Status: Globalist
Property: Andaz Pattaya Jomtiem Beach
Room Booked: Garden view King
Upgraded to King Garden View Suite using a Suite Upgrade Award
I'll include a proper review of this property here too as it might be of interest to others who happen to be traveling through Bangkok.
Since this property has opened, we were very keen to give it a try while at the same time curious about its location and whether it’s actually worth venturing here. We finally got the chance over the Xmas holiday, splurging ourselves with this year’s last Hyatt Globalist Suite Upgrade award for a Gardenview Suite. And boy, was it worth going!
We’ve been great fans of the Andaz chain since their first properties opened in West Hollywood and London Liverpool Street. With all our experiences so far in city locations, we were interested to see how the Andaz concept would work on a resort style property (Bali and, of course, Hawaii are still on our must do list). I think you can still tell that it’s the same concept- much more modern, airy and stylish compared to an old fashioned Park or Grand Hyatt, both from the design and also the service attitude. The property is absolutely breathtaking though most rooms do not provide ocean views which is a bit of a shame. The gardens and several pools on site, however, are all very well laid out and of course, being a rather new property, it’s all in perfect condition. Which seems to be no easy feat as there were about a dozen of garden helpers constantly raking leaves and pruning the trees to keep it this way.
Our suite was one of the best rooms we’ve ever had anywhere- it was HUGE and absolutely gorgeous in design and fit out- the perfect mix of modern design combined with local Thai elements and even the little details done to an amazing standard. The bed was typical Andaz as the chain does away with triple cushion overthrows and the likes, and rather provides you with a good quality, rather firm, mattress and simple but high quality bedding which we very much appreciate. If you’re after the kind of plush furnishings of a Ritz Carlton or WA, then better don’t stay here, this is not what Andaz is about. Finally-we were at first sceptical that the “Standard Suite” is Garden view rather than a private pool suite but it happened to be on the first floor of these little villas while the pool suites were underneath us on the ground floor and did not look as appealing as we would have thought, the pools were rather in the shade of our huge balcony above.
Speaking of room types- there is a rather confusing array of rooms which can face either the gardens or any of the different pools. Which is a bit of an issue as one pool is the one with the kiddie centre right next to it while the other one is the much more quiet pool on the outer side of the property. So depending on what you’re after, it’s worth choosing wisely (request to the property to be near one or the other, depending on your needs). Speaking of pools- there’s also the absolutely breathtaking pool by the ocean which is gorgeous especially for sundowner. We developed a little schedule that worked for us- some hours by the quiet pool during the day (we loved the lazy river type channel around the block of residents and enjoyed the water in there being ice cold which was such a good contrast to the weather outside) but then later in the afternoon, when many of the families were leaving the ocean pool, we’d head to the ocean pool with plenty of seats available past 4pm-ish and even enjoyed some rather affordable coughtails (for coughtails, that is, and for Thailand which is surprisingly becoming a bit expensive thanks to general inflation as everywhere and probably also for us the weak Aussie Dollar) from the restaurant next to it while romantically watching the sun going down- beautiful! What else is there to say?
Service, as others have mentioned, is a bit hit and miss. Staff is generally all Thai and smiling but not necessarily able or empowered to help- it all feels a bit like ‘organised chaos’, a typical Thai trait that we’ve experienced on our various trips. We also felt that English skills were way less developed down here in Pattaya than what you’d find in Bangkok or even coughet but maybe that was just bad luck, not sure. Breakfast is spread across two of the restaurants and was quite amazing, and especially the Thai choices were almost overbearingly varied. Again, service a bit so so at Breakfast and rather chaotic but it was also of course the holiday season. Which did not help with the overall atmosphere in general: While the Andaz chain is usually geared towards a rather adult crowd, this resort property is unfortunately a children’s playground and many of them are rather misbehaved (or more accurately, it was often the parents who were not willing to provide even the most basic supervision to their little “angels”). This was a bit of a downer for us but was kind of expected, given the time of the year. The one quieter pool though was a bit of a miss to not officially make “Adult only” which could have easily been done without spoiling the "family fun" elsewhere on this property. Oh well, it’s hard to complain about anything really, given the property is so gorgeous (similarly, the shower in our suite lacked water pressure but really, I feel even silly to mention such little things!).
Finally, to help other visitors, here are few facts about the property: First, the different building blocks, described moving from entrance of property towards ocean: the quieter pool with a lazy-river-esque water path, and hence the rooms surrounding this pool are closest to reception/restaurants. Then there is a series of buildings with garden view also near reception (across the lawn). Then comes another series of pool view rooms, this time close to/overlooking the official children’s pool and play area (it’s a normal pool, with a lazy-river-esque water path surrounding it, and a water slide, and a children’s water playground). Then comes the junior suites (small buildings with private pool rooms on the ground floor, the larger suite we had on the first floor above, all of these looking over the never-ending garden), then comes the super suites (larger buildings with big family suites within) some which look towards and over the beach side pool and ocean. Bear all of this in mind when booking as the website advertises mostly ‘garden’, ‘pool’ and ‘ocean’ view rooms but in reality the entire property is one huge garden with pools interspersed, with the ocean at the far end of the property.
Then- the area itself: It’s rather far away from Pattaya and pretty much away from everything. We dared into town one evening and it was exactly as seedy and messy as I had been warned, so seen it once and never again. Luckily, Grab works a treat- whether you want to drive out to a restaurant or to order food in through Grab delivery- all very easy and not too expensive. There’s literally nothing within walking distance besides the Aquaverse water theme park which we indeed tried and found to be one of the poorest and most unsafe (!) water parks anywhere we’ve been. If you want your kids to drown- that’s the place to go, otherwise I’d stay by the beautiful and well attended pools at the Andaz rather.
