Luang Prabang: Hotel de la Paix Review (February 2013)

My spouse and I stayed at the Hotel de la Paix Luang Prabang for four nights in late February 2012. (We had stayed at their sister property of the same name in Siem Reap, Cambodia in 2009, which was recently bought by Park Hyatt.) The property was once a French prison back in French Colonial days, but it is thoroughly chic and modern today. When we reserved our room (on-line) for the full 4-night stay, all the less-expensive Garden Suites were booked, as well as the Heritage Suites and the Governor's Suite, so we were "forced" to book a Pool Suite (number 3). Sometimes this room goes for as little as $325 per night, although we visited in the high season and paid almost $500 per night, not including taxes. Two weeks prior to our arrival, our credit card was debited for a deposit equal to one night's stay (plus taxes). Although the hotel seemed fully booked when we initially made our reservation on-line (approximately 6 weeks prior), when we checked again shortly before our arrival to see whether rates and availability had changed, we found that some of the Garden Suites had opened and now had availability. Because we had eagerly anticipated having our own private pool (plus the deposit we already remitted), we kept our initial room choice. Hotel rates include complimentary airport transfers, breakfast, daily minibar, and Wi-Fi. The de la Paix also offers a Katoke Cooking Class, Spa Indochine, and art gallery.

An a la carte (not buffet) breakfast is held outdoors on either the porch or the patio of the library/lounge and includes coffee and juice (we paid about $6 total for two soft drinks instead). We ate breakfast at the hotel on two of our four mornings there; one breakfast service was painfully slow, but the other was not. Breakfast is served from 6:30 am to 10:30 am. The pastry basket is delicious, and we also enjoyed the two Lao breakfast entrees (one sort of crepe/summer roll and the other a sort of pho/soup). Happy hour runs from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm, with drinks offered for 30% off and accompanied by complimentary canapes.

The hotel is located approximately a 15-minute walk to town, but it is an easy and safe walk on populated streets. We walked to town every afternoon, but took a tuk-tuk ride back in the evenings (approximately $4 total). Be sure to have lots of small bills - both US dollars and Lao Kip, because drivers (and merchants) often do not have change for larger bills, and items (and rides) just do not cost that much. It would be difficult to get a tuk-tuk to take you FROM the hotel TO town; because of the way the hotel is positioned, we did not see any tuk-tuks driving by looking for fares. (Perhaps the hotel can call for a tuk-tuk to pick you up, though.) The Luang Prabang sister hotel of the de la Paix, called 3 Nagas, is a 20-minute walk, but the de la Paix provides free transportation is you plan to dine there.

Rooms have flat screen TVs (ours was wall-mounted on a movable/adjustable bracket), small iPods and docking stations (we were able to plug our own iPod into their docking station), and complimentary Wi-Fi. The rooms do not have clocks, however; perhaps you are intended to use the iPod, which may be intimidating to less tech-savvy guests. Beds feature nice linens, and there were plenty of fluffy towels in the bathroom area. Two types of robes (silk and terry cloth) were provided (and two robes of each kind), as well as better-than-average slippers. We were a little skeptical about how we would like the indoor/outdoor bathroom format, but we found that we liked it just fine. The toilet (water) closet is actually completely enclosed in a room inside the room, and the sink/vanity area is completely indoors as well. (So you need not be concerned with rising in the darkness of night, needing to use the toilet and wash your hands, and having to do so with a semi-outdoor bathroom - that is just not the case! I have an insect phobia, yet I loved the rooms at the de la Paix!) There is a wet bar/mini-fridge area (with coffee maker), and large wardrobe/closet. The mini-bar is replenished daily, and contains 2 beers, 2 canned iced teas, 4 sodas (Coke and Sprite, but no Diet or “Light” soda, even though we requested it), 2 club sodas, 2 tonic waters, and 2 candy bars (Snickers and Kit Cat). Bottled water is provided daily (2 bottles on the wet bar, and 2 bottles in the bedroom area when they do the evening turndown.) The huge walk-in shower for two (with two different types of shower heads) and the separate soaking tub were in an area that was a step down from the sink/vanity area and separated by glass doors. There are wooden doors on one end of the shower and tub that can be opened and folded back to expose the end of the bathroom area to the outdoors (the entire property is surrounded by a 10+-foot-high wall, so no one can see in). An electronic safe, umbrellas, flashlight, and scale are provided. Smoking is permitted outdoors, although we did not expressly see it forbidden indoors. The main pool is lovely, but we really enjoyed having our own private pool and teak lounge chairs, complete with cushions and pool towels (well, we had pool towels with the exception of one day). Our pool could be lighted at night, and had its own filter system, so it seemed spotlessly clean. The back porch/patio held a small table and two chairs and a daybed, and there were two additional chairs and a small end table on the front porch. We had a little trouble with our air-conditioning system during our first night there; it seemed to be working when we went to bed, but was not when we woke up the next morning. The engineer came to take a look, and soon it was cool again. We think that perhaps the staff member doing the nightly turndown adjusted the setting, and we did not notice that the temperature had slowly risen until we had slept for a few hours.

The hotel provides a complete turndown every evening while you are at dinner, including trash removal, towel replacement, appropriate lighting, slipper placement, and water and sweet treats. Maid service was fairly good, although one day we returned to our room at approximately 2:00 pm, and it had not yet been cleaned. We mentioned it to the front desk, and someone quickly showed up for service. We are not sure why they missed us that day, though - we were up and out of our room by 9:00 am, so it was not as if we had the "do not disturb" symbol hanging on our doorknob. (We loved the do not disturb "sign" - we considered buying one at the Night Market to take home with us.)

We would choose the Hotel de la Paix again if we were to visit Luang Prabang a second time, although we would probably content ourselves with just a Garden Suite instead of splurging on a Pool Suite; the hotel pool is very beautiful, and the hotel is small enough that you would not feel crowded using it.