ROOM
We stayed in a Spa Deluxe room with Jacuzzi 02-09 March and enjoyed our stay very much. The room (647) was on the highest floor and had a view of the garden, pools and beach/sea. Great room otherwise but perhaps a little bit too hard bed for our taste. For improvement we would suggest to change the manual wooden curtain in front of the balcony-doors into an electrical one(instead of the manual) as the sound when you pull it up and down (daily...) is just horrible...
A special thank you to our room-cleaner, Pui, who did a great job every day!
BREAKFAST
We found plenty of choices for different nationalities. Please note that there are also food-stations OUTSIDE, omelettes for example. Our new favourite was Roti (a kind of banana pancake) combined with frozen honey-yoghurt!
SERVICE
Everyone we met, from reception, spa, breakfast, the Cove, Luna bar, towel-service and guards were very friendly, professional and polite. A golden rule to remember is that "If you are friendly and polite to others, they will be the same to you..." Many times we felt sorry for the staff working, as many of the guests seems to come from "the never smile - do not care for anyone else but yourself-lands"...
FOOD
We love to eat out when we are in Thailand so we only ate at the Cove when it was Sea-food-night. My husband simply loves sea-food so for him it was a treat, with plenty of dishes to choose from. If you want a bottle of wine it will cost around 1200 baht, we tried a rosé from Australia and didn´t like it, so be sure to know what you order...
For lunch we usually went to Kais at the end of the beach, excellent Pad thai with chicken or prawns. If you go there - give 100 baht for tip after payment and see (listen to!) what happens!
In the evenings we walked into Karon and found a very nice restaurant called Talay with the best Seafood soup with coconut-milk!
There is a part of the road, just outside the hotel, that is pretty dangerous, so if you have children I would advice you to take a taxi/tuk-tuk from the taxi-station outside the hotel instead.
BEACH
As we are not "pool-people" but "beach-people" one of the main reasons we chose this hotel was the location - directly on the beach. The choice turned out to be a good one as this is a more quiet part of the beach but still very nice to swim out from. You even have some rocks at the end, if you are into snorkeling. BUT the hotel does not have enough beach-chairs on the beach. If you come later than 0800 in the morning the chairs will already be taken. While this didn´t seem to be a problem by the pools as there were always plenty of free chairs all day long.. If you manage to get sun-chairs on the beach you will be VERY close to the neighbours...So most of the days we went to the local chair-owner to the left and paid 200 baht per day. Which we didn´t mind so much to do, as we like to support different local businesses, but I imagine it can be very annoying for others...
A word of warning to parents with children - some waves that roll in can be very big, so
don´t let your children alone into the water unless they are used to big waves.
WEATHER
We were in luck the week we went, sunshine every day and only rain one evening. It was very warm during the days, so one needs to remember to drink water. We got the habit of drinking two coconuts every-day - it says that it balances the electrolytes in the body - perfect to drink in the heat.
MOSQUITOS
Yes, they come every evening after sunset... Just be sure to have the balcony-doors closed, especially if you have a light on inside, and spray yourself with Sketolene, and all will be fine!
TOWELS
You are provided with towel-cards from the reception that you change into towels by the towel-station by the pool. If you stay for longer than one night you do not need to fill in your room-number and sign to just to get the cards back again, simply just ask for CHANGE of towels. Then on the day before your departure you sign out your cards to leave by reception when you check out.
KARON
All in all we had a nice, relaxing holiday, but Karon beach is perhaps a little bit "too big" for us. We tend to like smaller, more quiet places, and although the hotel is situated in a peacful place and that part of the beach is great, the feeling changes as you come towards the middle of the beach. But this is completely personal preferences, other people love when it is crowded, noisy and full of action, and here you can of course have both sides!

This is a great hotel and very well located. It is at the end of the beach and so you can walk from the hotel & pool directly onto the beach without having to cross a road. There are no other hotels in the area where you can do this. We found the hotel and our room were clean, the A/C worked fine, we slept really well, the pool was fine, there were enough sun-beds and umbrellas.

The hotel staff are very friendly and always have a smile on their faces. Ok, so it's probablly not 5* but it's certainly 4* and hey, you're on holiday, ignore some of the petty comments about trivial little things and just enjoy yourselves. So the service may be a little slow occasionally but chill-out, like I said, you're on holiday - you will get your drinks and is it really a problem if they take 3 minutes and not 1?

The dinner buffet is just fine, costs about 24GBP per person - yes it may be expensive compared to the cheap cafe on the beach but in the grand scheme of things it's an OK price. My advice would be to eat in the hotel for about half your stay and for the other half venture into Karon or Kata (both just a short tuk-tuk ride from the hotel costing 4GBP and 6GBP respectively) and try out something more authentic and help support the local restaurants/businesses.

They have free internet at reception and in the bar - excellent as if this was available in the rooms then the children would spend all day in the room on their phones/iPads etc.

Don't do the trip to Phi-Phi Island - you'll feel like cattle being herded. We did it and when we arrived on Maya beach there were thousands of people there. You spend most of the time in a speed boat bouncing along at about 50kmh. It's a waste of a day.

Do have a massage in Karon/Kata. Do have a go at parasailing on the beach and rent a jet-ski. Do take a tuk-tuk up to the Big Bhuda and Chalong Wat and have a go on the elephants on the way (just arrange it with the tuk-tuk drivers outside the hotel, costs 28GBP for a morning for a grouo of 4)

Take cash (GBP, US$ or Euros) with you and change it in Karon/Kata - you'll get about 10-15% more than at the hotel. The hotel rooms all have a safe to keep your cash.

The room condition of the resort is so so. House keeper does not turn over pillow, I sleep using contaminated pillow. However it's pretty good condition except for that pillow. Its service is good and nice but slow, so if you want to be served in time, you should request your order with sufficient time margins. Buffet at cove is not good considering its price so you should be better to order a la carte menu. In spite of above shortcomings, pool is superior!!! If you have children, it is very appealing points.

It is very good for families that have babies but it is ordinary for couples or friends.

Good hotel if you are fit with all the steps up to the rooms . Pool area great for kids but service from the bar very slow the waiters more interested in playing on there mobile phones than serving . Management must look at this and give more training . Restaurants very good especially the Italian service first class along with the food . The girls in the spa were excellent with my two daughters age 13 + 11 they were treated like princesses first class . The staff at the lunar bar were very friendly and polite any time we were there . Down side the reception staff did not have a clue what they were doing most of the time . Handed our passports and credit card to them on arrival then they could not find them said they did not have them then they turned up in a envelope at bottom of drawer . All in all good hotel but some staff need more training