I'm in a 5 bedroom/6 bath pool villa with a 3-car garage, not a 'shine box'. In Vegas terms, I'm living in a nice, gated project in the 'burbs. Google tells me there are at least 250 named housing projects in and adjacent to Pattaya and another 250 in outer areas. Did you get to any of them during your visit? A number are very nice. Did you visit any of the 20-some private international schools? Some of them are very nice, too. I believe Rugby School, which is very nice, has the biggest boarding campus in the country. Pattaya also a number of nice tourist attractions, good hospitals and clinics, services, and several nice shopping centers, as well as most of Thailand's 'big box' stores. Sure, there are some 'grungy' areas in Pattaya and, guess what, also in Bangkok and other Thai cities, as well. We're in Asia, not the West--although there were some grungy areas where i lived in the US, too. Doesn't mean the whole area's grungy. The problem with you, and many other posters, is you visit Pattaya, see a few tourist spots--some grungy and not up to what you are used to in the West--and think you've taken Pattaya's measure. You haven't. It's a big area--and you likely missed a lot of it--especially if you were actually in Jomtien at Seven Seas. With your posts, you've presented an excellent example of what I am talking about. You booked a room in what most Pattayans would consider a somewhat lower-tier condominium project--illegally if you stayed less than a month--and you're complaining that it didn't meet the standards you found at a Vegas hotel resort you stayed at. Of course, it wouldn't, and how could it--it's a condominium residence, and not a high-end one. It's not a hotel resort--no matter how many times you keep trying to saying there is no difference. Of course, there is. Your treating the condominioum residence as a hotel resort is also making things worse there for the actual residents--that happened at two originally nice condo projects I lived at, which got overrun with illegal daily renters treating the condo residence as a hotel, and it quickly became not nice to live at. Next time, get out and see a little more of Greater Pattaya--maybe check out Nong Nooch Gardens, the aquarium, or Universal Studios Aquaverse--and stay at an actual hotel resort--Centre Point Space, Centara, Dusit, Amari, Cape Dara, etc. They will likely still fall short of Vegas, again this is Asia not the West, but at least you will have experienced an actual Pattaya hotel resort.
