You can walk to the Novotel via the underground air-conditioned walkway on level B1 (basement) of the airport. You can reach the basement using either an elevator, escalator, or inclined moving walkway. Alternatively, the hotel has a free airport shuttle that runs 24 hours; it takes about 5 minutes to transfer between the airport and the hotel.
The Novotel has 612 rooms and suites, VOUS spa, a lovely outdoor pool, and a large fitness center (with lockers, cold tubs, sauna, and steam room). This hotel has a 24 Flexi policy, meaning that it has no set check-in time, so guests can arrive anytime and check out 24 hours later. There is a club lounge for executive-level guests that provides free drinks and food, and it doubles as the business center for any guest (not just executive level) who needs to print his boarding pass.
For both stays, our standard room cost approximately $150 total (which was a non-refundable/non-cancellable rate that included all taxes). Hotel check-in (even though it was not crowded), took a surprisingly long time. Although there are five dining/drinking establishments in the Novotel, the only one that was open at that time of night was The Square. The hotel website says that this restaurant is open 24 hours, but as we were finishing our meal just before 2:00 am, the waiter asked if we would like anything else, because the cook was going home. The menu that we were presented was already abbreviated; the selections that they make after regular business hours are marked with a clock symbol. We are not sure if the restaurant was really closing - it could have been a language-barrier issue and/or our exhaustion. Similar to the check-in process, being served drinks and food took a long time, and after our second round of drinks, our glasses remained empty without anyone coming by to offer a refill. Prices at the hotel restaurant are a bit expensive: we shared one entree and had two rounds of drinks for $46 total.
We first stayed at the Novotel a few years ago en route to Cambodia, and the hotel looked the same as it did then. Rooms (king-size bedded, anyway) are a nice size, with large bathrooms that have a separate shower and soaking bathtub. There is a window (with vertical blinds) on the wall that divides the bedroom from the bathroom, but they provide enough privacy so that you do not feel like you are on display. In case you have forgotten anything, the Novotel provides a variety of complimentary toiletries: shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, two kinds of shower gels, toothbrushes/paste, and razors. Robes and slippers are provided, and each room has a safe, coffee maker, and stocked mini-bar. Two bottles of complimentary bottled water are provided in the bedroom, and another two bottles in the bathroom. On our first stay in February 2013, we were assigned a room that faced inwards towards the swimming pool; however, we were on the second floor (the same floor as the pool), and our window looked out through some dense foliage that blocked the view.
On our second stay in late February 2013, we received a room facing outward towards the road to the hotel, but it was the same size, shape, and configuration that we had the week prior. We have stayed at the Novotel three times over the years, and we have always been in the pool wing; there are rooms in the garden wing, which are a farther walk to the pool, restaurants, gym, and so on. We are not sure whether we just got lucky every stay, or if they reserve the rooms in the garden wing for tour group or airline employees or some other type of non-rack-rate-paying guests. We like the second floor, because that is where the pool and gym are located; however, if you have a higher room number (for example, 254), it is not possible to easily access that room from the lobby elevators unless you walk the long corridor that overlooks the lobby. Although there is an elevator near those higher-numbered rooms, it does not reach to the lobby. (You can take a huge set of stairs to the lobby, which is only a problem when you are carrying luggage.
On our inbound stay, we had no time to enjoy the hotel amenities, but we did have some leisure time on our outbound stay. We had the better part of the afternoon to spend at the outdoor swimming pool, and we had several drinks at the Splash Pool Bar (which serves food and beverages until 10:00 pm). Several rounds of drinks cost approximately $35 total, with discounted happy hour pricing in effect for part of that time. The pool itself is large, however, chairs are somewhat scarce; we were not able to find two lounge chairs together initially. Most of the pool area is in the shade by early afternoon. There are two or three tables by the bar where you can sit and eat a formal meal, but that space is at a premium, and guests aren’t asked to leave even if they are not eating. There are only four chairs at the bar, although it is also a swim-up bar that has a few seats in the pool. You can smoke at the bar area and at the dining tables.
We like this Novotel and plan to stay there again if we must spend the night in Bangkok en route to another destination in Southeast Asia.
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