Trip to Siem Reap & Angkor Wat, Cambodia - April 2009
Review of Le Meridien Angkor

We stayed at Le Meridien Angkor in Siem Reap in the beginning of April 2009. I booked the room online on the the Starwood Preferred Guest website and it was 130 USD plus taxes.

The transport to the hotel in taxi was 7 USD and takes about 20-30 minutes. The hotel seems to be brand new and the welcoming was great. We were greeted and asked to sit down in a sofa. After handing over the passport and the credit card we got a cold cloth and a welcome drink and we didn’t even have time to finish the drinks before the papers were ready and we could be escorted to our room. The reception is very nice and stylish by the way, high ceilings, minimalistic but still not naked.

We got room 3110 and the room was very nice at first glance. When entering the room there was a small hallway leading to the bedroom straight forward. To the right was a small hallway containing the wardrobe, the safe, a place for placing a suitcase and it also lead to the bathroom. The bathroom was tiled in dark tiles which seemed to work in a strange way. The tiles seemed to glitter when they got wet and it was a pretty cool effect. But the main thing was of course that it had a proper shower corner and a separate bathtub. The bathroom featured the regular amenities but also had mouth wash like the Meridien I stayed at in Bangkok. There was a “window” between the bathroom and the bedroom which is a cool feature to start with at least. But the drawback is of course that it does not offer that much privacy.

The bedroom was with dark wooden floor, dark furniture, a huge bed (again a bit too hard for me), modern lighting (and enough of lighting), a separate sofa that I guess could have been made into an extra bed, a small table and a long furniture that was desk, place for a suitcase, place for TV and minibar, coffee making facilities. The TV was rather disappointing as it was a tiny CRT TV…but I guess you don’t go to Siem Reap to watch TV.

Every night we got small marshmallows and some other candy and we also got more complimentary water when asking for it. So the service at the hotel was very good. We also got help from the concierge for booking tours, info on getting into town, making reservations at restaurants etc.The pool area was inspired by Angkor Wat and looked great but it is not ideal if you want to use the pool for working out. It was also a bit on the warm side – believe it or not. It is also out of the main building so it is a bit of a walk to get there.

Location of the hotel is not too bad. It is located on the way out of Siem Reap towards Angkor Wat. Getting around was not a problem as there were tuk-tuk’s available at any given time and getting into Old Market only took 5 minutes and cost 2 USD.

The breakfast was great and was more or less in line with what you expect from a great hotel in Asia. There was an extensive selection of bread, not to great selection of cereal, good juice, a booth for getting your eggs done, a noodle station, miso soup stand, home made yogurt, pancakes etc. The coffee was served nice and warm and was even changed when it got cold.

Conclusion
Le Meridien in Siem Reap was a wonderful hotel in my experience. Being brand new the facilities seems to be top notch as expected but it also seems that there is a good management to give the hotel that little extra to make it a very good hotel. I would have enjoyed seeing a softer bed alternative and I would of course enjoyed seeing free wifi. There is wifi at the hotel but it seemed to be a bit of a mission to get the access (call the business centre to get username and password sent to the room). But apart from that the hotel is highly recommended.