Hi dear reader. In this post, I will share my experience at the Red Planet hotel in Patong, Phuket, and the reason for my decision never to go back there. And that does not mean I don’t like Red Planet hotels. Because apart from Phuket, I have stayed in Red Planet hotels in Bangkok, Pattaya, Manila, and Angeles City (Clark), and most of my stays were good.
I have been to the Red Planet in Pattaya a number of times, and will book that hotel again without any doubt. But not the one in Phuket.
For the sake of adequate disclosure, my dates of stay in this hotel were in December 2022. If there has been any material change in the hotel’s policy regarding the issue discussed in this article, the hotel’s staff are welcome to write a comment below to set the record straight.
Red Planet Phuket (Patong) Review
I will share all the details you expect in a hotel review, including the location, the room condition, the sleep quality, and the price, etc., and of course, plenty of pictures. If you have the time, please read the full article.
But first, let me tell you about what was wrong with the Red Planet in Phuket.
What Was Wrong There
When I walked into my standard room, it was the same, typical Red Planet room. For a minute or so, I was at home. However, it changed quickly when I tried to adjust the temperature setting on the AC controller. For those who have not stayed in Red Planet hotels, their usual AC controller is a small, soft button panel fixed to the wall outside the bathroom.
That panel in my Phuket room seemed broken. I was pressing the buttons, but nothing was happening.
The AC seemed to cool the room fine, but I wanted to reduce the cooling. I decided to go down to the front office and speak to the staff.
Once I got there, I came to know of my mistake in having picked that hotel. The staff told me that the AC controller in the room worked within a 3 to 4 degrees range, and if I wanted to change the temperature beyond that range, I had to go to the lobby and request the staff for it.
What if I wanted to change the temperature again later? They said come down again. That actually meant, whenever you want the room to be a little more hot or cold, go to the lobby and request the staff, every time.
It was absurd.
I asked if they had remote controllers for the ACs in the rooms. They said, yes, they had the remotes, but it was their policy not to give them to the guests.
That was indeed shocking. I told them about my prior stays in other Red Planet hotels and mentioned that I had never seen that policy anywhere else. The kept saying “no.”
After another few more minutes of back and forth, they finally agreed to give me a remote controller for the AC in my room. See the picture below.
The remote was new and worked well. I stayed in that room for three days, and it was all comfortable. No other complaint.
I only wished if someone in that hotel’s management had thought of being nice to their guests. After all, it was the guests’ money that was keeping their business alive. But I knew, I was expecting a reasonable behavior from dinosaurs. It was not to be.
Red Planet Phuket Location
Red Planet Phuket is located on Rat-u-thit 200 P Road. That is the road which meets one end of Soi Bangla. The other end is the Beach Road. If you want to walk from this hotel to Soi Bangla, it will take approximately 20 minutes to cover the almost 1 km distance. Many tourists do walk that much on that road. I did it too.
The Other Stuff There
My standard room had a comfortable bed, a folding table next to it for keeping my laptop, a digital locker on the other side, a wall hanger stand instead of a wardrobe, a window overlooking the street, a full-size dressing mirror, a hair dryer, a clean bathroom with a shower stand, and 24-hour hot and cold water in the shower.
Once I adjusted the AC temp to my liking, I slept well. My room faced a busy road, but the window blocked the noise.
The usual missing items were a tea-coffee maker, drinking water, and any place to keep my bags. In all Red Planet hotels, you have to keep your bags on the floor. The rooms are anyway small, and the bags on the floor obstruct movement in the tiny space. But that is how their planet is.
They cleaned the room daily, and changed the bed linen when I asked them to. The housekeeping staff was actually good, much better than the front-office staff.
The Cost
The room cost me approximately INR 1500 per day, and it was still value for money, despite the issue with the AC.
I checked the current price, at the time of writing this article, and was surprised to know that it was even lower than what I had paid. It looks like the hotel is getting cheaper as it gets older.
The lobby on the ground floor did have a few seats for guests. There was a PC for internet, but it was not in working condition. The Wi-Fi in the room was slow, but it did work.
The road outside the hotel has money changers, restaurants, bars, 7-elevens, and massage shops, all the way up to Soi Bangla and beyond.
This could be a good hotel, my regular place in Phuket, but they have ruined it for themselves. I will look for a different one for my next trip.
Watch The Video Review
This review of Red Planet Phuket is available in the form of a YouTube video. This is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIdzZxbIgiw
