I’m in Bangkok for a couple of days for a review trip, as well as for meeting up with some friends. I planned a good majority of the trip (which isn’t saying much, because I rarely go on trips with a solid plan), and have already shared my initial thoughts on the Thai Airways flight I booked on the way here.
For our hotel I selected the Park Hyatt Bangkok. While I doubt it’s the best value hotel in Bangkok, the decor looked stunning, the rates weren’t too bad and I doubted I’d get to stay at a Park Hyatt for any cheaper than the price we paid for. The hotel itself is absolutely stunning, and I have a lot of thoughts on the hotel that I may distribute across a few separate posts, and will round up soon in a full report.
Park Hyatt Bangkok Park Twin
Park Hyatt Bangkok Corner Deluxe King
However, there’s one thing that I can’t quite decipher about how the rooms were initially set up for us, which I’ve decided to share below.
I booked a Park Twin room for myself and my father, and a Deluxe Corner King for my mother and my sister. The check-in agents reaffirmed that when we had booked our rooms, though did mention something about a king bed. When we confirmed that we had booked a Park Twin, the associates said that they would separate the beds later. Huh?
Sure enough, we walked into our room after the (confusingly long) check-in process was over, which looked like this:
Park Hyatt Bangkok Park “Twin”
The associate who escorted us to our room said that he would separate the beds for us ASAP. Turns out that the above isn’t a king bed, but rather two twin beds pushed together set up like a king bed. That’s what most hotels do with twin rooms when they run out of capacity, which obviously wasn’t the case, since we had booked a twin room to start with. The associate escorting us to our room said that he would separate the beds for us, and sure enough we returned to our room after lunch to find the beds nicely separated.
Interestingly this isn’t the first time that this has happened to us at a top-caliber hotel. I stayed at the Mandarin Oriental Munich last July, where we booked a Deluxe Twin room, and instead received two twin beds pushed together into a king bed, which the housekeepers quickly offered to separate for us. I’m assuming such a trend doesn’t stop at these two hotels, either.
Mandarin Oriental Munich Deluxe “Twin” Room
Mandarin Oriental Munich Deluxe Twin Room
Why this is confusing to me
I’m so confused by the concept of twin rooms set up like king rooms only to be separated shortly after. Isn’t there a reason why people book hotels to have a “king room” and a “twin room” option, one of which offers a king bed and one of which offers two twin beds? I’m familiar with the concept of hotels pushing beds together after they run out of king rooms, but normally beds are pushed together after the hotel runs out of capacity, and not the other way round.
Ultimately this didn’t hinder our otherwise great stay at the Park Hyatt, though – I just found this trend interesting enough to share.
Does anyone know why hotels set up twin rooms à la King?