hi,

i'm staying at the angkor village resort in late december and am trying to decide between the regular rooms (about $80 a night) and the deluxe rooms (about $160 a night). has anyone stayed there and have any insight into how much better the deluxe rooms are? are the budget rooms nice too? thanks.

i stayed at the second category room...not the cheapest but the next level up...not sure of the name....it was VERY BASIC....i was disappointed honestly...the bed was hard as a rock by the way...furniture was old and slightly abused...straw mats on the floor....bathroom was huge, non a/c and very very basic...
we found the food to only be fair....we would not stay there again...we paid about $115 about 2 years ago in november/december time frame...
it is very attractive however...very asian looking with the water and fauna...pool was small but adequate...they were re-doing the pool area when we were there---not enough chairs...sorry to be so negetive about it, but that is how we saw it....

some of the newer places sound much nicer honestly...fcc, etc...

I stayed there several years ago. My only complaint was that the beds were hard. It did make it easy to get up at sunrise to visit the temples (lol). I'm not sure which category of room we had, but it was lovely. We were on the upper floor and the rooms had high ceilings, good air conditioning. The lower level rooms I hear had some moisture problems (the hotel is set in a water garden).

The management of the hotel was very accommodating, very helpful, and the food was the best we had in Siem Reap. Note that we ordered a la carte off the menu and ate Cambodian food; Bob, as I remember, didn't know there was an a la carte menu and so ate the set dinners (which I think were all "French.&quot

sounds like it might be worth upgrading to the deluxe rooms (which it sounds like kathie had) and not the basic room (which bob had).

i have a tender back, so hard beds aren't a bad thing, but you've got me wondering--

is the bed hard like:
A. a futon
B. a slab of concrete

I second what rhkkmk says that there are far better places to stay. While the grounds are lovely and the staff charming, the rooms leave a lot to be desired - hard beds, old furniture, etc. Plus the pool is very small. The rates seem to vary all over the place on various booking sites for a room they call deluxe. As low as 55 to a high of 185 all including taxes/service charges/breakfast. In my opinion this hotel is overpriced if you pay the top price.

scotters,

where would you suggest?

Opps I made a typing mistake. $55 should read 155. I would suggest you look at the following hotels as alternatives. All have received fairly good reviews
3+ Star
Borei Angkor Hotel
Angkor Hotel
City Angkor Hotel
Day Inn Angkor Resort
4 Star
Angkor Century
Apsara Angkor Hotel
Foreign Correspondent's Club
Shinta Mani

The beds were futon hard.

When I was at the Angkor VIllage, it was before many of the new places were built. The questions would be whether the Angkor VIllage resort has remodeled/upgraded rooms since then (I would hope so!) and how they would compare with the newer places.

Scotters, the places you have listed as 3+ stars, I've heard are all "souless boxes." You may have better first hand info than I do. Out of the 4 star places you've listed, I've heard good reviews of the FCC and the Shinta Mani.

I booked at www.asiahotels.com and got good rates.

alibi13, do NOT even bother with the Angkor Hotel. I stayed there and really disliked it. It is not in town and if you want to eat outside of the hotel (and believe me, you definitely want to eat ourside this hotel), you must take a taxi. The rooms were not very nice and were pretty worn, and it was a fairly new hotel when I was there. The only good thing about is was they had cable and I could watch SqwakBox on CNBC at night in the room! The staff was very nice but could not make up for the inferior accomodations. It is inexpensive but I would rather spend four times more and stay someplace nice.

Everyone has different views of hotels that they have stayed at. What one person raves about another has only a bad experience. I don't know what you mean Kathie by "souless boxes" with reference to the 3 star hotels I mentioned. They don't compare with the 4/5 star ones but they sure cost a lot less (average $70) and offer clean/modest rooms and a pool to cool off after a hot day at the temples. And all have been given fairly good reviews. Lots of people just cannot afford spending the cost of a luxury hotel which in most cases dollar for dollar can't compare to the quality one would get in Bangkok.

just a couple of thoughts....the room we had was not the basic room, but the middle of 3 categories offered....it was on the ground floor...we thought that would make it cooler---hot air rises??? maybe we were given the basic room???

food---we did eat from set meals and even spoke to the hotel manager about it and they claimed that this was the offering....it was not french but strange cambodian...even my wife who will eat anything and not complain, complained about this...she actually complained first...we also thought it strange that they made us vacate our room even though the hotel was not busy on our last day....so much for service...but they are french of course!!!

i just asked karen and she said the beds were fouton hard...it is a platform bed with maybe a 4 inche mattress...

there are many other alternatives, some of which appear above....

Scotters, it is so true that people like different things.

Clearly Bob and I had very different experiences at the Angkor Village Resort. I paid about US $100 a night including taxes, service and breakfast. I ordered inexpensive (and very good) food from the a la carte menu. Bob had a different experience. (Bob, no doubt it was because I speak a little French and have no bias against the French we were treated better - lol) Especially in developing countries things change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Others on this board have had good reviews of the FCC and the Shinta Mani, both for under US $100.

All the reviews of the 3 star places you mentioned talked about plain, poorly constructed "boxes" no sense of place, etc. There were many complaints of mold or mildew in the rooms.

There are 5 star places in SR, though they are very expensive (the Aman, Raffles and the Sofitel). To me, they seem so "over the top" in a place like SR, I wouldn't stay there. I'm simply offering places in the same price range as the OP's original reservations as options.

Usually since I appreciate Kathie's comments on this board I would just let her remarks above "All the reviews of the 3 star places you mentioned talked about plain, poorly constructed "boxes" no sense of place, etc. There were many complaints of mold or mildew in the rooms" go by but she is so wrong here. The only mention of mould that I could find was a single one made for the Angkor Hotel. As far as the other hotels most comments said the rooms were clean but basic and good places to stay if you wanted economy/mid range lodging. The Day Inn is only a little over a year old and has few reviews as yet. Don't see how the rooms here could be mouldy so soon. What hotels have a sense of place here other than to get the most money from the visitors. Siem Reap is not a true experience of the rest of Cambodia.

kathie---just to take it one step further i speak french as well and i just love to jab at the french who are often so stand-off-ish in many ways...i have been to france more than any other country in my travels, except for england....so i would not say i am a francofile adversary....
i will agree that we had different experiences of course...i am not sure, but i think it was because of your original write-up that we stayed there....so---ITS YOUR FAULT WE HAD A BAD TIME, NOT THE VILLAGES' FAULT...hahaha

Scotter, sorry, my earlier post was a bit sloppy. I should have said that all the reviews I've read of the 3 star places had those kinds of comments (not just here on Fodors). I haven't read reviews of all the places, only three of them, I believe. My point is that hotels in that bracket in SR are not good values. There are a number of guesthouses in a lower price range that get better reviews. For a few dollars more, one can get a room at the FCC or the Shinta Mani.

Bob, you know I just had to pull your chain a bit about the politics! You know, after your review when you returned, I stopped recommending Angkor VIllage to people for a while. You know the Lonely Planet saying - "Things change: good places go bad, bad places go under." Well, I thought that was perhaps the fate of the Angkor Village. However, after that I corresponded with several people who stayed at the Angkor VIllage and had a great experience. Thus, I am back to recommending it, though as always with the caveat that the beds are hard!

I think that places in Cambodia (due to the rapidly changing infrastructure and developing services) are more prone to inconsistency. We all know that one person will have a great experience somewhere and the next person will say the service/food/room was awful. Well, I think this is a greater problem in Cambodia than in most of the countries in Asia.

as always you are correct kathie (well almost always right---ROS????)..good analogy that you quote from the guide book...
many people would love angkor, even if they had my experience...i am just super picky...i think the newer places often have a leg up on the places that have been there for a while...if they want to survive the older places have to improve in every way...

Since the hovel I stayed in in Siem Reap in the early 90s has long ago been turned down, I obviously have no opinion of any of these places. But as we have shown in the debate of the Penn vs the Oriental ==even with 5 star hotels one person's paradise can be another person's hell. The best thing anyone can do is read a lot of people's description of what they liked and didn't like and figure out which reports comes closest to what they look for in a hotel. No one is right and no one is wrong.

Gloria---i am sending some men to chicago tomorrow and they are going to tie you up and take you on a private 747 to bangkok where you will be held in captivity for 7 days at the peninsula hotel....don't bother yelling and screaming, don't kick or bite....no one cares....our attempt will succeed in torturing you at that one star hotel on the river....to make it worse you will have a 36 inche tv in front of the chair you are tied to, which has a fabulous view of the river by the way, and on this tv will be closed circuit pictures taken continuously at the oriental hotel...pictures will flip from your favorite seat in the lobby (where we have installed a camera) to the verandah lounge area, to lord jim's, to china house, to cotton house and some other horrible places that will surprise you....

after your 7 days are complete, you will be put on a northwest plane in a center seat surrounded by the most obnoxious kids you have ever seen who range in age from 6 weeks to 18 years old....they have been instructed to torture you until you arrive back in chicago....bon voyage....hope you don't have a lunch date tomorrow...

Bob-- LOL! Don't jump to conclusions. The Penn was definitely NOT "hell" to me but it was to someone on this group (maybe guen?). It may not have been paradise for me but I certainly didn't hate it. Just didn't love it.NW-- now that's a different story. That to me is hell. But real hell for me would be more than one day at any beach resort anywhere in the world-- including Thailand. Having to sit at a swimming pool for more than 60 seconds might be a close second.

Lol, both of you! For me hell would be sitting in front of a tv!