The_Fat_Controller

Ground works continue at quite a slow pace. Lots of water around, no rain, so guess they have disturbed a pipe somewhere. There was some piling work for about an hour today at 1000, was pretty noisy at the Blue Ocean Pool. Here are some pictures taken from Room 504.

You should be OK after Chinese New Year (10th) and St Valentine's Day. Right now, PattayaGrad is pretty full.

Back at the Areca again. The construction site now resembles something like a WW1 battlefield. Large amounts of soil have been removed and the pilings that were put in last year have been exposed ready for the building to start. The boundary wall at the Areca has suffered a little and a concrete electricity pylon has additional metal support from the building site side, apparently it started to lean over a bit. Right now there is very little noise. I am here until the 28th Feb so will update as necessary.

Areca Lodge certainly do monthly rates, but they are not published on their website. Email them at : info@arecalodge.com AOL email does not seem to get a reply, I had to use my Yahoo address.

These are the plans for the site. http://avenuepattaya.net/category/homepage

Just arrived at the Areca Lodge. The construction area is now deserted, looks like the piling work is finished. Will try to get an update as to when the building work is planned to start.

They tried that 4 years ago! Bastards cancelled my flight from Cebu to Bangkok without telling me or anybody, not enough passengers on the day, had to go via Manila. That was June 2008, flights pulled shortly afterwards. Good luck, Cebu frequently cancel flights that do not have enough paying customers apparently.

Alfred, you do not seem to have understood what you read online. Type 1 and Type 2 herpes can BOTH cause sores on your lips OR in your genital area. GENITAL or ORAL only describes the area in which you have the infection, not the virus type. I have never had a zit that lasted more than a couple of days, so maybe the Pharmacist was correct after all !

Andy, download Kindle for PC, it's free. You can then download free books and read on your computer. As you live in France, you will have to use the Amazon.com site and not the UK site. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=kindle+for+pc

One week left on the offer !

jacko. I only found this out in February when I was chatting to someone on board coming back from BKK. I have paid for quite a few smoked eel rolls and glasses of Heineken at the Cone Bar in the past.

Samsonite; the aircraft on the BKK-AMS route are newly refurbished cabins with 70 Business seats and 319 Economy seats, all with personal video on demand, not sure of the manufacturing dates, but B18203, B18205, B18251 and N168CL are the aircraft that have the new cabins according to the CAL website. Fatboyfat: have you tried the new seats? Only been on the route for less than a year. Lounge access is also a bonus for me, as quite often I have a few hours to kill at AMS. You can also use the KLM lounge on the way home, just show your used C class boarding pass! According to my eTicket, I

The aircraft used on the AMS-BKK flights no longer have First Class. The new Business Class seats are not the biggest in the world but suit me fine, as does connecting via Amsterdam. The on-board service is excellent, a nice mix of Taiwanese and Thai crew As mentioned, many people mix them up with Air China, who are a completely different kettle of fish. They even have at least one ex-BA captain flying with them and I asked him about their culture and safety record and he said he was happy to be flying with them and that they had "learnt their lessons".

My favourite travel agent, Gazelle Travel, have very good deals available with China Airlines right now. The prices are from £1399 return including the KLM connection to Amsterdam. I travel from Glasgow and have just booked two trips, only £1429 each. The offer ends at the end of this month, July 2012. There are some date restrictions. Here is a link to their website. http://www.gazelletr...ations/fareast/ Give them a call on 0191 384 7456 I have no link to the company apart from being a loyal customer for about 8 years.

Pattaya_Mad, there is no way I could offer an expert opinion as to what progress they will have made by September, however I do not think the Evergreen rooms will suffer too much disturbance. Unless you are paying the monthly rate which requires full payment on arrival, just come and see for yourself what is happening and move if it disturbs you too much.

I am in a Pool View room at the Areca building, but getting daily updates from 3 couples who are in rooms directly overlooking the site on floors 4 and 5. You will be glad to know that Health and Safety standards are being maintained, flip-flops on feet, a couple of naked kids running around the site, workers living in a small tent village and even some caged fighting chickens back on site.

Areca management have now issued a notice saying this disturbance may continue for a few MONTHS. The hours of operation appear to be 0900 - 1800. Edit in : The site is not being developed by the Areca lodge company, so they have no control over the duration of the work. Their notice does state this.

The piece of land on the east side of the Areca Lodge has been cleared and as of yesterday, 18th June 2012, they have started on the foundations of the condo blocks that will be built there. The piling machine is now in full swing and it was pretty noisy in the Bai Mai Kitchen at breakfast this morning.

The Areca Wing rooms have new digital boxes in the rooms, will take a Samsung NC10 netbook with room to spare. I am pretty sure they are the same type in the other two buildings.

ALL Bangkok Bank ATMs will give their customers 25,000 per withdrawal. When I opened my account I had to choose a daily limit and set it at 50,000. I have tried for more than 25,000 but that seems to be the machine's limit.

Hi FoxtrotOscar. I am now back in wet and windy Troon, however next trip is already booked for 8th February. For my last 2 visits I have flown in with China Airlines and taken the 0800 Bell Travel Service bus to Pattaya and arrived at the Areca just before 1000. In June, the room was empty and available. This November, they were still making up the room so there was a 30 minute wait after arrival before I could go up. No extra charges for checking in early on either occasion.

Update, Sunday 20th November. The maintenance team are fitting new toilet seats to all bathrooms in the Areca Wing. Tomorrow, all the standard rooms will have their TVs upgraded to Sony LCD models.

Can we have the drop-down list back so we can easily jump to a different forum ? This new version is a real pain in the backside.

Have to agree about the Swampy rates. They used to be almost exactly the same as in Bangkok City/Pattaya. Now they are well over a Baht worse than those outside of the airport. When I arrived at on the 1st November the difference was 1.3 Baht. Time was 0700 at VTBS and was in Pattaya at 1000. I looked online at a couple of Thai bank websites for the historical rates for that day and there were NO wild swings in the rate against the Pound Sterling. The airport booths are screwing their captive audience, but not nearly as badly as in the UK and elsewhere.

Just had a meal at the China Garden Free prawn crackers, then Hot and Sour soup (95 Bt) Very large bowl of tasty soup, with prawns, ham, chicken and mushrooms. Main course was Crispy Chilli Beef (150 Bt) with Egg Fried Rice (80 Bt) The tenderest beef I have ever had in Thailand, nice sweet chilli sauce and perfectly sized rice portion. Drink was a can of Schweppes (40Bt) I ate inside, very nice atmosphere and good service, they actually waited until I had finished my soup before bringing the next course, somebody has trained them well. I managed to finish it all, ju