How hard is it to get a hotel room in Pattaya on the same-day you check in? Our party will be down in late November but we were considering booking our rooms when we got into town instead of making an advanced reservation. Would this be convenient for our group where we'll need 3 rooms or should we book in advance online before we fly down?

It depends on....

 

Do you really want to go looking for hotel rooms on your first day in Pattaya? If you're not sure where you want to stay I would recommend that you book rooms at least for a couple of days in advance. And then you have some time to relocate...

its easy to get a room in pattaya...

 

book ahead and get 3 rooms

Be careful you don't land on local holidays. When I was there in Feb I decided to stay a few days longer over the weekend which happened to be a Buddhist holiday.

The hotel I was in was fully booked and so was my second and third choice. I did get one but wouldn't fancy having to do that on the day I land.

 

As others said maybe best to book the first 2 or 3 nights in advance and take it from there.

I think it's easy to do if on your own but as you need 3 rooms prob best to book in advance; at least for a couple of days.

 

I'm doing 2 months soon and have pre-booked for 3 weeks and will look around for other digs for the rest of the trip when I get there.

Just pre-book somewhere for 2 or 3 nights. When you get here you will have 2 or 3 days to find somewhere to your liking.

You don't mention how long you're going for or if any of you have been there before. I suggest you do a lot of research here and book ahead - especially if you are on a short trip (2 weeks or less). I know a lot of Americans don't get much vacation time and I've met a few who were on 10 day or two week trips. If I was going for that length of time I wouldn't want to be screwing around looking for hotels while on the ground. Just do some research and make sure you book a decent place - and make sure it's girl-friendly unless you don't mind paying big fees whenever you want to bring in a girl.

I'll be arriving with friends into Bangkok first for a few days, then we're doing about a week in Pattaya. I've been in-country a few times already but this will be their first time. We've got a few locations we're interested in, but not sure which ones we'll settle on. We should be arriving in Pattaya by noon-ish so there's time to dicker around with locations, or we could make our reservations while in Bangkok. This is for late November.

 

 

While I don't want this to devolve into a hotel recommendation thread, so far we're looking at The Vault and Baywalk.

While I don't want this to devolve into a hotel recommendation thread, so far we're looking at The Vault and Baywalk.

For those two hotels, definitively book in advance if you want 3 rooms. You may get 3 rooms at baywalk (you "may"), but might not be the one you want.

At the Valt, no chance to get 3 rooms if not booked in advance.

My experience is that Baywalks prices vary wildly according to how full they are. if you see a good deal there I'd grab it if I were you