Hi Tim and Liz - well, you may as well enjoy the HDLP at the price you got.

I had been looking at similar packages for our visit November 2008, and the prices have gone waaay up. The cheapest room is over 300 per night per night plus 2% accommodation tax, plus 10 Govt tax, plus 5% SERVICE charge - which apparently is new starting October 08.

I understand what you mean about the prices however. It feels strange to me to pay as much for one nights lodging as many people in the area make in an entire year...

AskOksana- As we are young and able-bodied, stairs are no issue for us. I think we're going to enjoy the HDLP and hope you enjoy Raffles. Please do post to let us know how you liked it!

KimJapan- We like the location of HDLP in that we can walk to the town for meals not taken in the hotel, and we don't mind more of a "dip" than a swim-- thanks for your observations!

Craig- You always have good advice and tips and I enjoy them.

Kathie- Good point.

HappyCheesehead-- I guess we should stay at the HDLP while we can still afford it!
From,
Two Happy Cheeseheads (who now live in Minnesot-ah).
:)

ahhh.... you've gone over to the dark side... At least tell me you haven't become (gasp) Vikings fans :)

<b>NO WAY!</b>
We cried with all of the rest of the Cheeseheads at the
end of the NFC Championship game. I love Brett, but when he throws it up like that, I hold my breath. It will either be fabulous, or it will be ugly. Unfortunately his last pass was the latter.

Liz
(A woman who truly, truly loves football.)

Whew! Glad you are still with us in spirit!

I know how it goes to be in enemy territory tho. We &quot;did time&quot; in Illinois before our move back to WI. Sooo hard to have to listen to those crazy Bears fans. Some Sundays were pure torture.

We used to drive up to the Brat Stop in Kenosha just to see the game on TV and be with our Packer peeps.

Did you stop at Mars Cheese Castle for a Kringle on your way home?

I miss those!

And OK, HappyCheesehead, but I just clicked on your name and a post about curling came up! You aren't at KMCC in Hartland, are you?
We are also curlers!

Hey Liz!

We have a lot in common - curling, travel, and our undying devotion to Brett :)

No, I live near Madison (hometown is Wausau) so Madison Curling Club is my home ice. Have you ever been here for a bonspiel??

We have good friends in the St Paul Curling Club so we have been up to that club - it has a nice old fashioned feel to it. Our MCC is a new building and although fairly state of the art, it lacks the charm of the older clubs.

In your travels have you ever looked up any other curling clubs? I don't expect to find one in Thailand or Cambodia, LOL, but always thought it would be fun to visit one overseas.

Good Curling!

Lynn

As to negative comments about Trip Advisor, I have been a big fan of that site for quite some time and have used it for trips to Argentina, Egypt, Malaysia, Paris, and this year to Cambodia ( we are about to leave )

I have always found it to be really useful and very current. Their hotel ratings are bang on and totally up to date. To say otherwise is just ignorant of the facts. The information comes from a whole range of travellers from budget to luxury. If I had access to only one travel site on the net it would be Tripadvisor.com, then Fodors.com of course.

We stayed at the Raffles in SR in Oct 2004. We chose it simply because we like Raffles in Singapore. Unfortunately we were disappointed by our poorly appointed room, noisy corridors and the location. On the plus side it did have nice grounds and wasn't crowded with lots of people. I don't know if they've renovated since 10/2004 but we still advise our friends to stay elsewhere - even if they could find a rate at half what we paid per night.

nagiffag, it's interesting to hear your comments on Raffles. I didn't stay there, but I toured the hotel (back in 2001) and was very unimpressed with both the physical facilities and the staff. I'll be interested to hear what Oksana has to say about it when she returns.

I stayed at La Residence in Dec. by myself and loved it! It's only 55 rooms and has free wireless in the rooms and has a very colonial and Khmer atomsphere to it. It's downtown and has a lovely pool and restaurant with an Aspara dinner/dance show once a week which was wonderful, in a small and intimate setting-very romantic hotel, I saw no children. Just make sure you get a pool view room-the rates inc. breakfast too.

askoksana- I am so amazed that you keep trashing the HDLP, and pushing Raffles or other hotels when you haven't even been to Siem Reap!

Web sites are not a reliable indicator of quality. Even recommendations from real people are contingient upon their taste being similar to yours. When you put out an opinion here, readers are assuming you are speaking from firsthand knowledge.

For example, you complain that the HLDP is too trendy- how the heck can you know this? Is their website &quot;trendy?' Yes, but the hotel is just a hotel. There are regular tables with chairs in their excellent restaurants, (I don't recall any floor seating anywhere- only the swings classify as hip) and the pool does have little bridges over it, but there are both level and elevated chaises. I've stayed there, and the photos on the website are selected angles that do not represent the whole.

Once you've been there, write a report based on your experience, but please spare us from what are essentially your rumours.

Tim &amp; Liz,
I highly recommend HDLP.

FYI for others looking at this thread we visited Raffles but it isn't somewhere I'd go for it's more resorty, further out of town. If you're looking for a retreat set in it's own groups some of these places on the way to the airport may suit, but for us we enjoyed the combination of LUx and easy access by foot to the markets and the in town restaurants.

As many others have said HDLP and Shinta Mani are associated, and as such you can avail yourself of some of the socially responsible offeringa at Shinta Mani. For example, when we stayed at HDLP we had a well built in a local village. We planned the whole thing in advance and visited the village with Chitra, who was running their community programs and is now the General Manager of Shinta Mani.

It was an amazing experience and after returning home we decided to get involved and raise enough to build a house for a family in need. I highly recommend HDLP, Shinta Mani and the programs Chitra is running, highly responsible sustainable development.

Shinta Mani is non-profit but as an associated hotel, HDLP provides employment for those who have gone through the hotel school at Shinta Mani. Additionally, for the restaurant they purchase organic vegatables that have been grown by families involved in some of their programs.

Hope this helps,

Well, I've stayed at them both. Twice at Raffles [a total of seven days] and twice at HDLP [twelve days in all].

Raffles I stayed in the historic wing, HDLP in a suite. Making comparisons between them is silly. They are both totally different experiences. Both great. I prefer HDLP - because I love the design and find it easier access to town.

Distance from both to the temples is exactly the same.

I quizzed the staff at HDLP about the policy for tips, bonuses, employment policy. I couldn't have been more pleased with the response. It passed the dogster test of political correctness with flying colors.

But this one comes down to personal taste.

AskOsana: your comment:'I looked at it [HDLP] but found it too 'trendy' for our tastes... ' sums it all up.

O.K. Fine. Stay at Raffles.

But stop slagging HDLP. You don't know what you're talking about.

This little rant: 'The HDLP is a nightmare of stairs; in the restaurant (w/ seating cushions on the floor-- impossible on my back injury), in the lobby, in some of the suites &amp; horribly all over the pool area, including having to climb up to a platform to access a chaise. Stairs to the spa... IMO, it's an architect's fantasy &amp; serves only to keep disabled, handicapped, injured or elderly away. I hope you like stairs.' is based on NOTHING AT ALL.

I was just there, escorting a disabled elderly friend on her last trip to Asia. She's just this side of needing a wheelchair. She was perfectly fine at the HDLP. Pool. Spa. Restaurant. Access to hotel and room.

If you have mobility issues - and can't do stairs - your REAL issue will be how to get to the temples - and how to SEE them inside, once you're there.

You're going to find it EXTREMELY frustrating when you front up to the Bayon Temples, for example, and have to restrict yourself to a slow, cautious walk round the outside. Or when you cross the causeway towards Angkor Wat to discover it's all UPHILL from there.

Let me repeat your words:

'...it's an architect's fantasy &amp; serves only to keep disabled, handicapped, injured or elderly away.'

Yup.

My wife and I recently stayed six (6) nights at Peace of Angkor http://www.peaceofangkor.com/-------- [email protected] and thoroughly enjoyed our visit. The hotel is English owned (Dave and Coleen) but basically Cambodian run.
Dave was there....Coleen was in England at the time. The staff was great. Very friendly, extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and very competent. My wife and I had one of the deluxe rooms at $35 USD/per night.
We have nothing but raves about the hotel, the people, the services, and the other guests we met there.
The hotel has a motto, &quot;Visitors come as guests and leave as friends.&quot; Absolutely true! After touring all day we would sit on the balcony, with drinks, introduce ourselves to the new guests, watch the flocks of Flying Foxes at sunset, talk and tell stories. We had the time to meet wonderful people and now are keeping up our new friendships via email.
Dave is an excellent photographer and you will see his work hung throughout the hotel.
My new Nikon had problems so Dave loaned me one of his cameras for a few days until I could remedy my Nikon issues.
We enjoyed Thailand, on this trip, but we fell in love with Cambodia.
Primarily due to the wonderful people at Peace of Angkor.

We have just returned from Siem Reap and enjoyed our stay at The Heritage Suites (a Relais et Chateaux property) very much. We stayed in a bungalow style room, with floor to ceiling windows that opened up to a small private courtyard. There was an outdoor shower (as well as an inside one and a steam room). The owner told us that the rooms are decorated in different styles and colors. Ours was rtruly lovely.

Internet, yes. No tv (although I think you can ask for one), no minibar (yet).

The hotel is not in the 'center' of town, but Siem Reap is so small that it doesn't matter.

We enjoyed hotel meals at Raffles, the FCC and La Residence. IMHO, much of Siem Reap is overpriced and the rest is dirt cheap. None of these hotels are really Bangkok caliber 5 Star places, but they charge you as if they are. However,
we loved the Heritage Suites and were thrilled by Angkor's beautiful temples.

OK I have made my <b>final</b> decision!

Thank you to crosscheck for initially mentioning the HanumanAlaya boutique guest house, and thank you to KimJapan for passing the information on in a separate post.

When I saw it, I knew it was exactly what I've been searching for... even though it is not in town and does not have wireless! I don't know how I missed it before.

http://www.hanumanalaya.com/index.html

It has its own pool but includes access to the Sofitel pool facilities as well.

Now can any of you tell me somewhere in SR that we can take our laptop and access a wireless internet connection? Did someone mention the Blue Pumpkin? I am going to have to sign on at least once while in SR.

Thank you all for all of your help.
Only 19 days to go!

the location could not be better...i bet sofitel has wi-fi???

its perfect i agree and well priced....let us know afterwards...


i've also never seen it mentioned

the shop looks fantastic too