Aleenta Hua Hin = Does Not Belong in Small Luxury Hotel (SLH) Chain

I booked a short stay at Aleenta Hua Hin to check out this property and my quick takeaway is that unless someone highly values having a sea view, this hotel is poor value for Hyatt elites, for SLH elites, and even worse if having status at other hotel chains such as Marriott then Sheraton Pranburi easily eats Aleenta’s lunch.  I would say even for people with no hotel status anywhere, I would not come anywhere close to recommending this property as there is no way we can possibly call it luxury so it does not belong in the SLH hotel chain; there was nothing luxury about it except the price tag.  I would probably rate it in the bottom 5% of all hotels I have stayed before and that’s even being generous.

Aleenta Hua Hin is actually in Pranburi, a quiet suburb about 30 minutes south of Hua Hin.  I like the area, however the set up of Aleenta’s resort is awful.  There are two small separate buildings about 300 meters apart so it’s almost as if one hotel bought another and they illogically decided to make it one, which makes no sense because there are a bunch of miscellaneous buildings in between.  The hotel has a shuttle to drive guests between each location which is cumbersome for such a small hotel of only 25 rooms, in fact I am assuming part of the high price tag at Aleenta goes to the cost of maintaining the mini-vans and the drivers’ salaries, which is something that we should never need or want to pay for such a small hotel - just wasted money.  The main pool was in the other building than the one where we were staying so if we had wanted to go to the pool it would not have been convenient to say the least, especially not in swimming gear.  Anyway, the strong point of Aleenta is that it is on the beach side of the road so unlike many other hotels in the area, there is no need to cross the road to access the beach, and that stretch of beach was actually quite nice. 

I booked the entry level room “Oceanview Residence” and as the previous review of this property I also did not receive any kind of upgrade.  How many guests staying at this property are SLH top tier members (Indulged tier)?  I am guessing not many.  At check-in they informed me that the second room type was fully booked which I verified online to be correct.  Denying an upgrade was therefore technically correct according to SLH rules so there is nothing to complain about, however I would note that from prior experience many SLH hotels decide to be more generous as they see fit depending on circumstances, unlike Aleenta Hua Hin.  The third room type was available so in covid times it would have been quite easy to give us a 2-category upgrade, or upgrade the guests in the 2nd room type to 3rd room type and give us a 1-category upgrade.  This pales in comparison with Sheraton Pranburi where in many stays there I invariably receive their top level room type without exception if it’s available at check-in, or the suite upgrades for Globalists at Hyatt Regency Hua Hin.  

They advertise the entry level room as 45 sqm and there is no way this was correct as they must have been counting the outdoor space upstairs on the roof of our room.  The room itself was small - there was only space for one night table on one side of the bed.  

There was not a single shred of luxury in this room, for example air conditioning was not central, fairly low ceilings, heck there was not even a TV in the room and the bed did not have a headboard either – just the mattress against the wall!  Last but not least, the faucet handles were clunky and one of them fell apart when turning on the water.  Bottom line, there is no chance this hotel should qualify for the SLH chain because nothing, absolutely nothing was luxury.  

The only positive I could find about the room is that it had direct sea views as our room was pretty much right above the beach, while many other hotels in the area do not have views.

I did not interact with staff very much during our stay so I cannot comment extensively about service except for a few negatives.  I needed to contact the hotel in advance and e-mailed them twice at the address shown on their website and never got an answer.  In addition, nobody contacted me before we arrived to ask for guest preferences, special occasions, etc. which many luxury hotels do.  Once at the hotel we were informed that we could not go to breakfast whenever we wanted: we had to book a table at a specific time for social distancing reasons.  That is not exactly customer-oriented especially considering that staff did not always bother wearing a mask at reception so it’s not like they cared much about covid precautions.  Then once we were in the restaurant, we realized there was nothing about social distancing and it was all pure BS: the restaurant only had 9 tables and was packed for breakfast at 8am – they had not removed tables to create more space since covid, guests hardly had any space to move between tables.  When we arrived at the time I scheduled there was only one table left and they were not checking anything regarding when guests pre-booked and they had to turn back some other arriving guests after us.  I guess they simply trusted that guests would go to the restaurant when they said they would, which was not a correct assumption.  This hotel is rigid in breakfast appointments as a result of the flaws in their venue, possibly because that restaurant was never designed to accommodate guests in the second (separate) building.  If going on holiday I am not keen on booking my breakfast time in advance and even less so to be turned back because the restaurant is full.

Breakfast could have been the one redeeming element for this hotel to claim being luxury, but alas it was not the case.  On the bright side, breakfast was not limited to continental only,  which is what was reported by @Aventine in the past; we could order two dishes from the a la carte menu.  I am not sure if it was because of the rate type I booked, because of SLH Indulged status, or perhaps they just stopped asking for money for hot dishes.  The menu was not bad although a bit limited, and they found the way to irritate by asking for an extra charge if I wanted an ice latté which was another sign that the hotel cannot be considered luxury if they nickel & dime guests for a drink.

Wifi worked well with speeds of almost 100 Mbps.

Rates at Aleenta were 33% higher on Hyatt.com than on SLH.com for my dates so I am assuming that in most circumstances it will not make a lot of sense to book on Hyatt unless having an urgent need to earn Hyatt night credits.  Regarding point redemptions, Aleenta is 20k pts per night compared to  Hyatt Regency 12k pts per night, in my opinion it would be very foolish to book at Aleenta, even if the numbers were swapped I would still pick HR.  And if I compare with non-Hyatt properties, at Sheraton Pranburi even without an upgrade guests get a very large 2-floor duplex with private pool which is far superior to Aleenta so unless you are dying for a sea view there is no debate possible, I would personally pick Sheraton every time especially considering that they are in the same price range as Aleenta.  Bottom line Aleenta is nearly useless for Hyatt members, benefits of staying under SLH are slim to none, and for people without status at any chain I would recommend to look elsewhere and avoid this overpriced property.