We’ve wanted to try the pet friendly Kimpton Maa-Lai Bangkok for a very long time. Having thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Kimpton Kitalay on Samui and knowing that the Kimpton chain is a pet friendly chain it was high on our list.
A 5* luxury hotel, you expect to pay 5* prices and this is no exception. It’s what has put us off staying here before. For the price I do feel that you get a lot for your money. The attention to detail in the hotel is great. Everything is pristine and well thought out and the staff are all excellent.
The rooms are really beautiful and even though we had the basic room the room was still fantastic. It was spacious and had lovely views over towards the Kempinski hotel and Bangkok in general.
We booked on hotels.com as a Gold member. We should have got an upgraded room but we weren’t offered this on check in even though we booked 2 rooms. So we were a bit disappointed about that. We paid 14,440 baht (US$395/£315) per night per room which included breakfast. Probably the most we’ve ever paid for a hotel room. We hope grandad’s travel insurance cover the cost (for my Youtube followers you will know grandad had to have some heart surgeries on the trip)!
Pet Policy
There are designated pet floors so we stayed on floor 9 and grandad stayed on floor 10. At check in we had to sign the hotels pet policy.
The biggest downside I would say is that whilst it is pet friendly, it’s nowhere near as pet friendly as the other Kimpton hotels.
For example, dogs are only allowed in the Craft cafe on the ground floor and even then, only in certain areas of it. We were asked to move one night when we chose our seat. You can walk them around the garden but be careful as some is shared with Kempinski and you can’t go into that section either.
Dogs aren’t allowed in any of the other common areas such as the pool area, restaurants or bars. So you are more restricted compared to other Kimpton’s we’ve been to which was a bit unfortunate. For this reason, I probably wouldn’t come back as when travelling with Wylie we like to spend as much time as possible with him rather than leaving him in the room on his own.
On the plus side you are able to leave them alone in the room whilst you are enjoying the facilities. Which isn’t something every hotel allows.
Given the price of the hotel, I’d like to have enjoyed more of the facilities together. For this reason, we probably wouldn’t come back to stay here again.
Hotel Facilities
Every day they have free drinks and snacks (including alcohol) on the 3rd floor between 5-6pm which is a nice touch.
The first night the humans enjoyed the rooftop bar on the 40th floor and had some tacos also which were delicious. Prices are as you would expect at a 5* hotel rooftop bar (480++ for a glass of wine) which isn’t so bad really considering the views etc. However, dogs weren’t allowed at the bar so I stayed in the room.
We didn’t sit at the swimming pool but it’s on the 3rd floor where the free snacks and drinks are. It looks really nice with lovely views over the city. It also had a great sunset view as well.
There are also nice gardens to walk through. We added on breakfast and the buffet is extremely extensive and food is amazing. Unfortunately we checked out too early for the breakfast on the second day so didn’t get the value and the breakfast box we were promised before check out didn’t materialise.
Conclusion
On the whole it’s a great hotel. I’d recommend if you have the budget and are travelling without a pet. Or you don’t mind leaving them in the room a lot. It is a lot of money. When spending that amount I’d prefer to get to enjoy all of the facilities together. For this reason, I don’t think we’d come back. Which is a shame as we had high expectations. It just wasn’t as pet friendly as other Kimpton hotels which is disappointing.
If the Kimpton is out of your price range, check out my other pet friendly hotel recommendations in Bangkok here.
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