the chain hotels (including the Hyatt Place) feed you well enough that you shouldn't need too many snacks. One of the main benefits of choosing a pricier hotel. The hotels have options for snacks too, the Courtyard had reasonable prices for cup noodles and chips. Stuck in the room most of the day with the amount of food they provided, I never felt hungry enough to need snacks and had left over fruit from the meals often. Even working out a little in the room, it's not many calories being burned. The hotel can provide bottled water on request and has sodas too. You can order from 7-11 from most hotels and have it delivered but only pre-packaged food, no hot meals. The 7-11 app is all in Thai though, so it is not easy to order from if you can't read Thai. I recommend checking with your hotel about it, but the food quality and quantity tends to be good with any of the big chain hotels.

Assimilated Cajun

The television in my ASQ room at HP Sukhumvit was a large, modern-looking flat screen TV. I don't think it was a "smart" TV, though, because although there was a menu item for "Apps" the only thing that appeared when I clicked on Apps was an option for screen sharing. No Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. I was able to connect my laptop to the TV with Bluetooth and use screen sharing to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime movies. Unfortunately this meant I could not use the laptop while I was watching the movies. My guess is it's got an HDMI connection, but I did not look for one so I'm not sure.

You have to add "Hyatt Nurse" as a friend on Line (and I suppose you have to install the Line messaging app, wildly popular in Thailand, on your phone if you don't already have it). Then you take your own temperature and report it twice a day to the nurse via Line message. If you don't report it, Hyatt Nurse will remind you.

The fact/instruction sheet that HP gives ASQ guests on check-in says that "Food delivery service from outside the hotel is not allowed", but I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask.

estnet

Too late for you now but using a Chromecast solves this problem. You can cast what u want and still use your computer. Sometimes the IT person has to add your MAC address b/c you can't sign into the hotels wifi with the chromecast (I've had both experiences in different hotels - no need for assistance and need for assistance) The $35 I spent for the chromecast years ago was one of my best purchases - let me watch videos, etc. on the big screen in many countries with 1 English language station

travelinterpreters

There was an article in Bloomberg today, quoting the PM saying that the gov is considering allowing tourist who have proof of vaccination the ability to skip quarantine. I have seen others in the tourism industry and trade groups say the same thing...but I had not seen it from the PM before. Is this something he has been saying for awhile now and I've missed it??

transpac

TAT expects to welcome vaccinated tourists in third quarter

https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30402962


Thailand mulls waiving quarantine for vaccinated tourists

https://www.bangkokpost.com/travel/2...nated-tourists


Other proposals flying fast and furious. "Area Bubbles" are now a thing I guess.

Weird that they won't approve the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, but may allow people vaccinated with those to enter.

I expect it it will be a long bumpy road, with many stops/starts, u-turns, smash-ups, break-downs along the way.