The Oriental Bangkok Luxury Hotel

Detailed Review

For almost 130 years royalty, dignitaries and distinguished travellers have all followed the legendary Chao Phya river through the heart of Bangkok to the doors of one of the world’s most luxurious hotels – The Oriental, Bangkok. The rooms and suites are sumptuous. The restaurants and bars are in a class of their own. The spa is one of the most beautiful in the world. All are rich in history and stories of the high profile guests who have made this hotel an essential stop on their world travels for over a century.

Situated across the river from the hotel in a traditional Thai-style house of beautifully carved, golden teak wood, the Oriental Spa is an oasis of tranquility. The first of its kind in Asia, the Oriental Spa has been continually recognised as one of the best spas in the world, winning awards and rave reviews since its opening. And, after the recent USD 1.2 million refurbishment, it is better than ever.

Fourteen perfectly appointed suites, ancient Ayurvedic remedies, soothing aromas, and effective treatments performed by our professional therapists all come together to bring you a transcendent Spa experience. You can even experience everything in one magical stay with our 7-day, 6-night Oriental Wellness Programme.

Press Quotes

"Repeatedly voted the best hotel in the world, the Oriental lives up to expectations. Highlights are afternoon tea in the colonial Author's Lounge and taking a private ferry across the river to the state-of-the-art spa." The Observer 05

Independent Reviews

Bangkok-Young lovers and old colonials
By Stuart Wolfendale

Lovers in Asia who want a getaway where they will not be found can forget the distant island lagoons of Tahiti, or hiding amongst the Korean honeymooners on Cheju Island, or a two hour outrigger canoe ride to Porta Gallera on inaccessible Mindora Island. These are the first places that wronged spouses, nagging parents or neurotic offspring will look. Now, some of the most romantic places to stay are where you would least expect them: in the middle of cities… Some South East Asian cities have had a stroke of luck. Hoteliers have discovered that guests enjoy a spurious nostalgia. They take a romantic pleasure in a stylish past they were not actually around for. Across the region, famous, sometimes faded fin de siècle colonial hotels have been taken in hand and restored to their former glory. To spend time in a throwback to an age of gracious living with the contemporary gadget back-up hidden behind the gilded panelling is a splendid setting for lovers. In Bangkok, The Mandarin Oriental is the guardian of the grand hotel heritage. The Oriental never faded. It moved with the times but kept its past in its silken operating style and the delicate, wooden ‘Author’s Wing’ where one can have afternoon tea in the lounge and browse through extraordinary group photographs of King Rama V’s extended family. Of all the suites named after authors who have stayed there, perhaps the lovers should choose the ‘Barbara Cartland Suite.’ Our latter day Rodney and Daphne will then enjoy luxurious accommodation decorated entirely in pink - an artistic licence that only that hotel can get away with. [The novellas themselves are not compulsory pre-amour reading.] A hotel that did fade and was taken back from the rats by The Amanresorts Group is The Strand by the river in the heart of Yangon, Myanmar. Built in 1901 and advertising itself as ‘the finest hostelry East of Suez’, it is now a 32-suite luxury town hotel, wonderfully restored. After bathing in a vigorously Edwardian bathroom of wrought iron and gleaming brass, the two lovers could sip at their whisky sour and pink gin and gaze from their balcony over the Irrewady River before dining downstairs in a room identical to that in which young subalterns , planters and ships’ officers courted their memsahibs-to- be in an empire that would die with them. Lovers can capture the past of another empire in the Hotel Majapahit in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city on northern Java. The Mandarin Oriental Group reopened the hotel after two and a half years of painstakingly reconstituting features such as the art-deco stained glass windows, the terrazzo floors and the colonial style balconies and verandahs. The hotel was a popular mainstay of the colonial establishment in that part of the Dutch East Indies. It would be easy for modern lovers to imagine the fair skinned young colonial ladies of The Twenties in their faintly flapperish outfits sipping lemon tea with young Dutch dandies, waited on by deep brown Javanese waiters. Every so often the hotel would be a venue for a packed dinner and dance where those young ladies, gowned and the pride of their Mamas, would dance with their future husbands who would take them, governing, trading or farming, to the ends of the Indies for the rest of their lives. A colonial hotel rattling with reminiscence is the legendary Raffles in Singapore. Somerset Maugham once said that it ‘stands for all the fables of the exotic East.’ After a US$160 million overhaul it does so proudly again. Oh, some say that it isn’t the same as it was before the changes - when, in fact, it was going to the dogs. Yet it still has all the famous ingredients for a vigorously romantic stay. One can fill up with a curry tiffin or give one’s girl a goosing under the traveller’s palms in the garden. You can both get very frisky over a few Singapore Slings in the Long Bar, where the drink was invented. That’ll make you both ready for a few frames in the Billiard Room and you might get to shoot a tiger at the same time. [The last one to be shot in Singapore was an escaped circus animal found skulking under one of the hotel’s billiard tables.] By jove, ‘gels’ are made of strong stuff these days. It should be just the ticket.

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• The Oriental
  By Caroline Major

  On the banks of the Chao Praya River, The Oriental is one of just three hotels here. Don’t underestimate this drawcard for both entertainment and transport - the river supports the happy chaos of life Bangkok. Ferries parade, jammed with commuters, the longtails propelled by strong armed Thai men spew plumes of water and the hotel boats ferry passengers back and forth while the mismash of commercial barges and boats will either prime you for your days action, or provide such a fill of Bangkok, that you’ll feel vindicated in a day spent in hedonistic pursuit at the Oriental. Join the daily Thai cooking class at the hotel’s Cultural Centre, and afterwards indulge in a Spa, choosing from the usual suspects on the treatment menu. Cocktails are served up poolside all day For ladies, de-riguer is a linen shirt-dress topped with a raffia hat. Unfortunately men in safari suits are less than common. With breakfast included in room tariffs, it’s fun to check out fellow guests breakfasting on the terrace. Come 9am, the place is jumping and plates are laden with the tropical fruits one dreams of in Europe. Umbrellas pinwheel with precision, following the rise of the morning sun while ‘Ice’, the maitre’d, bounces between the tables making sure everyone is happy and supplying conversation for those dining alone. He’s been here for years and ‘(I’d), like to stay forever’, he sings for me. The regular guests clearly love him, his attention, his broad Thai smile, and his singsong voice. Even the General Manger has run the place for 33 years (as of 2003) The rooms are everything you’d expect from a leading hotel in Asia. Fresh Flowers, litres of complimentary drinking water and tropical fruits arrive each morning with housekeeping. They’re contemporary Thai in the newer wings, with specialty suites in the historic authors’ wing maintaining a traditional Royal Thai style. For a glimpse of the Bangkok ‘scene’, hang out in the Bamboo Bar where celebrities and royalty stop by often to listen to jazz or dine in the restaurant. If you don’t know who they are, watch the staff. Thai custom pays respect due of people of their standing.

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• The Oriental Bangkok
  By Daniel Scott

  There is nothing like a sense of tradition in a hotel to keep guests returning and the Oriental makes much of its 125 years of history. Like the Raffles in Singapore it trades on its literary connections, with the likes of Graham Greene, Noel Coward and Joseph Conrad having visited during its hey-day. In fact, when Conrad first visited in 1876 he pronounced himself “worried” by its luxury, and the hotel retains an opulent feel, with Thai silk featuring throughout its public areas and suites. Yet the deluxe rooms in the older Author’s wing are reassuringly small, designed on two levels, with a bedroom and modern bathroom crammed in upstairs, and a cubby-hole study and lounge below. The Oriental makes good use of its location on the banks of the browny-green Chao Phya River, with its swimming pool and a terrace restaurant right at the riverside. A hotel boat takes guests across the river to a fine Thai restaurant, the gym and the spa. While spas are now de rigueur at premium hotels, the Oriental’s facility draws connoisseurs of alternative health, delivering both western and eastern treatments in a delicate, intimate atmosphere. One drawback of this grand dame of Bangkok hotels is that it can be overrun by tour groups.

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• The Oriental
  By John Borthwick

  British playwright Noel Coward was natty and flamboyant, a born performer. Might this be why the silken wallpaper in his sumptuous namesake suite at Bangkok’s Oriental hotel features a peacock feather-like motif? Regardless of visual puns, The Oriental isn’t the sort of place that needs to strut anything, having presided on the banks of the Chao Phraya River near the centre of Bangkok since 1876 and long been acclaimed one of the best hotels in the world. The 393-room establishment is a series of evocative impressions from the moment you enter its dress-code conscious lobby: golden teak and memories of Coward, Conrad and Maugham are just the beginning. Add to this, the louvres, languid fans and wired-for-everything suites; then the palmy gardens, pools and occasional princes - plus a personal butler fro each guest. The Oriental has recently (2004) completed a US$80 million renovation; all guest rooms and suites in The River, Garden and Authors’ Wing have been fully renovated. The renovation includes spacious new bathrooms in the River Wing as well as state-of-the-art, in-room entertainment systems throughout. There is high-speed broadband internet access in all accommodation. Among my favourite moments at the Oriental are a nightcap-with-jazz in the Bamboo Bar, contemplating the Chao Phraya¹s restless nocturne from my balcony. In the morning you can cross the river to the Oriental Spa, there to be terminally spoiled by the most skilful of hands. The spa is a temple of teak and calm in a century-old, traditional Thai building from which the sturm und drang of Bangkok traffic noise is perfectly excluded. I’m ushered to a treatment suite where even the shower cubicle ‹ in black marble and with six spray jets ‹ seems like a water temple. The Oriental Spa, opened in 1993, was one of Asia’s first dedicated hotel spas and is the only one regularly voted "Best Spa in the World". It offers some 50 different options that range from a 30-minute Papaya Body Polish (US$35) to a wide variety of massages and beauty treatments, including those for couples and jet-lagged travellers. The top-of-the-range programs take three days and two nights, and cost from US$660, including accommodation.

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• "Century-old Far East institution which runs and runs"

  Old colonial fixture has been updated, but still attracts for its lush gardens and riverview terrace. Newer blocks, however, lack character, so try for rooms in the original garden wing.