Compensation Clinic At The Marriott Marquis Queens Park Bangkok: Closed Rooftop Bar, Diminished Restaurant Menu
Our Compensation Clinic makes a stop at the Marriott Marquis Queens Park in Bangkok this week where the average experience has really taken a turn for the worse in the recent year.
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This particular property has earned itself a reputation in Bangkok for having had the lowest rates during the past two years with the pandemic pricing hovering as low as 1000 Baht/night.
Since Thailand has reopened to allow visitors back in a more regular fashion, rates have risen to pre-pandemic levels of – in some cases – beyond 4000 Baht per night and one Executive Lounge has recently reopened (good luck finding a seat though).
When the rates were reasonable (cheap) in the mid/end 1000s I was always content with getting my room and breakfast, the rest such as the evening improv lounge at the lobby has been pretty much a travesty and I rather went to the Goji restaurant to order (and pay for) a la carte. The rooftop ABar is also nice.
Two weeks ago I had another stay at this property and pricing has been close to 3000 Baht net for that day. Turned out that this was a complete waste of money.
At check-in I was informed that the rooftop bar (pretty much the only bar at the property and their big selling point) was closed as they rented it out for a private event of Lufthansa.
The alternative suggestion of the hotel was to go next door to the EmQuartier shopping mall for visiting a rooftop bar or to take a taxi to Marriott Sukhumvit 57 where they have Octave.
Next up was the restaurant where the menu was overhauled in an absolutely abhorrent way to the point where you can’t even get a steak anymore which was always quite delicious and reasonably priced.
The menu was also presented almost shred to pieces. According to the staff, this was their Covid Takeout Menu which didn’t make any sense. Covid is over and for the better part of the pandemic, the hotel has offered a full menu including Beef Sirloin or sometimes even a Striploin. We had no interest in either of the items and decided to leave the hotel to indeed go to the Emquartier Mall with plenty of excellent F&B options.
Finding a seat at the Club Lounge during the evening which they reopened in ONE of the two towers also proved to be a disaster. It was packed to the brim and the service totally overwhelmed with the number of people present.
That afternoon I asked to talk to the GM about this who – despite staying over 90 nights at this hotel – I never met previously. While working for about two hours in the afternoon nobody showed up so I left eventually. Later on he showed up with the hotel manager while we had a snack at the full club lounge. As that’s not a suitable environment to discuss the matter (let alone being 3 hours later) I declined the chat at that point.
Later on, I decided to call Marriott Customer care to file a detailed complaint about this stay as we were really unhappy this time around, especially with the closed rooftop bar. This facility is closed every Monday/Tuesday so why not rent it out during these two days exclusively? It’s an integral facility of the property and part of the advertisement, you can’t just shut that down to all paying guests willy nilly.
Marriott said someone would respond to the file within 72 hours – nothing happened. At that point, I called Mr. Marriott’s Consumer Affairs Office and let them have it.
Customer Care eventually credited 20,000 Marriott Rewards Points for this experience and I got in touch with Megatix to refund the pre-purchased voucher that I wasn’t able to use at the bar/restaurant.
There were plenty of things in the past that went wrong and where the hotel fouled up and I always let it go because I thought it was cheap so what to expect. But rates have recovered now, they are even higher than pre-covid and at this point, my patience is at an end. If you charge full prices better have your stuff together and stop these shenanigans.
This hotel also had a false advertisement recently, showing an offer of 1000 Baht per night if you book for 30 days. However, the rate turned to 60,000 Baht when pricing it out. Apparently, the advertised rate was a per-person price based on double occupancy they didn’t bother to mention anywhere in the IG ad.
Conclusion
This stay at the Marriott Marquis Queens Park Bangkok was just awful. I should have just stayed at a Hyatt but we wanted to go to the rooftop bar in the evening and had already purchased a voucher for it (which I got refunded after the stay).
I really hate when hotels close down facilities such as rooftop bars or swimming pools for private events. These are part of the hotel that the guest is paying for and can reasonably expect to be open during the stay. The Le Meridien had something similar as they constantly rented out the BambooCHIC bar for private events, causing massive complaints by guests as the evening happy hour was typically held there.
