Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park

In 2014, the iconic, '70s-era Imperial Queen's Park Hotel closed its doors. When they reopened in late 2016, the hotel was reborn as Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen's Park. Marriotts must have at least 1,000 rooms to fall under the Marquis umbrella, and the pre-existing property, with its 1,200-plus rooms, certainly fit the bill. The brand upped the room total to 1,388, making this hotel not just the largest hotel in Bangkok, but also one of the largest in Asia Pacific. 

The two-year renovation and rebranding left every inch of the property sleek and sophisticated. Despite the takeover of a Thailand hotel brand by a multinational company, the new corporate owner pays tribute to the country's cultural heritage, with an interior design based on Thai silks and patterns favored by the Queen. As a showcase, there is the handcrafted "Sala Thai Teak" by Khun Thawan Duchanee, one of Thailand's most famous artists. 

There is a palpable social vibe throughout the hotel's common areas: the lobby, the restaurants, the pools, even the elevators, where groups of party people dressed to the nines head out or make their way back to their rooms in the early hours of the morning. During our stay, we arrived from the airport at 3 a.m. expecting to find a ghost town. Instead, the lobby was teeming with formally garbed nighthawks laughing, chatting, and taking pictures. (We found out the next morning that the hotel was hosting several Bollywood stars in town for the International Indian Film Academy party.) But even when there aren't Bollywood stars in attendance, the glamorous lobby -- a cavernous room with crystal chandeliers hanging from coffered ceilings and Hollywood Regency-style seating around a shiny black grand piano -- serves as a social space, with live bands playing weekly and guests treating it as a cafe, work space, or lounge around the clock. 

The hotel is popular with business travelers from India, China, and Japan (this Marriott can easily accommodate meeting and events for 1,000 people), and tourists in town to experience the nightlife and restaurants of Bangkok. During the high season, it's not unheard of for the hotel to operate at a near-100-percent capacity. 

Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen's Park is located in Sukhumvit, a well-heeled neighborhood of upscale apartments and shopping and lively restaurants and bars. The hotel's back entrance leads to Benjasiri Park (whose name in Thai commemorates the birthday of Queen Sirikit). On the far side of the public park (five minutes by foot from the hotel) is the Emporium Mall and the Phrom Phong BTS Skytrain Station. Getting to Suvarnabhumi International Airport or Don Muang Airport takes about 30 minutes by car, but note that Bangkok is absolutely notorious for its rush-hour traffic.

Bangkok Marriott Marquis' 1,388 rooms are spread across its North and South Tower. More than 1,000 of these rooms fall into the entry-level Deluxe category; most have city views, and Deluxe Park View units overlook the public garden behind the hotel. M Club Rooms and M Suites come with free access to the M Club Lounge, a large indoor/outdoor space on the 27th floor with business facilities and all-day food and drinks, including cooked-to-order breakfast, afternoon tea, and evening cocktails and cheese. (Other guests can add on lounge access for a fee.) M Suites are up to 775 square feet and come with separate living and bedrooms. For a bathtub in addition to a shower, you must book at least an M Suite. As expected, rooms get more and more spacious and extravagant from this point. Top-tier units include the Garden Suite (there is only one in the hotel) with an outdoor terrace, three Two-Bedroom Family Suites (1,350 square feet), eight Grand Marquis suites (1,380 square feet), and the Sky Suite -- a 10,750-square-foot three bedroom with a grand piano, a dining room, a rooftop garden, meeting space, and dedicated butler service.

Even with the many room categories, all units share a design sense and many standard amenities. All rooms are sleek and modern, with a mostly white and gray color palette. Subtle Thai designs are seen on accent walls, the black minibar countertops, and in the carpeting. There are pieces of art and pottery, like a flower-patterned blue-and-white vase in our Deluxe Room, and verses of poetry scrawled on one wall. All rooms have king-sized pillow-top featherbeds, satellite flat-screen TVs, private climate control, coffee-making facilities (with Moccana instant coffee and Dilmah tea), and free bottled water. Minibars (fee) are stocked with wine, Evian, juice, cookies, and nuts. Floor-to-ceiling windows in every room provide natural light and panoramic city views.

Marble bathrooms are excellent; most have peekaboo rainfall showers with a bench and marvelous heat, pressure, and drainage. (M Suites and above have separate tubs, as well.) The bathroom amenity kit includes aromatherapeutic Thann products, as well as a toothbrush/toothpaste, mouthwash, razor, paraben-free shave cream, and hair tie. Hairdryers, ironing equipment, and flashlights are provided. Wi-Fi is free, and rooms have lots of extra outlets for plugging in personal devices. 

The hotel's ninth-floor pool deck contains two outdoor pools and a pool bar; this space feels surprisingly open and relaxing for central Bangkok, as it overlooks Benjasiri Park without any other tall buildings disturbing the view. The adjacent 24-hour fitness center also offers great views from its big windows, as well as free daily group classes, like yoga and stretching, and a squash court. Squash equipment is free for one hour. 

Quan Spa has treatment rooms for singles, couples, and even small groups. Its sizable spa offerings include the expected massages and facials, but also scrubs, wraps, mineral baths, and foot rituals. Treatments are carried out using beauty products by Thai beauty brand Divana and French skin-care specialist Phytomer.

The hotel has a kids' corner with games next to the pool on the ninth floor. Babysitting, laundry, dry cleaning, and airport transfer can all be arranged for a fee.

Food is available every hour of the day at the Bangkok Marriott Marquis. The lobby lounge is open everyday until midnight, and serves light breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as coffee, cocktails, and afternoon tea. Goji Kitchen + Bar, behind the lobby, opens daily from early in the morning until late at night, and serves all meals buffet-style. Its enormous breakfast buffet costs a fee, but the resounding opinion is that it is excellent and very much worth the cost. Goji's various live cooking stations at breakfast churn out dim sum, Indian dishes (aloo, paratha), omelets, and glazed ham, to name a few things. There is a yogurt bar with extensive toppings, as well as Thai tea and coffee and pineapple and guava juice. At the lunch and dinner buffets, some of the favorites are the handmade Chinese steam buns, the suckling pig cooked on an open-fire grill, and the live seafood counter.

Siam Tea Room serves traditional Thai for breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily, as well as freshly baked breads, like sugar-crusted brioche, cheese pretzels, and poppy seed rolls. Cantonese food, like dim sum and barbecue pork, is served for lunch and dinner daily at Pagoda. Pagoda has private dining rooms, and the main space can be rented for special breakfast functions. Soba Factory specializes in noodles made in-house from Hokkaido buckwheat flour. Set up to look like a traditional izakaya, Soba Factory is open for lunch and dinner daily.

Specializing in sushi, sashimi, 48-hour Wagyu short rib, and sake, Akira Back Restaurant and Bar is the 37th-floor outpost of the Michelin-starred Seoul restaurant. The space is stunning, with a sushi bar, an omakase bar, private dining rooms, and floor-to-ceiling windows for panoramic views of the city. Akira Back is open for dinner nightly and lunch on Sundays. Room service is also available anytime day or night.

Located on the 37th floor, ABar has Prohibition-era vibes with wood parquet floors, shelves lined with leather-bound books and green-glass bankers' lamps, and a spirits menu focusing on whiskey, rum, and cognac. One floor up, ABar Rooftop offers what they claim to be the largest gin selections in the city, as well as infinite views of the skyline.

Marriott Marquis' meeting and special-event facilities are exhaustive, to say the least. The hotel dedicates nearly 55,000 square feet to its 37 boardrooms and three ballrooms. The largest of the three is the Thai Chitlada Ballroom, whose 13,000-plus square feet of floor space can accommodate 1,300 guests. Other spaces include the 6,300-square-foot Sala Thai Ballroom, the residence-like Apartment, and an outdoor garden. Event-planning and catering services are available.