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Superb service at St Regis Bangkok

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CURRENTLY undergoing its soft opening, St Regis Bangkok is a glitzy addition to the city’s competitive luxury hotel market and the global brand’s first property in Thailand and Indochina.

Directly overlooking the broad swathe of prime real estate that is the Royal Bangkok Sports Club – you can watch the weekend horse races from the comfort of your room – the hotel is superbly connected in many ways. Within weeks, it will have its own direct link into the adjacent Rachadamri BTS Skytrain station, while some of Bangkok’s top shopping malls and entertainment options are just a few minutes’ stroll away.

The room? Arguably the most comfortable bed I have ever slept on left me precious little time awake to fiddle with all the little gadgets to be expected in a brand new hotel, but the amenity kit was very generous, containing all the things you often need (but don’t always get) in a hotel.

I didn’t have time to ask the St Regis Butler, available to every guest and the only service of its kind in Bangkok, to run a Turkish bath for me in the room. But I did give him the opportunity to show off his impeccable service at the in-room breakfast, a sumptuous spread delivered with a flourish at exactly the requested time.

On other days breakfast was taken in Viu, the airy 12th floor restaurant, near the reception. A ‘five-star hotel meets farmhouse kitchen’ experience, the centrepiece of the room, apart from the huge windows overlooking Bangkok, was a large open cooking area complete with rustic wooden kitchen table.

Breakfast calories were burned off not in the hotel’s rather small gymnasium but in the attractive 15th floor infinity pool.

Given time constraints, there was much at St Regis Bangkok which could not be  reviewed.

I wasn’t able to test the fast-track VIP immigration service at Bangkok Airport, available exclusively to St Regis guests. Neither did I get to put the hotel’s Bentley limousine through its paces through a Bangkok rush hour. And sadly, I didn’t get to pass dreamy hours in the first Elemis Spa in Thailand.

If anything, and despite the natural warmth of its smiling staff, St Regis Bangkok is almost too slick. Or maybe service standards at St Regis Bangkok simply exceeded expectations.

With a rack rate of 14,000 Baht ($457) per night, luxury like this doesn’t come cheap. But with a lowest special rate of 7,300 Baht ($238) ++ per room per night at weekends until July 31, the St Regis experience is well within reach.

By Mark Lazell

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