Bangkok Dinner Cruise – Trip Report with photos/video

[buksida]

It is a good trip, but you need to learn from my mistakes. We made a few unfortunate choices.

You have to remember, I hate Bangkok, and this was my first social visit for over 30 years. I was as green as green can be.

Its not the Bangkok bit that puts me off, just spent a week there which I enjoyed. Its the queuing, hordes of noisy Asians scrapping over the buffet, and getting ripped off by taxis that does - not my idea of a pleasant night out!

[VincentD]

I did not want to go on the cruise myself, but it was a special occasion for some people with limited time in Bangkok. The thing that put me off was how chaotic the queues can become, even with the staff trying their best. I absolutely hate queue cutters and the 'tourists' have a way of adding additional lines to those already allocated.
That, and my cataracts not allowing me to navigate too well..
Oh, and I found the cruise I went on - SMILE Riverside, operating out of ICONSIAM.
Nothing to shout about, they were also overbooked so we got shuffled around a bit, took the nice out of the evening when you already have a table to yourselves and find yourself having to share that space.
They did, however compromise by actually serving us (it was a buffet) hand on foot.. and the food wasn't bad.
Won't be going on another cruise anytime soon.
BTW, we hired a minivan to do the entire trip, from my place near Don Muang airport to pickup guests in the hippie belt then to ICONSIAM, and return trip, for less than 3,000 baht all in..

[VincentD]

BB, pity you didn't get to sample the Indian food you originally booked the cruise for...

[Big Boy]

Its not the Bangkok bit that puts me off, just spent a week there which I enjoyed. Its the queuing, hordes of noisy Asians scrapping over the buffet, and getting ripped off by taxis that does - not my idea of a pleasant night out!

Bangkok taxis will always be a rip off, but use Grab, and you will be fine. I had to think about the inconvenience of a wheelchair, but you are young, and could easily walk 25 yards down the road to avoid the taxi mafia/Grab war zone. If it was feasible with the wheelchair, even this old git would have walked the 25 extra yards to get a Grab.

The queuing was my own fault. If I hadn't been so tight and had gone back inside ICON SIAM for another coffee, or even just to sit down for 30 minutes, many of the other passengers would have boarded their boats and have gone. The actual boarding process was a lot more pleasant than boarding an aircraft - the trick was turning up at the allotted time - not 45 minutes early.

The food, if I'd let other passengers go first, I could have gone up 15 minutes into the cruise, and selected my food at leisure - there was loads of food, and absolutely no reason to join the initial rush.

VincentD, there was plenty of Indian food left after the initial rush. Unfortunately, I'd already over-eaten (my stomach is only 20% the size of a normal person's stomach).

This, of course is pre-empting my lessons learned in Part 6, which also states a boat from River City would most likely eliminate all of the horrible queuing, even if you did turn up early.

[caller]

Bangkok taxis will always be a rip off, but use Grab, and you will be fine.

That depends on where you are and how far you are travelling. They changed the rules for drivers a while back and lost many as a consequence. In your case, it was local, travel any distance, assuming you can get one, and the fees will be extrotionate. Sometimes, normal taxi's and cars aren't available, so you pay more for a so called better car, or try another option.

There is also Bolt, but I can't comment on on what they are like when one actually turns up, as they have never been able to find a car for me.

[Big Boy]

I needed a large vehicle for the wheelchair, so was happy to pay the premium rate + tip for Grab SUV. I found Bangkok rates on a par with Hua Hin.

Normal taxis were plentiful at ICON SIAM, but after the law enforcement bedtime, they were not interested in meters. Those were the rip-off merchants. I don't think this situation is new in Bangkok i.e. they have always been doing it.

With the 300฿ fare, he actually used his meter, but had his face mask obscuring the display.

[Dannie Boy]

300 Baht might be a lot more than it should be but it’s still not “expensive”, it’s just one of the joys of living in Thailand.


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[Big Boy]

Of course, and I accepted without hesitation. I've tried to open discussion with them in Bangkok before, and they just drive off

[pharvey]

300 Baht might be a lot more than it should be but it’s still not “expensive”, it’s just one of the joys of living in Thailand.

Not only Thailand of course - China was a bloody nightmare for this being a Westerner. A typical example was a taxi driver in Beijing asking the LHG to help cheat me, thinking she was my interpreter - she passed on a few "home truths")!

As for BB's experience with the queues (taxi or otherwise) - there were a few more Chinese in Chongqing/Beijing!!

I'm with BB in trying to avoid the issue - alot less stress in pre-booking a reliable source (if possible) even if paying a little extra.

As for the Trip Report - very interesting, like buks though, I'd rather avoid queues and Buffets with the Chinese tourists, let alone the addition of the Indian and Korean delegation!! Certainly a good heads up

[HHTel]

300 Baht might be a lot more than it should be but it’s still not “expensive”, it’s just one of the joys of living in Thailand.


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My daughter (in the UK) has just complained that a 10 mins trip in a taxi cost £33! (She was having a drink hence the taxi)
I responded that recently in Nongkhai I paid a taxi for a 10 min journey after midnight for 100 baht (around £2 and a bit.)

[Big Boy]

Part 4 removed - will re-post in a few minutes

[Big Boy]

Part 4 – Day 2a

Back to ICON SIAM

Breakfast was included at our hotel. It wasn’t the worst hotel breakfast that I’ve had in Thailand, but it was certainly lower league. There weren’t enough people with an inclusive breakfast booked to justify them having the advertised breakfast buffet. They had the buffet dishes set up, but totally redundant.

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We were given a piece of paper the previous day, and we had to choose our breakfast – a choice of 4 Thai dishes. Not even toast and butter, and the coffee cups were kiddies tea set size. No juices, but water was available in a paper cup. When we were let into the dining room, there was a table with our room numbers on it. There were 3 cling filmed plates with our ‘cold’ meals. Mine was chicken fried rice with a fried egg on top. My wife had Pad Kapow, and my daughter had noodles. Mine was sort of edible, but neither my wife or daughter would touch theirs, after they’d had an initial taste. Because I’d eaten mine, we all ordered fried rice for the next morning.

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We then made our way to ICON SIAM for a better look around. Grab SUV took us to the discreet drop-off point again, with no mishaps in the ordering process. What a massive store. It was like Bluport on steroids. A beautiful shop, some fantastic items for sale, people looking, but nobody buying anything i.e. nobody carrying shopping. It was interesting that some of the larger ‘branded’ stores had a very small range of items for sale, but what they were selling was very expensive. My wallet broke out in a cold sweat just walking past some of those shops.

My initial goal had been to have lunch on one of the high up open-air terrace restaurants, which looked very attractive on one of my research videos, but we soon realised there was no cover, and we’d have been sitting in the baking sun. These terraces were for late afternoon/evening eating. Most certainly not lunchtime.

We spiraled our way floor by floor to the top with an alternative walk on the roof-top terrace being our ultimate goal. I was getting my wife to take the (stair) elevators between floors, with me carrying the wheelchair. I think we were officially on the 7th or 8th floor, but there were mezzanine floors in between as well – no idea what the official floor count was. What a fantastic view of the river from up there. A pleasant cooling breeze as well. I spent a while taking some snaps.

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A really good view of the maze of pipes making up the dancing fountains as well. I couldn’t have imagined how complicated a few fountains could be.

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Very prominent amongst the mass of condos and other fine buildings was the shanty town still present alongside ICON SIAM. There were a lot more of those lining the river banks when I first visited Bangkok in the 80s. I’m sure Bangkok still has it’s share, but many have been replaced by expensive real estate. With its riverside location, I wonder how much one of those tin shacks was worth.

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Also, on the way up, we’d noticed a garden on (I think) the 3rd floor, outside of the Apple Store. That looked quite nice from the roof-top, and we decided we’d have to have a walk around after lunch.

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It was quite a walk to the top, and after our excuse for a breakfast, we were all ready for lunch. The coffee shop (Coffee Bean?) we’d used the previous evening seemed a good candidate. I settled for apple crumble, and a decent sized cup of coffee; but my wife and daughter already had their eyes on some Chiang Mai and Isaan food they’d spotted on the menu the previous evening. They both said delicious. Crumble wasn’t bad either.

It was then back up to the 3rd floor to have a wander around ICON SIAM Park.

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After that, it was back to the hotel for a shower, and to get ready for the evening on the riverside at Asiatique.

…………………………./Part 5 to follow

Bangkok Dinner Cruise – Trip Report

[Big Boy]

Corrected Part 4 now in place - sorry guys.

[Big Boy]

Part 5 – Day 2b

Asiatique

Fully refreshed from our marathon walk around ICON SIAM, we ordered a Grab SUV to take us to Asiatique. This was a little further away, but no mishaps with our taxi.

Although I’d seen the big wheel whilst crossing various bridges in Bangkok, the first time I’d really seen Asiatique was the previous night whilst on our dinner cruise. It looked very colourful in a travelling fairground sort of way. It appeared to be quite false, but Thais love their fairy lights. I must say, the fairy lights didn’t put me off, and I wanted to get close up with the resident sailing boat.

In my pre-visit research, Disney seemed to have a big connection with Asiatique.

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I’ve enjoyed 6 separate visits to 3 different Disney theme parks over the years, so that didn’t put me off. However, I wasn’t expecting to find old favourites like Space Mountain or The Thunder Mountain Railroad here, so I wasn’t disappointed.

We arrived about 17:00hrs and it was still daylight. The first thing everybody must see is the big wheel.

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Well, at 500฿ a time, seeing it was enough for me. We wandered through the shops and walked past Disney bits and bobs, but heading for the waterfront all of the time.

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It was very noticeable that Disney attractions were very expensive (by Thai standards). As an example, the show at the Calypso Theatre was 1,200฿ (taken from box office photo) – I’d seen the show advertised as 1,590฿ elsewhere, so obviously low season discount.

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I wanted to have a closer look at the sailing ship moored there that I’d seen the day before from the cruise. Here it was, it was posing for my camera.

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It was quite quiet as we walked along the river front during daylight. Nothing seemed cheap here. I noticed a sign at one bar offering 3 oysters and a glass of bubbly for 850฿ – I managed to resist that. By the time we got to the end of the river front, there was hardly anybody else about.

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Waiting for the sun to go down, we then wandered back to the shops (yuk!) where my wife wanted to spend some money. By the time I got her to put her purse away, it was dark, and things were looking a lot different. The shops were just shops, selling the same tat that we could just as easily have bought in Hua Hin, but probably more expensive. I think shopping here was little more than killing a few minutes before the sun had gone down, and the lights had come on.

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We wandered back to the river front, and it looked so different because the lights were on, but the dinner cruises were now loading. I thought our experience of boarding at ICON SIAM was chaotic. From what I was seeing at Asiatique, the previous evening’s chaos was much better organized, especially in adverse weather conditions. There was nowhere to hide from the rain here (fortunately there was plenty of lightning, but no rain), and there were thousands waiting to board. I was back into ankle tapping/insincere apology mode just to move through the crowds.

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We got away from the chaos by walking to the end where it was empty of people earlier – it was still quite empty. There was a lovely little area where we could just sit down and chill with a very cold beer.

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They only sold Chang Cold Brew at 60฿/bottle, but I made an exception to my ‘no Thai beer’ rule, and it actually flowed down my neck very nicely. The beer was so cold, we had to wait for the ice inside the bottle to melt before we could drink it. We just chilled there until the crowds had boarded their cruises. So relaxing, when there was absolute boat mayhem just a few yards away. I filmed a short video of the river at night whilst at the chill zone.



We then wandered back to the waterfront, where we had a nice meal at the Happy Fish in front of the sailing boat – nice.

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Fed and watered we wandered back to where the Grab had dropped us earlier hoping to pick up a taxi – nothing waiting. I ordered a Grab SUV, and there was one coming to pick us up in 5 minutes. Then something happened that I’ve never seen before, the waiting time moved to 17 minutes, but with a completely different vehicle. Obviously, the system had somehow changed our vehicle. Because I hadn’t actually booked this vehicle, I wasn’t even sure if it was going to our hotel. He arrived on time, but then my worries got worse, as he turned in completely the opposite direction out of Asiatique, and took us back by a different route. I had to get my daughter to confirm with the driver that he was taking us to the right hotel. He was, but what had happened to the booking was a complete mystery.

Asiatique was a pleasant enough experience, but it wasn’t that special. I think, in hindsight, a couple of hours on Plymouth’s Barbican would be authentic, and a lot more enjoyable. It would be interesting to know the history before it became Asiatique. Or is it all a Disney illusion?

Here you go, straight from Mr Google………. “Asiatique can be found in the old docks of the East Asiatic Company, on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. The port, built in 1897, ceased operation in 1907, and in April 2012 its old buildings were re-opened as a shopping and leisure space.”

…………………………./Part 6 to follow

[Nereus]

I wanted to have a closer look at the sailing ship moored there that I’d seen the day before from the cruise. Here it was, it was posing for my camera.

Do you have any details about the ship,BB? Is it genuine, or a replica just for posing?