Stayed over xmas .Lovely place, staff, views etc. Beach a little rocky in front of hotel but no problems. Xmas gala meal and drinks expensive. Lovely relaxing trip.

My husband and I stayed at this resort for four nights. We had booked in advance as the pictures looked nice enough but when we were pulling in (there were a bunch of us in a taxi) everyone looked horrified! There was a dump (seriously, a garbage dump!) at the enterance and there was a hotel. We were a bit relieved as we saw the bungalows that we had booked but they messed up our reservation and we had to stay in that hotel for one night. It was full of cockroaches and flies everywhere! I didn't dare sleep in the bed!
The bungalow was old and not that great, tv was not working that great and the air conditioning was poor.
The pool and food were okay but the beach was not the best and it was the worse place we stayed in our months trip!

(this review is from the point of view of a year long budget traveller)

We booked this resort in advance, and only choose it because it was the only place with availability for xmas.

The resort itself is nice, we paid 1000 baht for the building rooms, which were spacious and clean, with hot water and a/c, but i think holiday makers (rather than backpackers) would find the room a bit basic. There were also a few bugs, mosquitos got in quite easily.

There were individual detached villa style rooms, which i'm sure would be much nicer, though obviously more money!

The grounds were nice and well kept.

There was a good sized pool, with enough deck chairs, and also 3 open style beach huts which were nice to sit in.

The restaurant had a good menu at reasonable prices.

We had no problems with reception, but we saw quite a few people complaining that looked a bit frustrated with the staff's response.

The main downside to this resort is its location.

It is based on the rocky, unswimmable Khlong Khong beach, which is a good 20 mins car ride away from the main beaches of Khlong Dao and Phra-Ae. There is very little to do near by and you feel isolated. Though it only costs 30 baht to go to the main beaches by tuk tuk.

If i came to Koh Lanta again, i would definutley stay on Khlong Dao beach, as this is where most of the hotels and restaurants are.

Koh Lanta is a very spaced out, 'open' island, and we missed the village feel of places such as Krabi and Phuket, were you can wander to places easily. To get the most out of Koh Lanta you need to hire a motor bike, which is very cheap to do.

This is the worst place I have ever stayed in my life!

Looked nice enough - right on the beach front, nice pool etc.
Problem came when we were shown to our room. It was along a very dark and rather grim looking corridor, the hotel was build about 25 years ago, and nothing has been done in those 25 years to upkeep it.

The room was missing basics like towels and toilet rolls and the shower was broken – when I asked staff for the items they acted as though I was really putting them out, which I found very unusual as from my few weeks in Thailand I’d stayed in a number of places from basic beach bungalows to posh spa hotels and they’d all been really helpful and friendly.

When we came back to our room in the evening however we got a nasty surprise. Every cockroach in the area seemed to be in our room - climbing through the rather dated dirty curtains and coming out of the ceiling. By then it was 10pm and no one was around on reception. The room was so disgusting there was no way we could spend the night there. We explained to a security guard, who called someone up. I assume this was a duty manager type, he didn’t seem to think it was a big deal sleeping in a room full of cockroaches and gave us a spray (which was useless), by 2am he finally showed us to another room on the upper floor – equally grotty but not as many cockroaches. We check out at 7am the next day, without any kind of apology from the staff and had to argue to get a refund on the money we’d paid for the next night.

Do not stay in the is hotel, it is grim, dirty, depressing and the staff are rude and seem to know nothing about customer service.
They rely on people staying there as Lanta is such a popular place but make no effort with the upkeep or service.