FlyerTalk Forums - Andaz Pattaya Jomtien Beach REVIEW (2024)

Just stayed here over Xmas (will post an in-depth review soon, I promise!)- Grab definitely works here and very reliably so, around 10USD into Pattaya. If you're just after food though, we used Grab Delivery several times and it worked a treat- found both very good Thai and "Western" options nearby. Nothing in walking distance but certainly easy enough though the apps, rather than having to dare Thai traffic in a rental. And I am telling you- Pattaya at night is an absolute madhouse on the streets!

Finally, my full review from our recent stay! Since this property has opened, we were very keen to give it a try while at the same time curious about its location and whether it’s actually worth venturing here. We finally got the chance over the Xmas holiday, splurging ourselves with this year’s last Hyatt Globalist Suite Upgrade award for a Gardenview Suite. And boy, was it worth going!

We’ve been great fans of the Andaz chain since their first properties opened in West Hollywood and London Liverpool Street. With all our experiences so far in city locations, we were interested to see how the Andaz concept would work on a resort style property (Bali and, of course, Hawaii are still on our must do list). I think you can still tell that it’s the same concept- much more modern, airy and stylish compared to an old fashioned Park or Grand Hyatt, both from the design and also the service attitude. The property is absolutely breathtaking though most rooms do not provide ocean views which is a bit of a shame. The gardens and several pools on site, however, are all very well laid out and of course, being a rather new property, it’s all in perfect condition. Which seems to be no easy feat as there were about a dozen of garden helpers constantly raking leaves and pruning the trees to keep it this way.

Our suite was one of the best rooms we’ve ever had anywhere- it was HUGE and absolutely gorgeous in design and fit out- the perfect mix of modern design combined with local Thai elements and even the little details done to an amazing standard. The bed was typical Andaz as the chain does away with triple cushion overthrows and the likes, and rather provides you with a good quality, rather firm, mattress and simple but high quality bedding which we very much appreciate. If you’re after the kind of plush furnishings of a Ritz Carlton or WA, then better don’t stay here, this is not what Andaz is about. Finally-we were at first sceptical that the “Standard Suite” is Garden view rather than a private pool suite but it happened to be on the first floor of these little villas while the pool suites were underneath us on the ground floor and did not look as appealing as we would have thought, the pools were rather in the shade of our huge balcony above.

Speaking of room types- there is a rather confusing array of rooms which can face either the gardens or any of the different pools. Which is a bit of an issue as one pool is the one with the kiddie centre right next to it while the other one is the much more quiet pool on the outer side of the property. So depending on what you’re after, it’s worth choosing wisely (request to the property to be near one or the other, depending on your needs). Speaking of pools- there’s also the absolutely breathtaking pool by the ocean which is gorgeous especially for sundowner. We developed a little schedule that worked for us- some hours by the quiet pool during the day (we loved the lazy river type channel around the block of residents and enjoyed the water in there being ice cold which was such a good contrast to the weather outside) but then later in the afternoon, when many of the families were leaving the ocean pool, we’d head to the ocean pool with plenty of seats available past 4pm-ish and even enjoyed some rather affordable co*cktails (for co*cktails, that is, and for Thailand which is surprisingly becoming a bit expensive thanks to general inflation as everywhere and probably also for us the weak Aussie Dollar) from the restaurant next to it while romantically watching the sun going down- beautiful! What else is there to say?

Service, as others have mentioned, is a bit hit and miss. Staff is generally all Thai and smiling but not necessarily able or empowered to help- it all feels a bit like ‘organised chaos’, a typical Thai trait that we’ve experienced on our various trips. We also felt that English skills were way less developed down here in Pattaya than what you’d find in Bangkok or even phu*ket but maybe that was just bad luck, not sure. Breakfast is spread across two of the restaurants and was quite amazing, and especially the Thai choices were almost overbearingly varied. Again, service a bit so so at Breakfast and rather chaotic but it was also of course the holiday season. Which did not help with the overall atmosphere in general: While the Andaz chain is usually geared towards a rather adult crowd, this resort property is unfortunately a children’s playground and many of them are rather misbehaved (or more accurately, it was often the parents who were not willing to provide even the most basic supervision to their little “angels”). This was a bit of a downer for us but was kind of expected, given the time of the year. The one quieter pool though was a bit of a miss to not officially make “Adult only” which could have easily been done without spoiling the "family fun" elsewhere on this property. Oh well, it’s hard to complain about anything really, given the property is so gorgeous (similarly, the shower in our suite lacked water pressure but really, I feel even silly to mention such little things!).

Finally, to help other visitors, here are few facts about the property: First, the different building blocks, described moving from entrance of property towards ocean: the quieter pool with a lazy-river-esque water path, and hence the rooms surrounding this pool are closest to reception/restaurants. Then there is a series of buildings with garden view also near reception (across the lawn). Then comes another series of pool view rooms, this time close to/overlooking the official children’s pool and play area (it’s a normal pool, with a lazy-river-esque water path surrounding it, and a water slide, and a children’s water playground). Then comes the junior suites (small buildings with private pool rooms on the ground floor, the larger suite we had on the first floor above, all of these looking over the never-ending garden), then comes the super suites (larger buildings with big family suites within) some which look towards and over the beach side pool and ocean. Bear all of this in mind when booking as the website advertises mostly ‘garden’, ‘pool’ and ‘ocean’ view rooms but in reality the entire property is one huge garden with pools interspersed, with the ocean at the far end of the property.

Then- the area itself: It’s rather far away from Pattaya and pretty much away from everything. We dared into town one evening and it was exactly as seedy and messy as I had been warned, so seen it once and never again. Luckily, Grab works a treat- whether you want to drive out to a restaurant or to order food in through Grab delivery- all very easy and not too expensive. There’s literally nothing within walking distance besides the Aquaverse water theme park which we indeed tried and found to be one of the poorest and most unsafe (!) water parks anywhere we’ve been. If you want your kids to drown- that’s the place to go, otherwise I’d stay by the beautiful and well attended pools at the Andaz rather.

Last but not least, a comment on the often recommended “Cherry taxi” which people on here like to use: Unfortunately, from our recent experience, I would recommend to rather avoid: Pick up at Bangkok was an absolute mess as there are seemingly hundreds of similar little taxi companies, all holding up little signs and rather difficult to find the one pick up point you are supposed to go to. We almost missed it but even after finding the lady with zero English skills holding up our name, it took AGES for them to finally get the car over and then rush us together with other customers from different taxi companies do the car lot. Messy, exhausting with all the luggage after a long flight, and time consuming. To add insult to injury, while waiting endlessly for our ride, I checked Grab in the meantime. It might be different during daytime but around 7pm when we arrived, a Grab would have cost EXACTLY the same without the wait. Plus, we would have felt safer using the app rather than sitting with a rather odd driver who barely spoke any English on an almost 2 hour ride into the night. But the worst came at the end: When booking the rides via Cherry’s webform and email, I had asked about a half dozen times whether payment by credit card was okay and never got an answer so I figured it must be a silly question as of course, that’s how you’d pay. What I wanted to avoid is precisely the situation that we were in at the end with the driver gesticulating upon arrival that he wants his cash while we did not yet have any Thai cash on us yet (even tried in the airport itself but the odd green ATM brand that seems to have a monopoly there did steadfast refuse to accept any of my Australian VISA or Mastercards-an issue that many other “Westerners” seem to have had as well as we weren’t the only ones out of luck). In the end, the friendly Andaz staff stepped in for some minor translation work to at least calm the growing aggressiveness (a trait not often seen in Thai people in my experience) of our driver and we ended up with the one only ATM on hotel property which of course was one of the ones that add extortionate fees, again something that we usually avoid due to good planning but alas, not with Cherry Taxi. Strongly recommend just ordering and paying through Grab, no need for such mess to spoil the start to an otherwise amazing holiday.

Thanks for the detailed post and property description. I was wrestling with what room to book, but looks like SUA into Garden View Suite is the best call overall. Now just need to decide points vs. cash (redemption pencils at 2.2 cpp).

We’re in the middle of a 6 night stay and can’t echo the positive feedback.

Let’s start from the beginning though. We booked an airport transfer via Klook for ~ 60 EUR (SUV, cheapest option was around 55 EUR) which worked really well.

A (cash) guest of honor booking with the request of a quiet room got as a standard room right next to all restaurants. To be fair, they were completely sold out the first night due to a public holiday. Nevertheless I would have expected that they would at least accommodate our request if they cannot upgrade.

Rooms are quite nice though with several (smaller) issues such as no working power outlets near the bed (4 installed, none worked). For a newly opened resort it also feels like many missed opportunities. Why are there no USB-C outlets? We recently stayed at the Regent Phu Quoc where they had a resort app where you could order literally anything. From a buggy (where ever you were) or food to any lounger/seat in the resort. Here you still have to wait for a server which sometimes takes up to 20-30 minutes due to the high occupancy. I wouldn’t complain if the resort would be a couple years old. However, for a recently opened resort the infrastructure feels already outdated.

F&B is also a mixed bag. Breakfast is quality- and quantity-wise excellent. Everything else is just okay.

All in all, we will most likely not return. It seems like a perfect getaway if you are in Bangkok anyways. It seems crazy to me that some people would make their way from really far away (like the US or Europe) just to stay at this mediocre hotel with so many other options requiring an equal amount of travel time (again, if you are in the area anyway, it’s perfectly fine).

EDIT as I just re-read the previous review: The resort is still a children’s playground. We’ve never seen so many (to put mildly, not well behaved) kids at any luxury resort.

Here again now. Probably will be my last stay here. Last time I was here 3 of the 6 nights the lights turned on in the middle of the night disrupting our sleep. Staff
​​ begged me to come back and they'd make it right for me.

So I came back and used a TSU for a garden suite. They are under zero obligation to upgrade us further but after the disastrous stay last time, it would've been nice for them to do so.

Amazingly the outlets in our room on both sides of the bed are broken again. This happened last year as well.

Had to ask for extra water 3 times. This is literally the only Hyatt I've ever stayed at that didn't prepare extra water in advance for me .

I know. I sound like a DYKWIA guest. Maybe I am. But I expected better after the last time.

aside from that the hotel still is beautiful and service has improved over last year (though they still get drink orders wrong).

So if you come without any expectations or a chip on your shoulder, this is a great hotel. But for me, I'll pass and go to a hotel where they make an actual service recovery.

Incredibly the lights in our room didn't turn off last night. 4 out of 9 nights in total over 2 trips

They have some serious hardware issues. They said they'll make it up to me. I hope so - but I slept 2 hours last night from this and the kiddo is now sick from lack of sleep

I was told many rooms had this problems and they fixed it by changing fuse box or something in all rooms.

I'm just unlucky to have it happen so often

Is there a decent Marriott nearby? That sounds scary that these electrical Gremlins always happen to you. I probably would not have come back after the last time.

As we drove here, I think we passed a Renaissance. They disconnected the lights that keep having problems in the room - it's darker but at least won't suddenly turn on. GM promised service recovery, if it happens, is acceptable to me.

I like this place if we didn't have all the problems. Not sure if come back.

But I have to give huge props to the gym team for doing stretching with me everyday for free

So, the hotel made me whole with a service recovery that was in good faith, wholly appreciated and nice. They did disconnect some of the lighting my last few days to ensure the lights wouldn't randomly turn on and not go off. Though the room became dark, we didn't have any problems.

The hotel is beautiful and the staff nice and improving. If they can just fix housekeeping and hardware issues this would be a jewel.

Because of the service recovery, I'd stay here a again... As long as they disconnet the lights again

We were staying there at the same time as you, also in a Garden suite and we must have been fortunate as we had zero issues with the lighting during our 7 day stay. From speaking with a few managers it appears they are working hard on a few issues, new chefs, recent additions to the food and beverage management, you could see these managers present at every food service trying to encourage more proactivity amongst younger staff. We also had zero issues with housekeeping so maybe that was luck of the draw as to location and the assigned staff. Overall we had a fabulous stay and will return. We did note there were a lot of children and breakfast sometimes felt like feeding time at the zoo but we learnt to adjust our hours to avoid the main crowds.

Were you able to contact them? If yes, could you share the email that you used?