Review: Hilton Sukhumvit Bangkok

Two Cabins, Two Hiltons: Introduction
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Review: Hilton Sukhumvit Bangkok
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From the airport, I took the Airport Rail Link to Phaya Thai station and transferred to the BTS. The Hilton Sukhumvit Bangkok and its sister property the DoubleTree by Hilton Sukhumvit Bangkok are located 5 minutes away from Phrom Phong BTS. Beside it was the Emquartier shopping centre which thankfully has a ROAST cafe in it.

For the Hyatt loyalists, the relatively new Hyatt Place Bangkok is also located along the same street as the Hilton Sukhumvit Bangkok.

I arrived at the hotel at around 1130 am, way before the standard check-in time of 3 pm. If you are a Hilton Honors Diamond member or have booked an Executive Room and above, you will be asked if you would prefer to handle check-in formalities in the Executive Lounge instead. I decided to settle the formalities at the front desk as I did not mind standing for a little while to settle the paperwork. As I have booked a pre-paid rate, my payment has already been settled and I just had to place a deposit with the hotel.

Tragically, my room was not ready at the point of check-in but I was informed that I have been upgraded to a Twin Junior Suite located on the 5th floor of the hotel courtesy of my Hilton Honors Diamond status (yay). My original room booking was for the Twin Deluxe Room, the lead-in room category at this hotel. The staff informed me that a room inspection was needed before I could access the room but this took dreadfully long (more than 30 minutes) so I decided to leave my luggage with the concierge and went out to explore Bangkok.

I came back to the hotel just in time for afternoon tea, barely an hour after having my lunch. The Executive Lounge was located on the 4th floor of the hotel and has ample seating available.

Afternoon tea is served in the Executive Lounge daily between 2.30pm to 4.30pm and there is a decent spread of sandwiches and finger food. As I was stuffed from lunch, I just got myself a refreshing yet unhealthy Coke after walking about in the sweltering streets of Bangkok.

There was a small Business Centre in the lounge in which you could use to print out documents via the printer.

Here’s the food spread which was served during Afternoon Tea. A small but decent selection of cakes, quiches, sandwiches, and fruits was available.

After chilling for a bit, it was time to head up to the room to continue lazing around. Access to the rooms and Executive Lounges are controlled by keycards and interestingly, access to the gym and pool was only via one particular set of lifts. More on that later.

The lobby was tiled beautifully with marble but one gripe I had was that the lobby and public areas of the hotel were not sufficiently cool.

I was assigned room 0507, the only Junior Suite on the entire floor. The rest of the rooms were normal rooms.

The Junior Suite was definitely large enough for two and could easily fit a third person with a rollaway bed placed just below the television area if needed.

The bedroom was separated from the bathroom by clear glass although the blinds can be lowered from inside the bathroom. Unless you’re with someone you’re comfortable with (read: spouse, partner,lover), please remember to lower the blinds before getting into your birthday suit to avoid mental scarring.

Beside the bed, there was a JBL Horizon Bluetooth enabled alarm clock which I used to listen to music while in the room. You could also control the lights from the panel beside the bed and another power socket was located here as well together with the Do Not Disturb and Housekeeping buttons.

Thankfully, a full-size work desk can still be found in this hotel and I was super thankful for it as I was prepping my trip reports during the times when I got too lazy to roam outside. International power sockets could also be found beside the work desk along with a LAN cable.

The mini-bar was well stocked but I do wish that it wasn’t that well stocked as this left me no place to store things which I purchased from the nearby 7-11. Complimentary bottled water (not the Evians) is provided and you could always request for more via the MAGIC button from the in-room telephone if you needed more. Although I do appreciate that the glass bottles which were provided are better for the polar bears, I still wish plastic bottled water was provided so that we could take it out with us as we roamed the streets of Bangkok.

A Nespresso style machine was also available but the capsules were third-party ones. If you preferred powdered coffee, the standard Nescafe sachets were available.

Oh and as with all Bangkok hotels, condoms are readily available in the rooms. (hue hue hue) The snacks are completely overpriced and you are better off getting snacks and drinks from the nearby 7-11, which you will definitely pass by on the way to the hotel from the BTS.

The bathroom was of a good size and the toilet was behind a (thankfully frosted) door. Twin sinks are also available in the Junior Suite.

For some reason, the picture of the toilet bowl went missing from my camera but it was nothing fancy and there was no bidet installed. Toiletries are now by Crabtree & Evelyn as with most Hiltons and DoubleTrees around the world but I miss the Peter Thomas Roth branded ones a little. If you are staying in Suites, I believe you get the bigger 45ml bottles instead of the tiny 25ml ones. I have a lot of body area to cover so these big bottles were definitely a blessing.

The television in the room was big but was of terrible quality and some channels didn’t seem to work at all. Thankfully, the WiFi was fast enough to stream Youtube and Netflix videos with minimal lag. Complimentary WiFi is available to all Hilton Honors members who book direct with the hotel. Even though Diamond members are supposed to receive “Premium WiFi”, there wasn’t an option to choose it when logging onto the WiFi.

Evening Cocktails in the lounge are from 5.30 pm to 7.30 pm daily and there is a good selection of light bites available. On the second evening, the spread was much better with Pad Thai and Mango Sticky Rice available.

Below was what was available on the second evening. I have to shamefully admit I had at least 4 servings of Mango Sticky Rice that evening in the lounge. Calories don’t matter when you are on holiday.

The breakfast spread at the hotel was very good both in the lounge and restaurant and as a Hilton Honors Diamond member I could have my breakfast in either the Executive Lounge or the restaurant Scalini. Being a glutton, I had my breakfast in both the lounge and the restaurant.

First, the lounge offerings:

Coffee and tea were all self-serve which in my opinion was much better especially since even if you did request for it from the lounge staff, your coffee would still come from the machine anyway. The usual breakfast staples of fried rice, sausages, bacon, eggs, and fruits were available.

The restaurant in which breakfast was served, Scalini, was on the 2nd floor of the hotel and the spread there was much more impressive for obvious reasons. They even had a live station where you could pick and choose meats and vegetables for the chef to stir fry. A juice station was also available where you could concoct a healthy juice drink of tomatoes, apples, cucumbers, beetroot, and orange if you so wanted to. #fitspo

A noodle station was also present and the char siew was pretty good.

As mentioned much earlier, this hotel does have a swimming pool and a gym (duh). It was located on the 26th floor and is only accessible by one set of lifts. The pool was infinity pool style-ish and the gym was small but functional. There was also a poolside bar which had drinks for sale.

After two-nights, I checked out of the Hilton Sukhumvit Bangkok and dragged myself and my luggage all the way to the Conrad Bangkok which I found to be much more impressive (but of course, much more expensive too).

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, I had a very pleasant stay at the Hilton Sukhumvit Bangkok. With a good Executive Lounge, decent breakfast spread and with its great location and proximity to a shopping centre (plus 7-11s) I will definitely return here if I’m back in Bangkok again. Rates are good and start from THB3,415 before taxes over the weekend.