The first Hooters in the US opened 1983, now there are more than 460 restaurants in the US and they operate in 27 other countries. I guess there is no other Hooters in the world where you will find such serious ASS than at the one in Medellin.
The place itself is no different from the other Hooters: typical menu, drinks and price levels. Around 10pm the place can get pretty crowded, even at weekdays they manage to get around half full.
I spoke with the manager there who is a Colombian in his mid 30s. Franchise fees are lower than in the US but the initial investment outside of the US is mostly very similar and just on par with the relating buying power/per capita GDP.
The girls are fun, sexy and entertaining, although most aren’t speaking too much English. The photo featured girls got paid for the appearance on Global Nanpa later on.
The Charlee hotel is a new luxurious design hotel in Zona Rosa. I got a tour through it. The rooms are very modern, some even have outdoor jacuzis and teppanyaki eating areas. But don’t expect here the fabrication and material quality to be like you might know it from South East Asia – still it is impressive for Medellin as nobody else has similiar rooms.
Most spectacular is clearly the rooftop and pool, that’s truely a new hip spot of Medellin. The view is amazing and at nights times, they play pretty decent music and fun people are around. The bar manager there is energetic, speaks well English and is smart.
I personally would not stay in the hotel because it is noisy, I rather would opt for Park 10 in Zona Rosa. But as a guest on the rooftop for partying, this place is sweet. There is also a cool club named El Deck in Zona Rosa.
Hotel Porton in Poblado is one of the better hotels around in Medellin. The location is especially good, being next to a large Santafe shopping mall and a major bank. It is always easy to get Taxis away/to from it. I already saw ads from this hotel at Bogota airport. My flight delayed and I wasn’t able to exchange any money into CPO when I arrived in Colombia because everything was already closed at the airport. The airport is damn far away from the city centre on a hill. It will take you almost an hour to get into the city centre and it costs around CPO 55.000 (EUR 25) to get there.
The hotel at first was getting a bit strange about the room price and pointed to a published rate plate in the lobby. Luckily I had a printed E-mail conversation of a staff member with me, that guaranteed the USD 150 for a junior suite and not USD 300 like published. I only paid cash in Colombia and in general would advice against using credit cards at all in Colombia.
I never thought I would ever need to deal with an airport worse than Manila or Paris (Charles-de-Gaulle), but Medellin and Bogota beat that easily ! Those airports must have been the most unefficient and slowest I ever encountered. The most ridiculous thing is that they check your flight ticket and seat maybe 4 times with plenty of hand-marked sheets until you are really sitting in the plane. I don’t understand much Spanish but announcements in the smaller areas are completely in Spanish and the screens rarely get updated, most flights are delaying anyway it seems. In Bogota you will be carried around in busses for which I had to wait 25 min in my case and it drove around the area maybe for another 15min, it is insane…
When I asked people for directions, English is extremely rare, on the other hand the number of words being talked were very high, it is part of my Spanish/Portuguese conversation experience in South America. I decided to fly back earlier 2 days than originally planned, but I missed my connection flight in Bogota, the service at the Bogota airport was practically non-existent and they let me stand around at night time in a cold, very frequented, little hallway for more than an hour. I had a self-paid overnight stay in Bogota at the Marriott hotel which was pretty ok. Check-in at Bogota airport next day was again a pain in the ass : when I wanted to check in they told me at the counter that I have to pay some sort of taxes at a different area, frustrated I went there, paid and when I came back my baggage was gone. They told me they already checked it in without my presence. I put a lot of heat on them, when I started to make phone-calls they finally arranged to bring my baggage all the way back, to show it to me and to check it in again during my presence. To top it all : before we could take off from Bogota, someone felt sick and they wanted to bring a doctor on board, once this person was ok again, the next one started to feel sick before we even were taking off after about 45 min all siting inside. During the flight one passenger started smoking a cigar and later was bound on his chair because of his behavior. I guess I was a bit unlucky with the flight experience.
Now the positives : people are really friendly and polite around. In South America you just cannot expect the same standards like in South East Asia.
Hotel Porton is more a business hotel, the guests had been all friendly as well.
Breakfast of the hotel was pretty much ok, nothing special. The person taking care of the area is helpful and a nice guy. Their gym/spa was under renovations during my time there. The staff in the lobby area is good. Wifi is free and quite fast.
The Speakeasy, Blind Pig, Medici restaurant and top suite of Muse hotel, Bangkok
Miss Menendez from Muse hotel was so kind to show me around the top room of Muse hotel which is 220sm large and offers a spectacular balcony facing the US embassy, Witthayu road, site.
The room wasn’t finished at that point of time, so don’t expect the room to look exactly like this anymore, it probably even looks a little better now. It runs at a published rate of around THB 70k++. I could imagine eventually booking it for a day and combining it with a fun night at the Speakeasy.
The idea behind the Speakeasy and Blind Pig is good. There used to be rooms during the times of Rama V where people could talk freely about all political issues without having the fear of being observed : they were called the “speakeasies”.
The cigar lounge is really cool, I haven’t seen anything like that in whole Bangkok.
The terrace bar is good and one level above there is a huge area that is sometimes used for special events and private bookings.
Medici restaurant is an excellent Italian restaurant. It almost feels like eating at Dracula’s castle, sitting in the basement there. Chef Francesco from Tuscany is a really friendly guy, he reminds me of an Italian friend the way he talks. The pasta dishes I tried there had all been very good and come at a surprisingly reasonable price.
Service was good, not outstanding. The place is really popular at the moment, always fully booked at weekends well in advance.
BarSu is one of the best, real hotel bars you can find on Sukhumvit and entire Bangkok. It is one of my favorite places to drink in the early evening. I wasn’t able to video capture any interesting scene there as it was simply too early. The place is very chic and large with a centred bar, yet still offers some intimacy at the couch seating areas close to the windows. The live bands are pretty good as well. The crowd and vibe might not be as strong as at Spasso, Grand Hyatt hotel, but I consider BarSu to be more upscale and they are more focussing on the real bar experience. Some people might be missing the freelancers though, I am actually glad that they have a different approach. Soi Cowboy is close anyway, no need to bring ‘em in the house…
The 407 rooms hotel was recently rebranded from the former Marriott riverside hotel into an Anantara. That alone was reason enough for me to check out the place, moreover my tax advisor always stays at this hotel and I already knew about the good swimming pool. The hotel was among the best hotel experiences of my last trip and especially the excellent price/value relation knocked me out. The hotel is very well managed, they are often fully booked and consequently they are one of the few, bigger hotels in Bangkok that is a real money-maker.
The breakfast is one of the best you can possibly find in entire Bangkok. The pool area is huge and really beautiful, the only problem is, because the hotel is booked so well, there will already be quite a lot of people in the morning. The gym is well equipped and large as well.
Mandara Spa again is among the best Bangkok spa you can find .
I never had a chance to try their japanese teppanyaki steakhouse Benihana. I heard it is underestimated and the price levels look fine. Price levels in general are fantastic of this hotel. I had a Anantara suite premier and also got shown their top suite, the Suan Luang suite. Especially for people who look for all those free additional amenities, the hotel has a lot to offer.
I was pretty much amazed how big and tranquil the whole property is. You have to keep in mind when staying there, you should just stay there for relaxing. It is not a wise location to choose if you want to be active in the centre of the city (for example Silom, Ploenchit, Dusit, Sukhumvit area…).
Negatives are that the place still looks older and it is noisier at times because of the centred pool. It reminded me strongly of the Dusit Thani from its rooms . But they are gladly currently in the process of updating rooms, giving them a fresh appeal and making some of them larger.
For people who just come to Bangkok for relaxing a few days and who only want to spend something in the THB 5k++/day range, this hotel is a great option. Have a look at my Top-50 Bangkok hotels video guide at the moment.
The hotel was built in the 1920s, but got modernized and enlarged in the 90s. The old trees at the pool area around which they built the hotel are absolutely amazing. It is a colonial-style built hotel and the butlers are dressed in white suites.
The butlers and staff are really attentive, it reminded me of how the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok in its 70s and 80s might have felt in that regard before it went downhill in terms of service. Although the people around at Raffles are very friendly, I would not call them skilled, they sometimes lack the training or general understanding. They employ quite a lot of staff, many are close to the lobby area and there doesn’t seem to be much specialization in their function. A few people there are doing lots of different things which should not be connected.
The old, classic room itself was ok, nothing to rave about. Vattanac Capital recently invested into a building opposite from the hotel which will look pretty modern. Still I didn’t had the feeling that Phnom Penh is very dynamic, people are just incredible poor and infrastructure is really bad. They mostly get their tourists just because of Angkor Wat. I have no idea what all the diplomats there are really doing : paid vacation ?
The 2 places I enjoyed most was the pool area and the Elephant bar. But expect the pool area to get really crowded as hotel guests around noon might have taken every single chair. The food in the restaurants was maybe good for Cambodian standards, compared with Thailand it is just 2 levels below.
Most negative issue about the rooms are noise levels, as the walls are very thin and they tend to spray the hotel area (part of their pest control) around 10pm occasionally. The leaves of the trees around the hotel didn’t look healthy I sadly have to admit.
I also checked out the new Sofitel hotel as a visitor which is clearly worse than the Raffles. Staff there isn’t attentive at all and their praised pool is only mediocre. This is just the best you can get in Cambodia and it doesn’t even come at such a cheap price relating it to the countries GDP per capita. Seeing Angkor Wat once in my life was nice but after 2 visits to Cambodia I strongly doubt I will be back soon again.
