Asian Hotel Room

During my first stay in Cebu (a few years back) I was just looking for a basic hotel with a central location for two nights as I was traveling on to Davao by boat later on. I picked the Hotel Eddie, a smaller budget hotel in the center of town. It's clean and basic with a good location. At the time of my stay a night was just about 1300 Piso with a discount from Asia Travel website.

Read more »

Located on Soi Nana Omni Tower Bangkok is one of the oldest serviced apartment buildings in Bangkok. A serviced apartment is basically a hotel that rents out furnished apartments for short and long term stays. I booked a 2 BR for me and my friends. The apartment was located on the 26th floor. It was nice and offered a lot of space. The furniture showed a bit of tear and wear compared to other competitors in that area like the newly renovated Centrepoint on Soi 10. The security is very tight and a bit annoying. They ask for IDs of Thai visitors, but foreign looking friends like Westerners and Japanese pass without the need to show an ID. Go figure! Maybe it's because the hotel is located close to Nana Plaza, one of the red-light districts of Bangkok. As long as they offer promos and reasonable pricing the Omni Tower is a good offer for people who want to stay close to Nana Plaza. The elevator ride on the outside of the building offers a great view of the city, but can be scary for people who are afraid of heights.
Online Discount Booking: Omni Tower Serviced Apartments

Top Image: Aerial view from my bedroom overlooking Sukhumvit area with its high rise office and condo buildings. Bottom table of images: snapshots of my 2 BR apartment on the 26th floor.

A smaller Bangkok hotel in central location on the crossing of Sukhumvit Road and Soi 19. The Grottino located very close to public transportation like MRT, BTS Skytrain and the Ekkamai bus terminal, taxi transport to the Suvarbnahumi airport lasts around 30 minutes via Asok and Rama 9 highway. The rooms are comfortable and provide a nice amount of space, but some of the hotel rooms are for smokers, be aware of this and ask for a non-smoking room if this is of concern to you. The owners are friendly Swiss people who are more than happy to assist in many matters. The restaurant offers Thai and Swiss dishes. My tip: Try their bread! They operate a bakery with some of the best bread in Bangkok.

Girlfriend and Mom came for a visit to Asia. They wanted to see the famous beaches of Thailand and there is no better place than Phuket in Thailand. I don't remember what website I used to search for hotels, but I found the newly rebuilt Sugar Palm Resort as a last minute offer for 1300 Baht per night. It's located 2 blocks off of Kata beach, one of the nicest and more quiet beaches on the tropical island. The room was great with a sliding divider between bedroom and bath. Everything was new and functional. Internet access for their WLan had to be purchased in 80 Baht denominations for 3 hours with very slow connectivity and poor signal on the third floor. But, hey: other than that it was a great Phuket vacation hotel with nice pool, easy beach access with a lot of touristy places and restaurants near by. I would come here again any time.
Online Booking: Agoda Phuket.

It was my second visit to Kuala Lumpur. Because I arrived late night I was thinking about either booking the Pan Pacific Airport hotel or a hotel close to Sentral KL station. KL Sentral is the railway station in Kuala Lumpur that tourists arrive at via KLIA Ekspres, the highspeed train connecting KL international airport with the city, a 37 minute ride for the price of 35 Ringit.

Opposite KL Sentral there is a twin tower building that hosts 2 hotels: The Hilton and Le Meridien. The later is the cheaper of the two so I gave it a try. I booked a club room and was lucky to receive a complimentary upgrade to a jr. suite on one of the top floors as I am Gold SPG member. The room was very nice with a beautiful view of parks and the south of the city (the opposite side of Menara and Petronas towers). Very comfortable bed, good high speed internet and a wonderful bathroom with a corner view. On the downside they would not offer any late check-out and the complimentary water was 'hidden' on an upper shelf in inside the bathroom that made me buy the expensive Evian water out of the mininbar to satisfy my thirst in the middle of the night.
The location of the Kuala Lumpur Le Meridien is perfect when you arrive by air and take the KLIA Ekspres train into town. It's just a short walk across the street. I would recommend booking a room including the breakfast. They have a great breakfast buffet with Japanese, Chinese, Continental and local dishes. A perfect treat to start a busy day as a tourist in Malaysia. Some of the facilities are shared with the Hilton next door, like a real nice pool area and a great little gym with some of the best fitness equipment including a Concept2 rowing machine and equipment made by Hammer Strength as well as a heavy bag for a quick boxing workout.

Bird's view from my Junior Suite on a high floor overlooking the beautiful swimming pool. Unfortunately, the pool was closed due to heavy rain :-(

My first stay in Hong Kong so I wanted to stay in a very central location and picked the Holiday Inn Hotel Golden Mile in Kowloon. What a good choice! The location is hard to beat, right in the middle of Kowloon beside Shim Hsa Tsui Underground station and just a few blocks away from the bay. The rooms are great, very comfortable and equipped with ultra fast internet. The breakfast buffet is fantastic with a wide variety of choices. I liked their wide selection of fruits and bakery products a lot. The staff was very helpful and sophisticated. It's by far the best Holiday Inn hotel I ever stayed in around the globe and I stayed in a lot of them over the past years. Maybe it's because of the tough competition as the house is surrounded by many other first class hotels like the Intercontinental, Sheraton and Shangri La Hong Kong. It has a certain patina, an stylish old touch combined with proven functionality.

Read more »

Probably one of the most romantic hotels in the Philippines with a lot of privacy for it's tenants. A large piece of land on a hilltop looking over 2 bays of Puerto Galera, Mindorro. It's far away from the busy dive stations and loud discos of Sabang and the mass tourism of White Beach. The main building offers normal hotel rooms and a restaurant. A little bit off from it there are two smaller buildings offering three units, with ultimate privacy. They don't have any air condition and there are no TVs inside the ethnic-contemporary styled hotel rooms. It's a place for people who enjoy nature and peace and don't mind heat and solitude. They don't have an agent and you can't book them via a discount broker, but you can call them and ask for a reservation: Tanawin Puerto Galera.

A very romantic panorama view over Varadero Bay from the snail house, Tanawin's most exclusive guest accomodation

From the outside it looks like a fortress built by pirates, the inside of the hotel rooms look more like romantic honeymoon suites. I have been revisiting this Puerto Galera Hotel on multiple occasions over the past 10 years and it is impressive how the Austrian owner Paul has build his house into one of the best hotels in Sabang. It's very close to the small Sabang harbour where the banca ferries leave for Batangas and many divers take off for their daily nitro diving tours. It's a romantic place with a great view of the bay if you have a hotel room or suite on one of the higher floors. While it's so romantic, be aware there are a lot of mosquitos (Lamok) flying around. Bring your lotion with you to avoid their painful bites. The restaurant inside the Tropicana Hotel offers great food, a bit pricey for some. If you like fresh seafood, walk 200 meters to the Sabang market to buy fresh fish and prawns. For a small charge of 50 Piso they will cook and prepare the food for you and you can take it out to eat it on the patio of your hotel room. The minibars are stacked with drinks. A perfect way to chill out the day is to sit on the patio at night time to enjoy cold San Miguel beers while observing the Sabang nightlife from a distance.
Homepage: Tropicana on Facebook

Nightly view of the Tropicana Hotel. It's a pretty romantic place to chill out after sunset.

It's awhile ago that I stayed at the Makati Palace Hotel on Burgos Street. It's conveniently located in the nightlife district of Makati with many bars along P. Burgos Street. Upon exiting the hotel one can chose from establishments such as Bottoms Up, The Bronx, Mascara, Billboard and Rogues to mention just a few Burgos bars from the strip. The Makati Palace is more of a Condotel, some of the rooms are rented out by a hotel type operation while other rooms are advertised and rented by private owners over various ads in daily papers and online media. Therefore the quality of rooms varies a lot. Some are taken care of very well while others show a lot of tear and wear. If you decide to book this Makati hotel, it would be due to it's location on P. Burgos Street and it's nightlife.

A colorful bed cover for this Makati Palace hotel room bed

Mactan Island is a small Island fronting Cebu City, the main hub of the Visayan Islands in the South of the Philippines. Mactan Island is not one of those beautiful tropical islands of the Philippines, but it's close to Cebu City and it hosts Cebu's international and domestic airport. Don't expect any nice beaches! The beach in front of the hotel is not like the sandy white beach of Boracay at all. Watersports are limited to diving and jet ski. The large shaped hotel pool is the best place to take a swim. The restaurant serves tasty Asian seafood dishes and is mostly visited by tourist groups from Europe and East Asia. The hotel rooms are very basic, but offer a lot of space. Actually, they are a little bit to big for the small air conditioners that are build in. If you are a watersport freak who spends just little time in the hotel, it's a place to stay, but for the little comfort the Cebu Beach Club offers, it appears to be overpriced for my taste. I checked out some other resorts located next to it like the Maribago Blue Water Resort and liked it much better.

An outside view of the rooms entrance. The hotel building is shaped like an 'U' around the large swimming pool landscape. The rooms are aligned like a row of small houses, similar to American motels.

Back in September 2008 I had to make a short 2 day trip to Kuala Lumpur. One of the best areas to stay in is surrounding the famous Petronas Towers and the KLCC park. Most brand name hotel chains have their hotels aligned around this belt. I stayed a couple of streets off at the Crown Plaza Kuala Lumpur. As usual I booked over the IHG website and secured a club room a day in advance. The room was very nice with ample space, open design with sliding dividers between the bathroom and the sleeping area. They offer wired internet access for a fee, but I did not check it this time as my laptop had no ethernet port and there was no wifi signal in my room. I was disappointed about the cleanliness of my Crown Plaza hotel room. The working desk and the furniture were covered with a fine layer of dust. As I was entitled to a late check out I was very disappointed that they had moved me out of my room during my absence ignoring the DND sign on my door and neglecting the late checkout privilege. They threw all my belongings into my suitcase. Not a nice way of treating a club room customer. The lady in the club lounge reception explained it with a glitch in the housekeeping system and said she was sorry, but it did not sound very convincing. It's a pitty. This hotel is in a great location and the hotel rooms are nicely equipped, but the attitude of staff and cleanliness leave a lot to be desired imho. I will try a different hotel when returning to Kuala Lumpur.

An outside view of the Kuala Lumpur Crown Plaza hotel on a sunny day.

Read more »

I got a good last minute deal over a website for a weekend trip to Singapore and booked The Orchard Hotel. It is situated right on the end of Singapore's most prominent shopping strip on Orchard Road. Unfortunately, they did not have the room available that I booked, so they 'upgraded' me to one of their signature rooms. Pretty tiny rooms that have great design and functionality, but they were small. The second night my more spacious club room in the other wing of the busy hotel was available and I liked it so much that I extended my stay for 6 days. Their internet connection is lightning fast. I clocked it at 3Mps. That's the fastest internet connection I have ever experienced in any hotel around the globe. My room charge included 2 pieces of free laundry a day. I left my laundry on the bed in the morning and had it back from the cleaners by late afternoon :-) That's great service. Guys who enjoy vibrant nightlife will enjoy the place because right next to it you find Orchard Towers. It's a shopping complex at daytime, but converts into 4 floors of bars and discos at night time with exotic people to watch and meet. It's a melting pot of cultures, but most of the ladies in Orchard Towers are Filipinas. A lot of fun for single male travelers who want to party all night and retreat in a first class hotel next door.

Read more »

This if one of the quieter apartment hotels in North Pattaya. It is situated between second and third Road close to the Amari Nova Suites that I have previously reviewed. Nova Park offers normal hotel rooms, one and two bedroom suites. All are equipped with a small kitchen, spacious bathrooms and large beds. To my delight it was possible to darken the room totally during the day. The thick curtains make it easy to sleep firmly into the day without being woken up by the bright sunlight. The main building shows some tear and wear to be honest, but it is maintained pretty well nevertheless as everything is functioning. A nice pool and always friendly reception staff make it a pleasure to stay for a couple of days. The massage parlor beside the main entrance offers a great Thai massage. You can either get the massage in the parlor or in the privacy of a hotel room. A pub is on the premise offering British food as well as Thai dishes. The food is decent for a quick snack, but I did prefer to dine outside most of the time.
Wifi internet is available, but as with most other Pattaya hotels, speed and reliability leave much to be desired. The prices are very moderate and the neigbourhood is pretty calm. A nice change from the hustle of South Pattaya. I would stay there again.

A comfortable Nova Park bed. Click on Read More to see additional hotel images.

Read more »

Amari is a well established chain of first class business and resort hotels in Thailand. I have stayed at houses of this chain in various Thai cities and always enjoyed it. About a year ago they invested into expansion in Pattaya, First they expanded theit beach resort with a new highrise and afterwards they errected a new lowrise suite hotel in a very quiet location in Central Pattaya: Pattaya Nova Suites. I stayed there 3 times over the past year. The one-bedroom suite was my choice. The house does not give you the feeling of being inside a hotel with people rushing in and out. It's more of a place for an extended stay. Since the pricing of the rooms is on a higher than average level for Pattaya it attracts a rather wealthy crowd. Stylish eople who enjoy comfort and peace. It's a perfect place for me as internet connectivity is pretty good for Pattaya where time outs and slow lines are always a problem. The interiour design is simple, stylish and functional. You have everything you need and ample of room to lean back and relax. Each unit has a small kitchen with all cooking utensils you ever need. The maids clean everyhting so there is no need to wash any dishes by yourself. There is a rooftop pool and a nicely equipped gym on the 11th floor. At night time they have 2 very nice bars in their basement. One is a bed club and the other one a cocktail club that is made out of ice. Yes ... and ice bar in sunny Pattaya to chill you down at night.
For me this is the perfect place in Pattaya. If I ever find enough time to get away from work for a longer time, I would stay there for weeks and months. Booking: Agoda Thailand

A look at the kingsized bed. There is a clothing and office area behind the wall before you enter the bathroom

Read more »

A great location right on Orchard Road, Singapore's most attractive shopping and banking mile was the most important reason for me to pick this hotel. Accommodation is expensive in Singapore just like anything else, but the LeMeridien is a bit cheaper than most other brand name hotels in this area. Maybe it is because the facilities are a bit aged and not as glossy as the the Sheraton or Marriott Hotel around the corner. It's still a pretty good deal for around 200 to 300 Dollars. As I hold a VIP SPG membership they were so kind to upgrade me to a junior suite, which was very nice. One thing that I like about Singapore hotels is that they keep the A/C running while you are outside of the hotel. When I come back to my room it is comfortably cool so I can switch off the aircon. It stays cool for a couple of hours. I don't like the noise that most A/C units cause and of course I always catch a cold from the heavy air circulation they cause. All together a pretty comfortable place to stay in a very central Singapore location. I would stay there again.

Connectivity was great via ethernet wire. They also offer WIFI, but I had no signal in my room.