Hotel Review - St. James Hotel

St. James Hotel: Sukhumvit Soi 26, near Phrom Phong BTS Station

Overall Rating: Sucks

Value: Price is Acceptable, the overall value is poor.

Convenience: Not Bad. Walk to Phrom Phong in 10 minutes.

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The St.James Hotel is a "boutique" hotel within the Amari Hotel group. Let me tell you that the "boutique" part surely fooled me, because I thought that meant "nice". They have a lot of gall to advertise themselves as "top class". The hotel has one restaurant, which stays totally empty except for the free breakfast. This is apparently because the food stinks and service is slow. I found the room had barely adequate air conditioning capacity, and it took awhile to cool off. Every single piece of covered furniture had a rip, tear or wear spot in it. It was acceptably clean though, including the bathroom. I felt my room assignment was mitigated by booking with a discount travel agent, and my room window looked into the car garage of the hotel next door (Imperial Tara).

The hotel staff is very helpful and nice, with the exception of whomever cleaned my room. He or she stole one of my nice polo shirts, and charged two broken drinking glasses to my account although I did no such thing. This may possibly be due to my forgetting to leave a tip in the room for the cleaner after the first night. Still, this type of thing is unacceptable. Glad I locked my luggage with a padlock.

The breakfast buffet is stocked well enough to fill you up, but your choices will be limited. The chicken looked remarkably like the same bird I ordered the night before, which I judged by the burn marks. In subsequent days it was beginning to be replaced by another non-burned chicken. The fruit seemed fresh.

This is one of those places where you are not supposed to take your room key out.

Personally, I can't stand it, because it seems you have to pass "inspection" each time. In this case I checked in with my girlfriend and they gave her no problems to enter.

My girlfriend commented "people who come here only stay one time".

Pros:

- Location provides a short walk to BTS

- Breakfast Buffet will prevent starvation

- Bathroom clean

Cons:

- Ripped Off by cleaning staff, lost one shirt and charged for broken glasses

- They use regular room keys, which you drop off every time you leave.

- Furniture had rips and tears.

- TV only had a few channels. How can anyone watch BBCWorld and call that "news"?

- Restaurant sucks big time beyond the breakfast buffet.

- Every minibar item and many room items have "Amari Seals" on them. I guess if the seal is broken, you've bought it.

Summary: Surely not recommended. Place was mostly empty. I feel stupid for having gone here, and I hope I can save you the pain.