The courtyard Chiangrai

We loved our room, and paying extra for the penthouse was worth it. The best breakfast of our trip was the northern Thai option. A perfect stay at Chang Rai boutique hotel.

The price was very good, so it could work if you're on a budget. But the rooms had no windows, and the white walls gave them a bit of a prison feel. Hot water kept cutting in and out, which was frustrating when I wanted a hot shower, and breakfast was a 3 out of 10.

We booked two nights and had no good experience. Staff communication seemed to break down: we had to change rooms because of an electrical problem, and after sitting down to wait for breakfast, someone asked again whether we'd ordered it. The pool looked nothing like the website photo, which felt fake. Our downstairs room near the main road made sleep difficult. Very disappointing!

The location was much farther from the center than these reviews led me to expect, and getting across a huge road with no pedestrian crossing was difficult. Our rooms smelled awful, and staff sprayed one just before we went in. We found fungus on the headboard and the large wooden chair. They moved us twice, but each room was worse than the previous one, and all were on the ground floor. We canceled before the booking site's deadline, according to its advice, but after we left, the hotel still wouldn't refund us. They kept the money for all three nights.