Prima Place Review, Pattaya, Thailand

Prima Place is located at south Pattaya, Thailand, on 3rd Road, view map at the bottom of this page. Prima Place was my first hotel I stayed while on my trip to Thailand. At first, I was not expecting to go to Pattaya any more than a day, but to keep the story short I ended up staying at Pattaya, Thailand for one month. I spent my first two weeks at Prima Place on building C on the second floor.

Before we went to Pattaya, I was searching online for apartments, condos and hotels I could rent for one month. Since it was January, it was still high reason and the places I can afford were pretty much all booked. I was looking to spend around $10 000 -$15 000 baht per month for a place. Even at that price, I had a hard time finding one. My brother suggested us to drive there and have a look around asking the locals since my brother is Thai. If we can’t find a place under my budget we’ll come back to his condo in Bangkok.

I wasn’t sure if that would work, I thought the only way and the cheapest way was to find one online. Anyway, we went one weekend and my brother asked around with the local Thai people for a place for me to stay. The Thai locals suggested us to look at the hotels around Phatthaya Sai 3 because the hotels around that area are under $10 000 baht per month. The hotels at Pattaya beachfront can cost up to $20 000 baht and more per month and most hotels at the beachfront doesn’t do monthly rent, they only accept daily rental. That was how I ended up at Prima Place at 3rd Road.

Prima Place has a small swimming pool, air condition room, cable TV, fridge, hot water, table, bed and free parking. It had three separate buildings, with 24/7 security. No internet but there is a computer store at the back where you can purchase a wireless internet connection. However, I find the wireless internet connect to be very unreliable, always disconnecting or can’t log on.

Here are some pictures of my room.

We went looking about 3 other rooms in Prima Place before decided to go with this one since the other ones smell like smoke, or too close to the street with too much noise. My only suggestion if you stay at Prima Place is to get a room farthest away from the stairs because at night you can hear people walking up and down with their sandals. It can get loud if you have someone or a group of people drunk walking up and down the stairs. So stay away from the stairs.

Another thing to consider is internet connection. I asked one of the staff at the counter about wireless internet connection and she told me they don’t offer it. When I turned on my laptop there was a signal from one of the local computer with his phone number. I called the phone number and found that his computer store was at the south end of Prima Place. I paid for his wireless internet service with an internet provider called Maxnet. Read my review of Maxnet here.

If you need internet access all the time, I suggest you go elsewhere because the Maxnet connection was not reliable when I was there. About 30% of the time, the internet was NOT working for me. However, if you don’t care about internet, then this won’t effect you. Also, there is a internet café just down stairs which you can use and pay about $30 baht per hour.

After 2 weeks at Prima Place, I went to Villa Mama. Although the room at Villa Mama is much smaller but I like how reliable the internet was.

I will not go back to Prima Place again, because of my internet problem. Also, the electricity cost me at least 3-4 times more than another other places I visited. For two weeks at Prima Place I paid 1,250 baht, and at other places I paid about 200-300 baht for two weeks, I felt cheated at Prima Place for my electricity usage. Be careful, I made a mistake not to ask about the electricity meter and they knew it.

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