Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Bangkok, September '12: Room 1910, Pathumwan Princess Hotel

This is my second time in Bangkok. Can't for the life of me remember where my family and I stayed at the first time I was there though. I think it was somewhere near Platinum Mall. But I can't be sure of it. Forgot liao. HAHA. Whoops. Anyway, this time, The Husband booked Pathumwan Princess Hotel for us.




The interesting thing about Pathumwan Princess Hotel is that each hotel guest is registered; not just one name per room. At first I thought it was kinda redundant and a waste of time. But later, I found out why and decided it was awesome.


My printed registration form on top of The Husband's. 


Your name is what you use to get connected
to free WiFi in your room and around the hotel!  


I asked for a non-smoking floor during registration and was told that this is a smoke-free hotel. Whoaaa... How cool! I like this place already! Security is also pretty tight here at Pathumwan Princess Hotel. Every entrance is guarded by a guard with a hand-held scanner (even the entrances from MBK) and the main entrance is guarded by two guards and has a full-body scanner like the kind you find at airports.


Guards at the main entrance in front of the full-body scanner.


All lifts also require key card verification before you can press the level you wanna get off at. Quite impressive lah for Thailand, I think. But I wonder why. Lots of people wanna bomb Bangkok meh? Hmmm... Anyway, we took the lift up to the 19th floor where our room was on.


Shakey pic cos it was taken while I was walking.

 Orchids by the window at the lift area.


Got into our room and immediately started taking pictures of everything and anything before The Husband started messing stuff up and/or shifting things around. HAHA.


 Our room's key card. 2 cards per room are allocated.

The entryway.

The bed.

The study.

The sofa.

Bedroom with the bathroom in plain sight!

The bathroom as seen from the bedroom through the glass window!

Toilet.

Bathtub with rain shower.


I really liked that the bathtub came with a glass door instead of a shower curtain. I hate shower curtains maximum. I think they're dirty and disgusting. Yuck. It would have been better if the glass door had another side to it though. Water still splashed out onto the floor a little whenever The Husband bathed. Tsk.


Freebies!!

Note the elephant-shaped towel. Haha.

I love it when hotels give guests free sewing kits. =)


Now, let me show you the view from our room.





Haha. One side of the road is super clear, the other is super jammed. That's Bangkok for you! Oh, and as you can see, the skies were gloomy. (I checked on the weather before we left and we were supposed to get rain 3 our of the 4 days we were there. Boo hoo!) Thankfully, it didn't rain.


 The pool downstairs as seen from our room.


All in all, I think the hotel is pretty nice. Not at all dodgy but... I wouldn't consider it exceptionally fancy either. Probably a high 4-star or a low 5. Still, it's pretty well taken care of although it's definitely seen better days. Oh well, at least the bed was comfortable and the sheets were clean. That's most important to me. I wouldn't mind staying here again.


Anyway, after settling in and exploring the room,
The Husband and I took a bath... and slept. HAHA.


--------------------------------------------------
PATHUMWAN PRINCESS HOTEL, BANGKOK
--------------------------------------------------

444 MBK Center, Phayathai Road
Wangmai, Pathumwan, Bangkok
10330 Thailand

T. +66 (0) 2216-3700
F. +66 (0) 2216-3730

Official Website: http://pprincess.com/

Winner of the prestigious 2012 Certificate of Excellence award from Tripadvisor.


-----------------
Related Posts
----------------- 
Posted by Pam Song at 9:26 pm 0 comments
Labels: , , , , ,

Bangkok, September '12: Lunch At MBK Food Court



Our taxi dropped us off at our hotel – Pathumwan Princess Hotel – and we tried checking in. Unfortunately, only one room was ready at the time so we quickly dropped off our stuff in that available room, snitched a couple of bottles of water from the housekeeping cart (why pay when you can get it for free? =p), and immediately walked over to MBK for lunch. (It was almost 3PM Malaysian time and we were hungryyyy!)






Yup, the great thing about Pathumwan Princess Hotel is that it is right next to MBK. As in, it is linked to MBK, in the same way that Cititel Mid Vally is linked to Mid Valley Megamall. Super convenient!


Anyway, we went straight up to the food court, took a quick walk around to see what was available, got our Food/Drink coupons and ordered our food.


Food/Drink coupons.


I ordered the Tomyam Fried Rice...




...and almost died eating it. -_-'''


Don't get me wrong. It was tasty. But it was also so, so very spicy! I was sniffling and on the brink of tears with every bite. I can't for the life of me understand how the Thais can tahan eating it. Ate until I sweat, man. Wth. Thankfully, The Husband rescued me and helped me finish up the rest while I moved on to other kinder foods.


Red-faced, sniffling and sweating.


...like the Mango Pulut. =D




 Yummy! I luuuurrvveee Mango Pulut.


After that, we took a quick walk-around to look-see what was available at MBK. I didn't buy anything though. Didn't think the deals were good enough for me to part with my money just yet. Mama, on the other hand, bought some clothes for her grandkids while The Husband and Papa went to check-out watches. And then got scolded upon walking away and not buying anything after asking lots of questions and bargaining. Haha. Rookies! =p


On our way back to the hotel, we walked past a colourful donut shop called Mister Donut that smelled heavenly. So we stopped to get buy ourselves some donuts to have for tea later.





Check out the name. Very thoughtful donuts. =p
 Cute stuff for kids.



There were so many choices to pick from!
I chose this one in the end:




Zzz... Boring, I know. But I was in
the mood for some chocolate and nuts.


Honey Glazed for Mama, Twist Chunk for me,
and that vile-looking pink thing was what
The Husband picked for himself. Bleh.



Bought those donuts to-go and went straight back to the hotel to check out Room 1910. Pictures of our room in my next post! Stay tuned for that!


-----------------
Related Posts
----------------- 
Posted by Pam Song at 2:20 pm 0 comments
Labels: , , ,

Bangkok, September '12: And We're Off!

Flew Air Asia this time around instead of a full-service airline. So that means checking in online beforehand and getting to LCCT by 10AM to board our 10.40AM flight to Bangkok. No mishaps this time around so we made it there with time to spare. Haha.


 My waiting with our luggages while The Husband
parked our car and the rest went to pee.

 My passport and boarding pass.


This wasn't my first time flying from LCCT. But to be honest with you, I never did like LCCT's crowd to begin with. The place was chaotic, and people there were just pushy and rude. But I guess that's what you get when you pay peanuts. (Answer: Monkeys!) Thankfully, we didn't have to wait long. Soon enough, it was boarding time!


 Gate T9 to Bangkok.


The Husband and I got held up with forms and other regulations so we kinda got left behind and didn't manage to follow the crowd to our plane. By the time we got through the gates, we had no clue which way to go so we had to ask around. Haha. Fail. But seriously lah. There were people walking in every which direction okay... Havoc sial, this LCCT! Signage pun tak ada. Tsk tsk. Thankfully, we found our plane in the mess.


Thai AirAsia – our plane!


Got on board and waited for take off. 


While waiting, The Husband and I read the in-flight magazines (as always) and flipped through the menu. It was then that I started getting tempted by pictures of Pak Nasser's Nasi Lemak.




I remembered how I said SIA's food super tak boleh pakai during our flights to and back from Perth, and even said that AirAsia's Nasi Lemak was better. Unfortunately, we didn't pre-order a meal. And the price for on-the-spot-purchase of in-flight meals were just ridiculous so we decided not to indulge.


 Price list. RM13 for Nasi Lemak??? @_@ Mad.


No time to feel sorry for ourselves though.
Before we knew it, we were off and up in the air!



The Husband and I right after take-off.


I thought that was it with the in-flight meal. But AirAsia was being a tease and they were super promoting their Nasi Lemak in all their reading material. I looked through another magazine and... there it was again! Look!




Wah, non-stop, man.


So... when the stewardess came by with her cart of food, we gave in to temptation and ordered a packet of Nasi Lemak to share. RM13 also RM13 lah. Haih. #weak






It was NOT as good as I remembered it to be. At. All. The ikan bilis were soft and soggy (macam kept overnight liao), and the sambal/curry wasn't exceptionally tasty. Egg is egg lah. Cannot go wrong wan. Nuts also same case. Only saving grace was that at least the chicken was lean. Other than that? Blergh. Fail! AirAsia's food jatuh standard already lah. So not worth the RM13 we spent. Should have ordered Maggi Cup Noodles instead. -_-'''


So I made myself feel better by
taking pictures of the fluffy white clouds
floating by, outside my window instead.










And before I knew it, we were decending
and heading for Suvarnabhumi Airport's runway.






The pilot did such a good job landing the plane.
So smooth and steady! Thai pilots FTW!


We didn't get side-by-side seats with my in-laws in the plane so by the time we landed, we were split into two groups for separate bus-rides to the arrival hall.


 In the bus on the way to International Arrivals.



Not a problem though. We just met up with them later at Immigration. I love how grunge the airport looks with its bare cement pillars. So rugged. Reminds me of MCKL a little. Haha. I also like how I got to use the priority lane while I was there. I could totally get used to a life like this! =p #pampered


Exit auto-gates.


Got out and made a beeline to get a taxi. Mana tau, we got off on the wrong floor. All fancy limos only! No way were we planning to spend all our Thai Baht on cabbing into the city so, we went back in again, and went downstairs to the Public Taxi stand instead. Haha.


The correct taxi stand.


Got on the road and ask to be dropped off
at our hotel for immediate check-in.




Hello, Bangkok! We meet again!


-----------------
Related Posts
----------------- 
Posted by Pam Song at 1:11 pm 9 comments
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )