We spent two nights at the Grand Mercure Bangkok Atrium, a 568-room tower on New Phetchaburi Road that some might know as the Avani+ Atrium Bangkok, as the rebrand to Grand Mercure happened in 2022.
We booked a two-night stay here, and it turned out to be a value-for-money choice. There are things about the property that work very well and one or two that do not, and I will get to both.
Location
This is the part of the review I would pay the most attention to if I were booking, because the location is more complicated than the hotel’s own marketing suggests.
The hotel sits between Phetchaburi MRT on the Blue Line and Makkasan on the Airport Rail Link, and the Airport Rail Link runs direct from Makkasan to Suvarnabhumi in about 22 minutes for around 45 baht. That is genuinely one of the better airport connections in Bangkok, and if you are the sort of traveller who would rather not sit in a taxi watching the meter while nothing moves, it is appealing.
The complication is the walk from the Airport Rail Line. Makkasan is described as being 7 to 10 minutes away, and while that is roughly accurate, in practice it means walking about a kilometre along New Phetchaburi Road and crossing via an overhead bridge. In Bangkok, given the heat, I wouldn’t recommend it at all.
We were extremely lucky on arrival, given we arrived pretty late at night. It rained heavily, and I mean properly heavily, shortly after we got in. Had we been 10 minutes later, we would have been on that bridge with our luggages and no umbrella, and the stay would have started very differently. That experience is the basis for my honest advice here: if you are coming in from the airport, just take a Grab directly to the hotel. The Airport Rail Link is excellent value and worth using on a day when you are travelling light and the weather is behaving, but as a default arrival plan with luggage, it is more effort than it is worth.
What does help is the complimentary shuttle. The hotel runs a free service to Phetchaburi MRT, Central World, Terminal 21 and Central Rama 9, which covers most of where you would actually want to go. Do check the schedule when you check in, because the departures are spaced out and you will want to plan around them rather than turning up hopefully.
Check-in
We arrived late enough that there was no queue at all, which is the ideal way to check into a 568-room hotel.
The lobby is the reason the property is called the Atrium. The check-in counters sit beneath a full-height atrium that runs up through the building, and while the design is clearly of its era, the sense of volume when you walk in is genuinely impressive in a way that newer hotels with lower ceilings never quite manage.
The agent ran through our Accor ALL Platinum benefits properly, which I always appreciate. We already had executive lounge access as part of the booking, so the conversation was mostly about breakfast timings.
One thing though, is that the lifts’ interiors are gorgeous and it seems to me like the hotel is undergoing some kind of refurbishment.
The room
We were upgraded to a Deluxe Room with 1 King Bed, on a higher floor. It measures 30 sqm, which is a reasonable size for the category and for Bangkok generally.
The room had been made up with swan towel art and orchids on the bed, and there was a cake waiting on the sofa as a welcome amenity. The cake was good, and the room looked properly cared for rather than simply turned over.
The work desk runs pretty long against the wall, which gives you far more usable surface than the usual small writing desk shoved into a corner. If you are working from the room with two people, you would have more than enough space to co-work together, though I would imagine there are better places to be in Bangkok other than in a hotel room.
Tea and coffee are handled with a kettle, a selection of Dilmah teas, and bottled Chang drinking water. The minibar fridge is left completely empty, which is a decision I have come to prefer. Nobody is buying a 300 baht beer out of a hotel fridge, and having the space for your own drinks from the 7-Eleven around the corner of the hotel is considerably more useful.
The wardrobe comes with bathrobes and proper wooden hangers rather than the anti-theft kind, and the drawer below holds a laundry bag, slippers and a shoe mitt.
The bathroom is where the room shows its age slightly, though not in a way that bothered me. There is a walk-in shower with both a rain head and a handheld, which is the correct combination, and the water pressure was good. Shampoo, conditioner and body wash are generic unbranded wall-mounted dispensers rather than individual bottles, the former which is now standard across most of the industry. Hand gel and body lotion sit on the vanity sink.
Now for the view, which is the one genuine drawback of the room. There is an active construction site directly next door and across, and it sits squarely in what would otherwise be a decent outlook. Look past it and you can see Wat Uthai Tharam and the Rama IX area beyond. The view would have been better, given the foreground is a building site and there is no getting around that.
Noise was not an issue for us, and the room was quiet enough overnight. But if a view matters to you, this is something to factor in, and it is worth asking at check-in whether they have anything facing the other way.
Membership benefits
As Accor ALL members we had welcome drinks to use, and these can be redeemed at the bar in Public Restaurant just off the lobby. There is a proper selection to choose from, including alcoholic options, so this is not a token cup of tea.
We went with two lattes, mostly because we wanted them at a time of day when a cocktail would have been a poor decision. If you would rather start with something alcoholic, that option is open to you.
Executive lounge
I have to be upfront about the limits of this section. We only used the lounge for breakfast, purely to have a look at it, so I cannot give you a full picture of the evening service.
The lounge itself is pleasant, overlooking the city, which makes it a brighter and more open space than a lot of executive lounges that get tucked into an internal corner of a building.
The breakfast spread is modest. There is a salad, cold cuts and cheese counter, a hot section with pork bacon, sausages and a baked chicken stew, a bread and toaster station with honeycomb and jams, and a drinks station with milk, juice and Dilmah teas.
It is a fraction of what is available downstairs at Public Restaurant, which I will come to. If you want a quiet breakfast with a view and are happy with a smaller selection, the lounge does that well. If you want to actually eat properly for breakfast, go downstairs.
Evening cocktails run from 5.30pm to 7pm, and we had a cooking class elsewhere and never made it. From what I have read, the food is a small selection of light bites rather than anything substantial, so I do not think we missed a great deal, but I cannot tell you that from experience. There is a beverage menu covering spirits, wine, beer and cocktails.
One thing I did spot was a notice explaining that evening cocktails were being moved down to Public Restaurant over a busy weekend. That is a reasonable way to handle an overbooked lounge, and better than simply turning people away, but it does mean the lounge experience is not guaranteed to be a lounge experience.
Facilities
Swimming pool
The pool is small. I want to be clear about this, because the photographs on booking sites do it more favours than it deserves. It is an outdoor pool on a deck shaded by frangipani trees, and it is pleasant enough to sit beside with a drink, but you are not swimming laps here in any meaningful sense.
The construction site next door also overlooks the pool deck, which does not help the atmosphere. In short, nobody should be booking this hotel for the pool. If a proper pool is part of what you want from a Bangkok stay, look elsewhere.
Fitness centre
The gym, on the other hand, is genuinely good, and it is the facility I would actually use here. It is large, well equipped with both free weights and a decent run of cardio machines, and there was space to move around rather than queuing for equipment.
For a hotel in this price bracket, this is a better gym than you have any right to expect, and it more than compensates for the pool.
Breakfast
Breakfast at Public Restaurant runs from 6am to 11am, which is a generously long window and particularly useful if you have an early flight or a slow morning.
Before getting to the food, the restaurant deserves a mention, because someone had fun designing it. A water feature runs right through the dining room, mimicking a river, with tables set around the pond. There is a Thai pavilion built over the water, and to reach parts of the restaurant you cross the river on a small bridge.
The food leans noticeably towards Indian, and this is the single most useful thing I can tell you about breakfast here. Other reviews have said the same, and I suspect it reflects the guest mix, since the hotel clearly draws a large number of Indian travellers.
The influence runs deeper than a dedicated counter: even the omelettes carry Indian flavours, with a masala omelette among the options at the egg counter.
There is a Jain section as well, with sambhar and idli, which is a level of specificity you rarely see at hotel breakfast buffets and speaks well of the kitchen.
If Indian food at breakfast is not what you are after, there is plenty else. The Thai selection is good, with boiled rice and boiled rice with chicken covering the Thai breakfast congee, served alongside condiments including you tiao, crispy sweet fish and Chinese chicken sausage.
The hot buffet covers a fair spread beyond that, with sour soup with fish, chicken stroganoff, chicken sausage, egg fried rice, stir fried pumpkin with egg, stir fried mixed vegetable, baked beans, pasta in pink sauce and roasted potato.
The healthier end is handled by a salad bar and a Healthy Corner, with yoghurt, Bircher muesli and fruit salad kept on ice, and a spread of seeds, nuts and dried fruit to top things with.
Sweet options run to waffles and pancakes, with jams, Vegemite and peanut butter alongside, plus a bread and pastry counter. Juice comes from dispensers covering orange, fresh guava, apple and passion fruit, and the guava is the one to go for.
Concluding thoughts
Two nights at the Grand Mercure Bangkok Atrium left us with a favourable impression, though not an overwhelming one, and I think that is roughly the right expectation to set.
The things it does well, it does properly. The breakfast at Public Restaurant is extensive and the room it is served in is more interesting than it needs to be. The gym is genuinely good. The room was well presented and housekeeping was attentive across both nights. The empty minibar fridge is a small decision that I wish more hotels would copy.
The weaknesses are real but manageable. The pool is too small to bother with. The construction site next door affects both the room view and the pool deck, and that is not something the hotel can fix. And the location, while well connected on paper, involves a longer walk to the trains than the marketing implies, so plan your arrival around a Grab rather than the Airport Rail Link if you are carrying luggage.
If you are looking for a comfortable, well-run base in Bangkok with a strong breakfast and a good gym, and you are not expecting a resort experience, this works. We got what we came for, and I would stay again.
