Ploen Pattaya Residence
You are in Pattaya, the most crowded place with hustling night life but you don’t feel it at all. It just feels like at home. Well, that what I have felt when staying in this hotel/apartment.
We were arrived late at night as our bus from Bangkok just departed at 7 PM. It was around 2.5 hours from Bangkok to Pattaya, and another 30 minutes to bargain with the Song Thaew driver to take us (and with all the baggage) to the hotel. It not really far from the bus terminal, it was only 15 minutes drive, but the hotel located in “remote” area of Pattaya, in small street that far away of the main street.
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| Entrance (courtesy of Agoda) |
When we arrived there, the receptionist was already gone. The hotel was left with one security guard who look at our passport and voucher from Agoda, and then let us in. Imagine of you didn’t booked the hotel first, maybe you will be kicked out from the hotel –shudder-
The room actually has everything you need for pleasant stay. With only less than $30, we got a nice and spacious room with our own bathroom and kitchen (including kitchen sink), furnished with LCD TV, refrigerator, even microwave and complete with plates, forks, spoons, etc.
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| Dining table |
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| Utilities |
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| Bathroom |
There is only 1 type of room available: garden view room, although I don't have any idea which one is called garden as it is only consisted of small patch of land with some flowers in front of each room. The hotel also has coin laundry machine and free wifi (Although I didn't have a chance to try the wifi as only the receptionist who know the password and she/he left in the afternoon).
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| Garden View (Courtesy of Agoda) |
I really learn from experience when I’m staying in this hotel. Although it has everything you need for, but the location is not really good. It is quite far from the main attraction (beaches, walking street, malls, etc). Fortunately it near 7-eleven store (7-10 Minutes walking) and we could rent some motorbike in the main street (15 minutes walking).
The reviews of this hotel are quite good although they are stated the same thing: the hotel is far. At first, the location didn’t bother us much as we were thinking that we would rent a motorbike to take us to anywhere we want to go. In the reality, yes we were renting a motorbike (after asking without no result to the both receptionist and security guard in the morning), but when we only want to go for sightseeing without bothering to use the motorcycle (as we need to get our gear, looking for parking lot, etc etc), we couldn’t do it. The hotel is really that far from everything. Even we didn’t found any decent dinner or restaurant near the hotel.
Lesson learn: if most reviews said that the hotel is far, then it is really far. If you want to be able to walking to nearest attraction or crowd, then pick nearer hotel.
Two things that I dislike most about this hotel (aside from its location) is the bed/mattress and they they did not cleaned the room when we leave it for the day. The mattress is so hard, as if you are sleeping in the floor instead of mattress. This is really great disappointment as we were quite pleased with other facility.
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| The Hard Bed/Mattress |
Time of staying : March 2011
Price : $26
Ploen Pattaya Residence
137/58 Moo 5 Soi Photisarn 10, Banglamoong, Naklua, Pattaya, Thailand 20150
