We were booked into this family run hotel by our friends. I wasn’t too impressed with the location as it backed onto what could only be described as swamp land which wasn’t pleasant and I was worried about the mosquitos, which thankfully never materialised.
Location wise, it was also a little out of the way from the centre of town; however, the hotel did supply regular transport to and from the town every two hours and would provide extra transport outside of those times as required. All in all, a very good service.
The night we arrived we were greeted by the friendly staff with a welcoming cool melon drink.
While we waited for our rooms we went to the upstairs bar area which doubles as the dining area. We ordered drinks as well as some food which took some time to arrive. I love Thai food, so I was very disappointed with the effort that arrived. Cold and tasteless!! After speaking with other guests, we discovered that at times the guests would order drinks and the drinks would take a dome time arriving or not arrive at all.
Eventually we were shown to our spacious rooms with an outside balcony that over looked the pool. The pool itself was a good size and very clean. If you wanted a towel for the pool area you would have to go to reception to obtain it and return it to them. You were only allowed a maximum of one towel at any one time. The pool side bar is manned by staff who didn’t have very good English language skills, but then again it was a lot better than my Thai. The more senior members of staff all spoke excellent English though. The ladders going into the pool could do with some non-slip strips on the rungs as they were very slippery.
The AC unit looked old and was noisy. The bathroom had a shower that was basically a pipe out of the wall from which the water poured onto a wooden shelf resembling a small ski ramp onto the guest. The water went everywhere! For the first three days, there was no hot water! “Run it for 10 minutes” the staff said, still no joy; additionally, there was no soap for the hand basin.
The king size bed had a mattress as hard as rock with just the one pillow for each of us. There was a tiny TV with no TV reception and the safe in the room that was not attached to a fixed location e.g. a wall/wardrobe. You could literally pick the safe up and take it with you. I know because I did just that.
On the morning of our first full day there, we went to breakfast. The fruit juice didn’t taste fresh. The fried eggs were stone cold (as they were everyday) and the pastries tasted stale. There was however a reasonable selection of Thai options there, but after the Thai food experience the night before I decided to give it a miss. The coffee was from a machine and was woeful. The salad bar was a joke! There was an option to order a tiny omelette, but don’t ask for more than two ingredients, it’s a no go!
On day 3 after returning from an excursion, we came into our room only to find water leaking everywhere from the roof. The manager initially said it was ok for us to have shower in one of the other rooms, while they saw to the problem. After pointing that the water was leaking through the electrics and demanding a change of rooms, the manager reluctantly agreed. We were given no assistance when we swapped rooms, despite my wife having an ongoing sciatica problem and myself suffering from chronic back pain. After our change of rooms, we found that fridge hadn’t been plugged in and once it had been it wasn’t working properly. The safe in this room didn’t work at all being permanently locked open. To top it all off, the doona/duvet/quilt was too small. We later found out that the water leaking through the ceiling in the previous room was due to a faulty AC unit in the room above.
The WIFI in the complex was excellent and would put some larger hotel chains to shame. Additionally, the airport transfers going to and from the hotel were without fault. I will say that the manager was up at all times of the day, was extremely hard working and was generally very friendly; nevertheless, I was very disappointed by her reaction and attitude when it came to the faults we had to endure that resulted in us being switched to a new room. Bottom line, I’d be in no rush to return to this hotel complex.
