Marriott Vacation Club at The Empire Place Sathorn, Yannawa, Bangkok

We had a late checkout from the Conrad Hotel Bangkok, having enjoyed a terrific overnight following our flight from Abu Dhabi to Kuala Lumpur and then a short 2 hour flight to Bangkok.

We thoroughly enjoyed that hotel as one of our favourites and we had a late 2.00pm checkout and then used the Executive Lounge on level 29 for afternoon tea. We departed the Hotel at 3.20pm for the short drive, but our taxi who said he knew the directions took us to the Marriott Executive apartments not to the Marriott Vacation club at The Empire Palace. We had paid the taxi driver Thai Baht 150 and it took another short ride costing Thai Baht 50 to go the 3 minutes to the The Empire Palace location.

We found the check in very straight forward and as we were using one of our Interval International weeks, we hoped all would go well.

The property is in a high rise within The Palace Place Complex aqnd we has=d some nervousness as to the quality and the location.

We shouldn’t have been concerned, the property is centrally located, with access to a supermarket within some 150metres.

We are in Apartment / villa 88/161 and comprises one bedroom, with lounge and kitchen and separate bathroom with included laundry including washer and dryer.

It is quite simply outstanding in terms of what bit includes, the quality of the fittings and we are delighted to have this for a week using our Hilton Head week which we deposited with Interval.

So whilst we had some concerns, we are delighted.

The next issue for tomorrow morning is to determine what outings we undertake here in Bangkok. We definitely want to do a tour of the Royal Palace precinct, we also hope to do a night market excursion.

Ken wants to do a River cruise . We will work this out.

Later at 5.15pm we ventured outside to the local Supermarket, some 150 metres, to purchase our minimum required groceries for the week.

We managed to easily get most and spent something like Thai Baht 1,200 or approximately AUD 55.

Then back to the Unit and trying to work our the lift access arrangements using Card and Keys.

Following this we turned on the television and watched the final quarter of the Port Adelaide vs Western Bulldogs from a saturated Adelaide Oval as part of The Gather Round. Port came home strongly to win.

I am writing this at 8.15pm and what we thought may have proven to be a difficult day has all fallen easily into our plans. The time-share unit here is outstanding, Jeanette is delighted and we have now washed all items requiring a clean, and that also worked very well.

The other important thing is that the Air-conditioning in the unit works very efficiently, but to step out into the corridor/ passageway feels like a blast furnace.

Our time here as the start of our trip home is well organised and our plans have worked very well to date.