Bangkok Marriott Hotel The Surawongse, Thailand 🇹🇭 – unique Rooftop-Bar right at Chao Phraya river

A stylish city hotel with rooftop bar, infinity pool and feel-good suites – Marriott The Surawongse puts you right in the heart of Bangkok. Ideal for those who love comfort, want to feel the magic of the city and end the day with a cocktail over the roofs of this magical city.

Review # 61

Location

The Marriott The Surawongse is located in the vibrant heart of Bangkok – just a stone’s throw from the Si Lom district and the Chao Phraya so you are perfectly connected to culture, culinary delights and the hustle and bustle of the city. Whether rooftop vibes, shopping experiences or temple magic – your adventure starts right outside the hotel door.

Getting there

Of course, you normally arrive to Bangkok by plane and land at Suvarnabhumi International Airport Bangkok (BKK). Basically every airline flies to this airport from all over the world. There is also a second airport, Don Mueang (DMK), for domestic and intra-Asian flights. Both airports are well connected to public transport by train, but of course you can also take a taxi or grab to ride into the city from there.

How to get to the hotel

We landed at Suvarnabhumi Airport on a Swiss Business Class direct flight from Zurique. From there, we hoped on a grab to get to our hotel for the night, the Marriott The Surawongse, which is located right in the city centre and it took us just under three quarters of an hour to get there. Of course, you can also take the Air Rail Link train directly from the basement of the airport into the city centre, where you should also arrive at the hotel after changing to the bus and a journey time of around 75 minutes.

Check-in

We travelled by car from the airport to the Marriott The Surawongse and were already greeted warmly at the door. Our luggage and we were helped out of the car and our suitcases were immediately provided with luggage straps so that they could be taken directly to our suite by the hard-working hotel staff.

We were then accompanied on the short walk to the reception on the left hand side in the lobby, where we received another friendly welcome. Each of us was given a beautiful flower bracelet as a welcome and we were then checked-in in no time. Our suite was already prepared and so we were able to go straight to the 12th floor and check into our room right away.

Marriott The Surawongse at a glance

Bangkok Marriott The Surawongse opened in April 2018 and offers 196 rooms and suites, as well as 107 residential suites – these suites are ideal for longer stays, have separate living areas and are fully equipped with kitchens as well as washing machines.

The ground floor of Bangkok Marriott The Surawongse is home to the main lobby and lobby lounge, while the Japanese restaurant is located on the first floor. On the 3rd floor is Praya Kitchen, a restaurant serving traditional Thai cuisine with modern interpretations of street food. On the 18th floor, guests can take a dip in the outdoor infinity pool, work out in the fitness centre or relax in the spa.

And at the very top, the Bangkok Marriott The Surawongse offers the Yào Restaurant. There you can savour classic and modern Chinese dishes and enjoy Chinese-inspired cocktails and snacks in the stylish ambience of Yào Rooftop Bar on the top most floor while enjoying the breathtaking views of the Bangkok skyline.

Suite

As usual, we booked the cheapest room and were upgraded to an M Club One Bedroom Suite due to our Titanium status with Marriott Bonvoy. When staying at hotels with the Marriott Group, the Bonvoy app usually shows which room type is assigned to the booking before check-in and so we knew before even arriving at the hotel that we would be getting a suite. Of course, we were also told this again at check-in, which of course made us very happy!

Suite no. 1223 will be our home for the night. So let’s take a closer look together.

Welcome

As we arrived in the suite, a welcome letter was waiting for us on the table in the living area, explaining all the benefits of our status and listing the various opening hours. There was also a greeting from the General Manager and a small bar of chocolate.

Living room

As soon as you enter the room, you will find yourself in a kind of corridor. To the left of this is the sideboard. Here you will find a capsule coffee machine, the minibar, some snacks, water and crockery.

Straight ahead is the living room. Inside to the right is a relatively large dining table with 4 chairs and directly in front of the floor-to-ceiling window is a living room corner with sofa, table, armchair and TV.

Bedroom

You can access the bedroom from the living room. The super-comfortable king-size bed with a large duvet and a total of 4 pillows is located in the centre of the opposite wall. Two of the pillows are a little firmer than the other two. There are bedside tables to both sides of the bed, with the one on the left completely empty and the one on the right quite full with a notepad with pen, a telephone and a separate clock radio.

Opposite the bed, a huge television is installed on the wall, in front of which there is another round table and chair in the corner, which however looks a little lost and, in my opinion, makes little sense in a suite. In a normal room, this would certainly be a place where I would sit down at the computer to work for a moment, but here I would definitely use the dining table, which offers a lot more space and, above all, is not located in the room where I sleep.

Bathroom

From the bedroom you can access the bathroom. There is an open built-in wardrobe in the entrance area, which contains the bathrobes, slippers, shoe care, everything for cleaning clothes, the shoehorn and the safe. There is also a bench for your suitcase at the head of the small room.

The actual bathroom has a huge window facing the bedroom, providing the room with natural light but can also be closed with a blind for more privacy if required. The bathtub is installed directly in front of the window.

Opposite the door is the vanity unit with one washbasin. Here you will also find all the usual amenities and towels, as well as a hairdryer. The toilet is right next to it.

Opposite the toilet, the shower is installed in a niche next to the door. Here you can choose between a hand shower and a rain shower. The Bangkok Marriott The Surawongse provides guests with care products by thisworks.

Turndown

Of course, a hotel like the Bangkok Marriott The Surawongse also offers its guests a turndown service. So while you’re out for dinner, the busy housekeeping team will come round again and draw the curtains, prepare the bed, lay out the slippers and adjust the lamps so that you switch straight into cosy mode as soon as you arrive back at your suite. Of course, they also check again to see if any water or toiletries need to be topped up.

View

The view from our room was rather okay though. From the 12th floor, you don’t have such an incredible view of the entire city and on the right your view is blocked by the rest of the hotel building. I would have liked the window in the bedroom to be where the head of the bed is now. Or ideally even around the corner. That would have brought more light into the room and certainly enhanced the whole suite.

Lounge

As Marriott status member or guest with a booked room including lounge access, you can enter the M Club Lounge on the 31st floor of the Bangkok Marriott The Surawongse. The hotel has a really large lounge that extends over the entire floor. In addition to a large seating area and an area for the buffet, this club lounge even offers a relatively large outdoor seating area where you can eat at tables or relax on lounge sets.

In addition to breakfast all guests who have access can choose from a small selection of sweets and soft drinks throughout the day. In the evening, the hotel also invites you to happy hour and serves cocktails, wine and sparkling wine as well as a decent little buffet, which even features a live cooking station.

Resort activities

Pool

On the 18th floor of the hotel, the Marriott The Surawongse also offers a rather large outdoor infinity pool from which you can enjoy an excellent view of the surrounding city.

The pool offers a handful of lounging options on wide sofas and loungers, some of which are even placed in the water. For the number of guests, however, the number of options to lounge is quite limited. When most holidaymakers return from their day trips in the afternoon, it can certainly get tight here with the opportunity to lie down. Unfortunately, at least the sofas are really quite worn out and not at all comfortable. They could definitely do with an upgrade!

The bar seating is located behind the loungers and in the afternoon, all the seats here are occupied by guests who want to take a dip.

However, the view makes up for it. It’s really nice to spend time here.

Fitness Center

The gym is also located on the same floor as the pool. Here you will find everything you need for a workout. There is a range of equipment as well as a free weights area. The hotel offers free towels and water.

Spa

Also on the 18th floor is the Quan Spa, where you can be pampered with a variety of massages and treatments.

Kid’s Club

The small Kid’s Club is located right next to the pool.

Restaurants

Restaurant

Praya Kitchen – all-day dining restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All three meals can be enjoyed here by helping yourself from a buffet. However, there is also the option of ordering from a menu for lunch and dinner.

Kissuisen – the Japanese restaurant on the first floor of the hotel offers upscale lunch and dinner.

Lobby Lounge – this bar is located at the rear of the ground floor and offers refreshments, coffee and snacks throughout the day.

Yào Bar

This really great rooftop bar offers views over the whole city from the 33rd floor upwards over two levels. From the top, you can see the legendary ICON Siam mall on the opposite bank and explore the course of the Chao Phraya in detail. The bar offers great cocktails, really nice service and truly spectacular views. Please note, however, that the lift only reaches up to the 32nd floor and from there you have to walk up a narrow (and very humid!) staircase. There is no other way to get to the bar.

Breakfast

As guests with access to the lounge, we decided to have breakfast here too. The small but excellent buffet really does offer everything your breakfast heart desires and, in addition to classic Western and rather sweet options, has an egg station for freshly prepared egg dishes and even some really tasty hot Asian breakfast options.

The coffee options were ordered and served at the table, but you help yourself with the rest directly from the buffet.

Check-out

The check-out was again carried out in the lobby, everything was well prepared and the process went quickly and unspectacularly. We were given a friendly farewell and asked if we needed any help with our departure.

Interestingly, we were neither checked-in nor checked-out in the lounge. This is actually done in all hotels that have such a lounge – but the Marriott The Surawongse makes an exception for some reason – unfortunately I must say.

Costs

We paid a good 5,700 THB for this one night, which was equivalent to around 150 Euros at the time of our stay. Mind you, this was of course for the smallest room category.

Departure and onward journey

We then travelled on towards the old Bangkok airport – Don Mueang Airport (DMK), from where we travelled on towards Yogyakarta, where we were going to visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site Borobudur. We actually strategically chose the Marriott The Surawongse as our hotel for the night, as the hotel is relatively close to the slip road to the motorway leading to the airport, so we were well connected.

After our surprisingly quirky stay at the Sheraton Mustika Yogyakarta and a surprisingly great stay at the Alila Solo, we travelled on to Bali, where we visited the Alila Ubud, the La Reserve 1785, the Andaz Bali with its sister hotel Hyatt Regency Bali, as well as the breathtakingly beautiful Alila Villas Uluwatu.

Take a look and check out all our reviews of this trip.

Conclision

The Bangkok Marriott The Surawongse is basically a good hotel. We enjoyed our stay and felt comfortable. The hotel offers good service and you can tell that the staff have often been there for a long time and are really well trained. Unfortunately, I personally feel that this hotel lacks something special, although the roof terrace is really great and scores highly!

Recommendation

We can really recommend the Marriott The Surawongse and especially business and solo travellers as well as couples are in good hands here. There is a Kid’s Club for families with small children, but the whole hotel doesn’t necessarily give the impression that it is particularly geared towards children. There are no special offers or play areas by the pool or at the restaurants. Other hotels do better in this area, or at least differently if they are aim towards families with children.

Rating

Nevertheless, we rate the Bangkok Marriott The Surawongse as Midscale on our scale.

Hotel Homepage

Bangkok Marriott Hotel The Surawongse*

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Rating

We give the Bangkok Marriot The Surawongse 9 out of 10 possible points.

We mainly deduct one point for the really unattractive sunbeds and the lack of loungers by the pool.

Go there?

Yes. You can absolutely do it.

YouTube Review

We don’t have a YouTube review of this stay, but I have linked the video of a previous stay below. So if you would like to find out more about the hotel and are interested in seeing a video review, just take a look at this post. Enjoy watching!