Hotel Shams Plaza

Hotel Shams Plaza is in Laboni, Cox's Bazar (Plot # 18 Block # A, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh), close to Cox's Bazar Beach.

Prices are set live by the hotel — check the booking page for a real rate for your dates.

Not for the town — tomtoms and CNG auto-rickshaws cover the Kolatoli–Sugandha–Laboni line for under $0.50 a seat and run late. You do want a vehicle for the south, because there is no useful public transport along the 80 km Marine Drive to Teknaf. A reserved CNG for the Himchari and Inani loop is about $15–$22, a car with driver $35–$55 for a full day including Ramu or Dulahazara. Self-drive hire is not standard here; cars come with a driver.

Both work, but they want different addresses. Families do better in Kolatoli, where larger family rooms and buffet breakfasts are common and the beach entrance, pharmacies and food are within a few hundred metres, with the Dulahazara Safari Park 50 km north as a rainy-day option. Couples usually prefer the Marine Drive resorts at Sonarpara and Inani, 28–32 km south, where the beach is emptier and the boulders make for better sunsets. Note that the marked, lifeguard-patrolled swimming zones are all in town at Laboni, Sugandha and Kolatoli, which matters if you have children in the water.

Book four to six weeks ahead for the Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha weeks, the 25 December to 2 January stretch and the Durga Puja holiday in October, when the town effectively sells out. Outside those windows, two weeks is plenty, except for Thursday and Friday nights, which are the Bangladeshi weekend and always the tightest nights. Sea-facing rooms in Kolatoli and the small resorts at Inani go first at any time of year. Boat trips to Moheshkhali or Kutubdia are better left flexible, since they depend on tide and weather.

Expect $10–$20 for a basic fan double off-peak, $30–$60 for a three-star AC room with breakfast outside the winter season, and $90–$180 for a four- or five-star resort room in November to February. The same three-star climbs to $70–$110 during the winter peak, and top-end rooms reach $250–$400 around 31 December and Eid. A genuine sea-facing balcony adds $15–$25 over a road-facing room in the same hotel. Rooms in Teknaf, Ramu and Chakaria sit at $12–$35 but there are far fewer of them.

The town beach is, and the rest is not. You can walk the sand from Laboni through Sugandha to Kolatoli in about 30–40 minutes, roughly 2 km, and all three have hotel clusters set back one to three streets from the water. Beyond that, the hills and the airport perimeter break the grid, so Jhilongja, Nuniar Chor and the railway station are rickshaw distance. Anything on Marine Drive — Himchari at 18 km, Inani at 32 km, Shamlapur at 45 km — needs a vehicle, and there are no pavements along that road.