Bangkok Marriott Hotel The Surawongse

I stayed at Marriott Surawongse for the first time and I would concur with other reviews that it is a very good hotel although like other places it is not perfect and I think the #1 rating on TripAdvisor out of 1000+ hotels in Bangkok is a bit overdone. The quick summary is that room upgrades are among the most generous in the city, but the Platinum breakfast benefit is subpar. I booked the entry level room and as Ambassador elite guest I was upgraded to the 2-bedroom apartment which I was very pleased with. Our room was at the end of the hallway so very quiet and combined with the good soundproofing we did not hear a thing during our entire stay. At 95 square meters this room is very spacious; while we did not need the second bedroom, we had two full bathrooms which is very convenient and is a feature that we only found in the suites at Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit before; suites at other hotels in Bangkok generally only have 1 or 1.5 bath. One of the bathrooms was shower only and the other had a tub in the shower enclosure. For people on a long stay, there is a washer/dryer in a closet which turned out to be very useful for us. You can call reception and they bring detergent for laundry. While St.Regis’s laundry benefit of 4 free pieces per person per day is hard to beat, having the ability to do our laundry ourselves beats all other hotels besides St.Regis. The room also has a small kitchen with appliances, pots and pans so everything needed to cook, plus a full-size fridge. The living room is between the two bedrooms and there is a dining room with a large table and six chairs. The room is well designed and functional as can be expected from a new hotel (opened only one year ago) with international power plugs near the beds for example. I also liked the local Thai designs on some walls and shower doors as well to avoid the room being bland cookie-cutter. The M-lounge on the 31st floor has great views of the city and can be accessed 24 hours a day with the key card which is great if you have jet lag or want a bottle of water during the night. You can see Chao Praya river in the distance and the riverside hotels such as Sheraton Royal Orchid and Millenium Hilton. There are three main sitting areas with good spacing between tables and several of them near the windows so if you arrive early you can have a premium spot. We found the lounge to be quite popular and had a good number of guests, but it did not feel as crowded as some other hotels in Bangkok due to the table arrangement, particularly Marriott Marquis, and to a lesser extent JW Marriott and Renaissance. Happy hour is a generous 3 hours for drinks 5:30-8:30pm while hors d’oeuvres are 2 hours 5:30-7:30pm. What is interesting is that they have a country theme each night for happy hour: the first night was American, the second Japanese, and the third was Italian (other days of the week that we did not go are Thai, Chinese, Mexican, and Indian). While American was not exactly to our liking, however I can admit that food quality was good at the carving station with chicken, sausage, and sea bass, and also another dish of chicken with peppercorn sauce and a seared tuna salad. On Japanese night they had curry chicken with rice, miso soup, salmon, and stir-fry noodles with vegetables. Italian night was more disappointing – there would be better Italian options than mac & cheese or meatballs with gravy. They also had a chicken dish that was very similar to two days prior and not good pieces of meat. For drinks they can prepare cocktails which I found to be a plus. Also they have Nua sparkling wine which is the same as offered at Renaissance and now also at Athenee since they downgraded alcohol choices there recently. There was a choice of 2 reds and 2 white wines which were ok – I was glad to find Pinot Noir which not many hotels have. Desserts were plentiful and changed every night. The Platinum (and higher) breakfast benefit is unequivocally the weakness of this hotel. You can have breakfast in the lounge but not in the restaurant. I am aware that they are following the rules, but in this competitive market this is a drawback. At Renaissance for example they decided to be more generous than the rules and they allow breakfast in the lounge OR restaurant. If the lounge breakfast at Marriott Surawongse was as extensive as Renaissance’s lounge breakfast, limiting breakfast to the lounge could still be fine, but unfortunately it is not. The offerings are quite modest, comparable to Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency Sukhumvit. At those two Hyatts I never have breakfast in the lounge despite the lounge being more quiet than the restaurant, simply because there is not enough choice particularly the lack of Asian options. The big difference is that both GH and HR give more than the Hyatt Globalist rules by allowing breakfast in the restaurant downstairs as an alternative to the lounge, unlike Marriott Surawongse. Bottom line, all of this makes the breakfast benefit at Marriott Surawongse one of the weakest in the hotel chains that I know of in Bangkok (Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, and Accor). Of course you can pay 1300 THB for a couple for breakfast in the restaurant but Platinum guests having to pay for breakfast might not make a lot of sense; you would probably be better off spending that extra 1300 THB for a hotel with a higher price point such as one of the two Luxury Collection properties (SGS or Athenee) where you will enjoy a more luxurious hotel in addition to having free breakfast in the restaurant as a side benefit. For guests who would not get free breakfast in the restaurant regardless where they go (Gold members or lower), then my comments above are probably irrelevant and breakfast won’t be as much of a drag on value. Back to breakfast in the lounge, the choice of fruits is quite limited and there was nothing special for example no mangoes, no passion fruits, no pomelo, no berries, etc. There are veggies but mostly cold, unlike many hotels which have a warm vegetarian dish such as morning glory or stir-fried veggies. They have western choices such as sausage, bacon, and potatoes but that is not what I am looking for in Bangkok. One of the rare positives about breakfast is the noodle soup station which was decent. However there are no noodles / fried rice / fish dishes available in the lounge except at the egg station you can have an omelet with rice. I have been to Royal Orchid Sheraton a few times and even though it’s generally a cheaper hotel, the lounge breakfast is better than at Marriott Surawongse by a long shot, not even mentioning that ROS also offers breakfast in the restaurant. My takeaway is that Marriott Surawongse might have the weakest breakfast benefit of the entire chain besides perhaps Aloft and Four Points which I have never tried before. Service at the Marriott Surawongse was good particularly in the lounge where staff was friendly and helpful. Housekeeping was done exactly at the time I requested each day with no miscues. Overall I found that Marriott Surawongse is a good hotel which has its place in the Marriott portfolio. Room upgrades for elite guests are generous and if you value extra space then a suite upgrade at this hotel will likely be among the best you can have in Bangkok. As great as room upgrades are, the breakfast benefit might be the mirror image and one of the weakest I have seen – there are even some select service hotels where I would prefer their breakfast, for example DoubleTree for sure and maybe even perhaps Hyatt Place. So Marriott has clear strengths and weaknesses. If the hotel improved their breakfast policy this property would go up considerably in my relative rankings for Bangkok.