clandestino

Just spent 8 nights at the Mercure on Soi 11 and thought I'd offer up my take.
I had a King room with shower and bathtub, one of several options. It's not their largest or their smallest room, but was plenty large for my needs (photos below).
I arrived at midnight, and check-in was quick and simple. I purchased a room without the breakfast add-on, as I like to explore various breakfast options around town. I booked well in advance, while prices were still depressed by Covid, so got a rate of about $86/night. When I checked in, the rate being offered at that time was about $112.
My room was on the 16th floor and away from Soi 11, so as quiet as a room will get in that part of town. I had no issues with noise
A funny moment: I was only interested in sleeping after a 27 hour trip with a 15 hour time change, but could not figure out how to turn off the room lights. I searched everywhere (I thought) for the switches, finally calling the front desk to send someone up. The control for the room lights (nearly all of them) was in the middle of the bed headboard, hiding behind a stack of pillows.
Description of room:
The room was plenty spacious, and had pretty much everything I would want. The king bed was comfortable and the bed linens were high quality. Four large pillows. There was a desk with two chairs, and an additional two guest chairs with a small table. Opposite the bed there was a small storage unit with two drawers for clothes, and a flat screen TV above it. TV worked fine and was decent sized, but I never watched any TV. To the left of this, towards the door to the room and the door to the bathroom, was a platform to set luggage on, a small fridge (not a minibar), and then a closet with a decent sized safe (big enough for a laptop). Across from the closet was the door to the bathroom. As mentioned, the bathroom had both a glass-enclosed shower, with adjustable/handheld shower head and a rainfall shower head. Across from the shower was a full tub with an adjustable/handheld shower head (for some reason, many Thai girls seem to prefer to shower in the tub...I don't get it). Tub had a wall mounted soap dispenser, shower had wall mounted soap, shampoo, and conditioner dispensers. Next to the shower was a toilet with the essential bum gun, and next to it a shower and sink with ample room for storage of toiletries.
Pros: 
Comfortable bed Good AC that was easy to control air speed and room temp Great hot water. It was easy to control, and never ran low. Two large bath sheets and two smaller bath towels Plenty of seating for guests. Chairs came in handy for sex as well. Housekeeping was responsive to requests for extra towels, hangers, etc. I tipped daily. Good reading lights by the bed. Cons:
Lighting was hard to control. No dimming, and ceiling lights were either all on or all off. No power outlets next to the bed! Charging phones had to be done at the desk or on top of the fridge. This was a nuisance. Aside from liquid soap, shampoo, conditioner and body lotion, there were no other amenities in the bathroom. No plastic hair cover for the girls, etc. Fridge was on the small side. Room for a few drinks and not much else. The Hotel:
The lobby is nothing fancy. From the driveway you walk through sliding glass doors, across a seating area with a concierge stand, past the elevators (one left, one right), and to the actual reception desks. One of the two hotel restaurants (Lily Fu's) is on the ground floor to the right of the hotel entrance, and can be entered from inside or outside the hotel. Another restaurant (Gaucho Argentinean Steakhouse) is loosely affiliated with the hotel and is just to the left of the hotel.
The hotel has a parking garage (4 levels), a pool, bar, and gym that sit above the parking garage, and 16 floors of rooms (1-16, minus 13th, plus a Penthouse level). I spent a fair amount of time at the pool. One of the better pools I've used. There are actually two pools: a smaller and very shallow splash pool for kids and a larger pool, still fairly shallow (1.2 meters) for swimming. The pool is surround by ample seating of various sorts with shade for the sun-averse. The bar sits at one end of the pool, and has a decent drink and food menu. Neither cheap nor overpriced. The gym, glass enclosed and looking out over the pool, was also very good, with plenty of cardio and weight machines.
Pros:
Lobby easy to negotiate. It's a decent walk (of shame?) to the elevators, but you have the option of skipping the desk and taking your guests straight to your room. Elevators require a room key to get to a particular floor, so no surprise guests will appear at your door (as has happened to me at other hotels). Breakfast buffet at Lily Fu's is excellent, at 299 baht. Egg station, all the usual options for American/English breakfast, tons of Asian options, good selection of fruit, juices, breads and pastries, coffees and teas, etc. One can sit open air in the front of the restaurant facing Soi 11 or sit back further inside or at the bar. In the evening, Lily Fu's is a bar/restaurant and is pretty active. Good drink options, reasonably priced, and usually quite crowded. The food is primarily pan-Asian and good, but there are better options, so I only had a quick meal there one time when convenience was key. Gym was great and never crowded. Pool would get busy, but there was always ample seating. Cons:
The hotel is definitely a family hotel. Not exclusively so, but if you're a shy monger just know that you'll be dealing with lots of couples on vacation, families with kids, and so forth. The clients were incredibly diverse, a little United Nations. Didn't bother me at all, but I know some here prefer hotels that cater primarily to mongers. I'm afraid there are fewer and fewer of those, and they are generally not the best hotels. Pool area could get noisy when a few families with kids would show up. The pool is my reading area, and shouting kids are distracting. Come on the early side for breakfast. At least while I was in town the restaurant got quite crowded by 9:30. Fortunately, I'm an early riser. Conclusion:
Depending on the rate I can get, I'd definitely stay again. Did I mention that Cindy's Secrets is about 100 yards from the hotel, and that it's a short walk to Check In Bar? And that Soi 11 really has lots of options for food at any time of day, and plenty of nightlife. By 9 pm freelancers show up along Soi 11 closer to Sukhumvit. I definitely preferred staying here over Soi 4. Soi 11 is now also the hub for the mobile marijuana dispensaries. There were at least ten vans selling marijuana along Soi 11 (and tons of dispensaries along Sukhumvit), including two vans parked in front of the Mercure in the evenings. Didn't imbibe. I liked getting in walks to the skytrain from the hotel (maybe 5 minutes), and Terminal 21 is just a 10 minute walk.
The morning I left, at 5 am, there were four girls from Cindy's sitting in front of my hotel, so I went out and chatted with them. The street was still pretty active, but mostly filled with bargirls and freelancers ending their nights by getting something to eat or drink. I don't think Soi 11 ever sleeps.
 

Thanks for tips, appreciated.

I used to stay at Citadines 11 pre-Covid. My top tip is when you check in, ask for a room on a higher floor and "at the back." The downside to being on soi 11 is that it is very noisy until about 0200-0300. That's OK if you plan on staying out late every night, but if you need to get up early for work etc. it can be frustrating.
The higher floor rooms at the back don't have a great view, but are much less noisy!
The Irish pub where you used to get breakfast has now gone and they are opening something else, but I don't believe it is open yet.
SAG

I just finished up a stay at Citadines 11. Here are a few of my observations:

Book through their website. Expedia wanted 4000 Baht a night for my one bedroom condo unit. I booked it through their painfully slow website for 2350 Baht per night after taxes. There are lesser rooms, but I was only in town for two nights, so the extra 350 Baht per night upgrade was not a big deal.

The one bedroom unit of mine was spacious, clean and well maintained. It had a functional kitchen and a split bathroom. The only complaint that I listed with them was the toilet room. It had the porcelain throne and a small sink. But the throne was damn near against the wall/sliding wood door. You can see a huge void in the corner where the old shower used to be. But they never relocated the throne to the center of the wall to make more room for the user. It is fine if you are 50 kgs, but I am double that. So I had to sit at a slight angle when having deep thoughts. Across the hall was the large basin with mirror and a full size tub/shower.

I had a corner unit on the seventh floor. I could hear the night clubs nearby and there were complimentary ear plugs on the safe. But as a monger, bedtime was 3am to 4am, so it was not an issue.

A breakfast buffet is included in the price and it was decent by western standards. The restaurant is open 24/7. It is packed at 4am with mostly Westerners.

The living room and the master bedroom each had a 42" flat panel TV. Most places only give you one.

You can send your laundry out for ungodly prices, carry it over to the 24hour laundry shop across the street (down an alley, look for the signs) that is priced by the kilo, or go up to the 9th floor. The gym and pool are up here. It costs 90 Baht for one token. It takes 2 tokens to do a load. 1 for washer, 1 for the dryer. They are full size units. The laundry soap & fabric softener is included when you buy the tokens from the front desk.

This place is within walking distance of Check in Bar, Nana Plaza, Terminal 21 mall and splits two of the BTS stops. There is a ton of street action on Soi 11 and on the strip down towards the Westin Hotel. The Westin sidewalk was overflowing with LB talent.

The hotel is LB friendly. I had Beam come over on her day off and stay overnight without any issues.

My cab ride to the airport using Grab at 11am was 400 Baht plus 78 Baht in tolls. You can take the BTS to the airport line for cheap, but I had a full size suitcase, a full size gym bag, a fully loaded computer backpack and my CPAP bag. I was not in the mood to haul all that down 7 blocks in 93°F heat just to save 400 Baht.

I was brought up by hired car from Pattaya, so I do not know what that cost would be from the airport.

Depending on how long I plan on staying im Bangkok next year, I will plan on booking here again.


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