Centara Grand, Bangkok

In the past issues, MICEreview had always focused on reviewing practical logistic details of function rooms such as size and dimensions, shape of rooms and configurations, audio and visual facilities as well as service. In this issue, MICEreview shifts focus to look at the hotel’s general infrastructure and guest room facilities because these can also make or break an event even though they may not be core to organizing an event. Moreover, the excellent ballrooms, function rooms and meeting facilities at the inter-connected Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld cannot be faulted.

Centara Grand’s interior is spacious and modern looking. The lobby located not on the ground floor, but on the 23rd level…reminiscent of Grand Hyatt in Shanghai but about half the height. The lobby layout is great for event group check-in, and the connection to the convention center is conveniently located on the same level.

However, for a convention hotel with 505 guest rooms and with the ballroom capacity to hold events of up to 6,000 people, the number of elevators serving hotel guests is inadequate. There are only four elevators serving the 23rd level lobby and guest rooms above, up to the executive lounge on the 51st level. This makes the waiting for elevators a very time-consuming affair. At the time of this review, one of the four elevators was out of order, making matters worse. As a comparison, Shangri-la Hotel in Bangkok has eight elevators serving 25 levels.

The guest rooms, though spacious, do not seem to have sufficient hooks and places to hang clothes and towels in the bathrooms. And for a hotel that was still in its ‘soft-launch’ stage, it was surprising that some of the fixtures already showed signs of wear and tear, due to impractical design.

Having said that, the rooms do come with high tech facilities such as 32” LCD TV with connection to notebook computers made more convenient by locating next to the working desk, DVD player and mini hi-fi system, and of course broadband connection. Hotel staff were also really friendly and helpful.