>>The Four Seasons Resort, Chiang Mai Photo Gallery<<
Reviewed by Spa-Beach-Vacation.com
Airport Transfer
After a frustrating one night stay in Le Meridien, we flew into Chiang Mai via AirAsia. On arrival, we waited for quite a while for our lugguages. After collecting our luggages, we were immediately greeted by our driver from the Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai, who saw to it that our luggages were quickly loaded into the car. In the car, we were pleasantly surprised that Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai had prepared cold towels and cold mineral waters for us. It was a rather hot day at Chiang Mai and we were more than happy with these nice and considerate gestures of Four Seasons. They had also provided newspapers and resort information for our reading pleasure during our journey to the resort.
Check-in
| Soon after, we reached the beautiful Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai. We were both immediately enchanted by this charming resort. I found myself unable to stop snapping my Kodak digital camera so that I could capture as much as beauty as possible. Located in the lush Mae Rim Valley, the Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai is 20 minutes outside Chiang Mai, in the steep hills that jut up from the plains, a scatter of teak buildings and gazebos set around glittering green rice paddies. |
It is a setting so rich and sumptuous with color and smells and textures, so bubbling over with gorgeous things—with frangipani and jasmine and malabar trees, and parrot-shaped heliconia and blue-headed lizards—that you are instantly drunk with the look of it and want more right away.
Rice Terrace View of Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai
Rie, the front desk officer who took care of our checking in were friendly, professional and helpful. We had forgotten to print out the hotel voucher provided by our agent which under usual circumstances may gave us some problem. In this instance, Rie assured us that there’s no problem as she would check with our agent. Soon, the check-in had been completed and she informed us that she had upgraded our room from Garden Pavilion View to Rice Terrace View. We were surprised and happy with our good luck and thank her gratefully for the wonderful gesture. Together with our lugguages, we were chaffeured to our room on a buggy.
Room
Once we reached our room, we were so amazed at the beauty of the views of the rice terraces from our room that we were both going “wow!‿, “so beautiful!‿, “gorgeous!‿. Our room was a teak cottage decorated with northern Thai products—the robes and slippers were made of rustic printed cotton, the television and CD and DVD player were hidden in a handsome teak cabinet. CDs and DVDs were provided free of charge for our listening and viewing pleasure.
We had our own balcony and there’s even a walkway between the balcony and our room. From the balcony, we had an even more astonishing view of the resort's rice paddies, the scare crows on the rice paddies and the resorts’ beautiful swimming pools. The view was simply gorgeous!!!
The room comes with a bath tub and a standing shower both facing the open air. There’s even a comfortable white pillow at the bathtub for you to rest your head while soaking yourself in the bath tub and that is what my friend did after a busy shopping at Chiang Mai’s famous night bazaar! She throughly enjoyed the bathing experience and you will too…. The bathroom came complete with luxurious Four Seasons toiletries including 2 bath soaps, 2 set of tooth brush and colgate toothpaste, moisturizer, shower cap, 2 shaving kits and 2 combs. If you are in any way worried about mosquitoes, an electric insect repellent is also provided.
Free Shuttle Service
The resort provided free shuttle bus service to and from resort at regular intervals. Hence, it was very convenient for us to visit the Chiang Mai colourful night bazaar and it’s other quaint shopping venues such as Thapae road, Nimmahaemin road etc. Besides the night bazaar, make sure you visit these shopping areas…. We wasted no time and quickly booked for the 4:30 pm shuttle bus service to have our dinner down at Chiang Mai city and to visit the night bazaar. At about 4:15 pm, instead of taking a buggy to the lobby for the shuttle, we took a stroll through the resort’s extensively landscaped garden, passing by pavilions, small river streams, exotic plants and flowers, sculptures of elephants, crocodiles, pigs and was even greeted by the resort’s water buffalos.
Welcome Greetings from the water buffalo of The Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai
On the morning of second day in Chiang Mai, we took the 9:00 am free shuttle service provided by the resort to Chiang Mai City. On arriving at the drop-off location, we requested that the shuttle service driver speak to a tuk tuk driver on our behalf as we were afraid that the tuk tuk driver would not be able to understand our request of reserving the tuk tuk for 2 – 3 hours to visit the various factories (Thai Silk, Celandon, Laqueurware, Saa Paper, Umbrella, Hilltribes product etc) located in the Sankampaeng area. Surprisingly, the shuttle service driver offered to bring us around Sankampaeng area. At the end of the whole shopping trip, he even offered to bring our purchases back to the hotel so as to lighten our load while we went for our lunch. After lunch, we shopped around downtown until the next shuttle pickup time to the back to the resort at 2:45 pm.
The Spa
We had heard many compliments of The Spa of Four Season Resorts, Chiang Mai and on our first day in Chiang Mai, we decided to book for a 90 minutes Oriental Blend massage at 6 pm. When we booked for our massage, the spa offer to arrange for a buggy to bring us to the spa. They even sent us a confirmation slip on the following morning to confirm our massages. We were definitely looking forward to our massage and at 5:50 pm, our buggy arrived and we will transferred to the spa by our friendly who could even addresses us by our surnames. Along the path winding around the cottages and pools, there was a stone Buddha at one turn; at another, a clay pig with splayed legs. As we rounded the last turn before the spa, we came across an old rice wagon with a woven cane hood—a stark sight, graceful but mournful-looking, as if long ago a harvester had been interrupted and left his empty wagon behind.
| Crossing the bridge to get to the spa entrance is like crossing from one fantasy world to another. This sumptuous sanctuary has seven spacious treatment suites that offer total privacy for individuals or couples. Six of the suites feature soaking tubs on semi-enclosed salas. Five of the suites have private herbal aromatherapy steam rooms. Two of the suites feature double rain shower massage tables. The palatial Lann Chang Suite in the penthouse has a sunken bath in a turret with stunning views of the resort and Doi Suthep and Doi Pui mountain ranges. |
The Prae Garden Suite on the lower level has Thai style massage beds next to a fireplace and its own private pool. The decor is rich, luxurious, and sumptuous. Treatments are inspired by ancient Thai rituals using herbs, spices and aromatic oils sourced from traditional rural origins.
We waited for our masseuses on an oversized sofa upholstered in iridescent silk, sipping spicy ginger tea from celadon cups. Shortly, we were led to the treatment room by our masseuses , on a path of smooth gray river rocks. The masseuses were two gentle local women with bashful gazes and long braids who murmured to each other in Thai and then gestured for us to choose a scent for our oils. I chose Prai from the ginger family for its moisturizing effect. We changed into the bath robe provided and were asked to sit on a bench where the massueses gently washed and brushed our feet. We then disrobed and lied on a wooden massage table draped with handwoven cotton sheets.
The Oriental Blend massage is based on the oriental theories of energy meridians. Using a combination of kneading and stroking, which works deep into the muscles, and Thai, which relies more on manipulation, stretching and pressure, a perfect combination that almost made us felt asleep! The massage ended with stretching which helps to loosen our muscles. Considerately, the masseuses wiped our feet with warm towels to remove the oil to prevent us from slipping before we stood up. It was a great massage!
Food
After the massage, the spa’s buggy sent us back to our teak cottage where we ordered room service. We ordered dry curry with pork and small pickled garlic, fried shrimp cake and fried sea bass. My companion requested for low spicyness for the dry curry and true enough, it came only the tiniest hint of spicyness. All the dishes were absolutely delicious and fresh, especially the dry curry and the fried sea bass. Rice and ice cold mineral water came complimentary. If you happen to order breakfast that came with white bread, you will be amazed that they will actually toast the bread with the toaster provided in the room! We ordered quite a lot of room service as the rice terrace view from our room were just too astonishing to miss. All the dishes were really delicious and came on time as informed.
Standard of Service
We were really impressed with the standard of service. All throughout our stay at the resort, we were greeted by the resort staff. From the buggy driver to the shuttle service driver to the front desk staff to the conceirge to even the staff in charge of pool towels, we will greeted by our names. We will simply amazed at their memory!!! We had a memorable and wonderful time at the Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai and would definitely be back again sometime in the near future.
Click here to make your spa resort reservation at The Four Seasons Resort, Chiang Mai.
For a list of other Chiang Mai Hotels, click here.