First of all yes, location is great, it is right at the centre and steps to the night bazaar.

BUT! and BIG BUT! Myself and my friend who stayed there during a short visit to Chiang Mai, both of us work in the hospitality industry as well, we chose this hotel due to location and price. But we were wrong to do so! After so many bad reviews, we still decided to go ahead and stay there, instead of Le Meridien which is across the road or D2 by Dusit, please choose either these two as I have inspected them and they are excellent, slight higher priced than Duangtawan but it was so worth it.

The problem was mainly at the Front Desk, the assistant manager who had a scarf on refused to check us in and asked us to go and wait as we were couple of hours before check in time. As we were walking away she then yelled 'hey! hello?!' to us and then with the worst possible attitude told us that yeah we can check into our room.
We went up to our room (waited perhaps 7 minutes for the lift, only 4 for a 500+ rooms hotel!) and it resembles a trashy motel room on the road to Reno! The carpet was disgusting, with hair still everywhere, blood stain on the bedsheet, mould in the shower area, and the list goes on.... The smell in the room was disgusting with mouldy smell all over the room! Please do not stay here if you suffer from asthma as you are guaranteed to get an asthma attack!
Upon check out, it was the worst possible attitude you could ever get! We dropped the key in the key drop box, out of courtesy we asked whether we should sign anything to check out. The receptionist banged twice on the counter and yelled 'where is the key', we informed her that we dropped it in the box. Then she went to grab our folio and threw it on the counter and read through and yelled 'OKAY THAT'S IT!' with her hands waving as if she was saying 'go away'.
We couldn't believe this at all, but since we were rushing to do couple of things before leaving for the airport, we simply left.
On a brighter side though, bellboys were extremely helpful, very courteous and always smiling, such a big difference considering that its the same department!

To Centara, I hope that you don't destroy your brand name for having such a hotel in your portfolio, it is absolutely damaging and will not advise anyone to stay at Centara given this first experience.

My honest hotelier's recommendation: AVOID AT ALL COST! They were rude, with really bad attitude, not only to us, but to other people as well as we chatted with other guests during breakfast!

This is a HUGE hotel where the breakfast room resembles a train station at peak hour, people everywhere & not the best quality but the location of this hotel if you are a tourist in Chiang Mai is excellent. In addition to this the value for money is pretty good, especially in low season when they discount the rates significantly.

The hotel has a relatively large L shaped pool on the 4th floor along with a comprehensive if badly looked after gym/sauna which is used by many locals too.

There's a rooftop Chinese restaurant, and some shops in the entry floor. If you can manage to stretch your Baht further there are hotels in the area which are much better and nowhere near as large as this place. If you just need a comfy room and don't care that nobody knows your name and price is important then this place is just for you.

We stayed here as part of a package, and couldn't have been happier with the location right on the doorstep of the night market (though not noisy as you might expect).
Pool ok, breakfast, rooms, ambience all average - no major complaints but not spectacular either.
If you can get a good price and value location highly, then definitely consider the Centara...

We arrived at the hotel and checked in with no issues. We were automatically upgraded to a business class room from deluxe upon check in. Once we arrived in the room we discovered that it smelt like cigarettes. Even as a smoker I found the smell quite disturbing. We were not located on a smoking floor but I am assuming the smell goes through the aircon. The front desk did offer to change our room but after unpacking a few things we decided it was too puch hassell. we also assumed the other rooms would be the same. The rooms were clean and as stated the bathrooms were huge. The rooms and the entire hotel are very out dated. The lifts are a huge problem and you can wait up to 10 minutes in the peak hours to get anywhere. We did however discover the express lift - not sure if it is only meant for staff but worth using :) The tour office in the hotel were more than helpful and we ended up booking our tours through them instead of shopping around like we normally would. The buffet breakfast is quite extensive but extremely busy each morning (think school camp). We did also attend the Japanese buffet one night and the food was great and very reasonablly priced. The staff were helpful when approached. The hotel is well situated to the night markets and not far to the riverside where there are a number of great restaurants and pubs. One downside was that room service trays on two occassions were not removed from the room when the rooms were serviced each day. Not sure why - but its not nice to return to a clean room at the end of the day and dirty dishes - twice. Overall if you are looking for somewhere well priced and clean to stay then I would recommend this hotel. If you are looking for more of a pleasant experience, look elsewhere.