We showed up to Koh Lanta with a place we reserved online and based on a friends recommendation. Through some misunderstanding.. it was closed... a travel agent in Krabi Town recommended this place, so we ended up there and left immediately the next morning. It was awful.

Negatives: Blood stains on the sheets (fresh, not washed), Staff refused to change or provide clean sheets, Rude staff - seemed almost annoyed they had tolerate guests, bad food, far from anything convenient (food, etc), dirty/uncleaned room and bathroom, overpriced

Positive: Nice beach, potential to be lovely

I have lived and traveled around the world on a budget. This was probably the worst experience I have ever had. It is one thing to have the sort of island dirt that accumulates from being near the beach and humidity. That is just par for the course in a tropical climate. However, crusty blood on the sheets, the refusal to help or provide clean sheets (or even an apology), the dirtiness, and inconvenient location of this place are accompanied by the rudest staff I have ever encountered. This time of year, most of Lanta is shut down, so a lot of people were showing up here out of shear necessity. The beach was lovely, but was hard to enjoy under the nasty conditions. DO NOT STAY HERE!!! We headed back to Krabi Town and Chan Cha Lay's cleanliness as soon as the first bus would take us!

This place not only has the rudest and most unfriendly staff, they're probably the rudest and most unfriendly people we've ever met.

We (a group of 3) travelled by minibus from Krabi to Koh Lanta. In Krabi Town, when we booked our minibus at the ferry travel agent (the agent right there when you arrive by boat) asked if we wanted to book a room at this hotel. Since we had no place to stay, we figured that the worst that could happen was that we'd stay there for one night.

Well, we ended up staying there only one night. The beach is nice there, it's a great location, the rooms are cheap but the people who run this place are so rude and unfriendly it's bizarre. It's the reason we left - we didn't want to give them any more money. (NOTE - we found that in the "Land of Smiles," many of the women in the Muslim areas of Thailand are quite unfriendly).

Stay at the slightly more expensive Lanta Marine Park View or more expensive Baan Lanta instead.

Last month my partner and I spent a week on Koh Lanta at Kantiang Bay View Resort and found the staff, in particular the management, to be unfriendly, difficult and rude.
When we arrived at the resort after a long journey from Australia we were 'greeted' by a member of staff who was seemed particularly put out by our arrival and that we had booked one of their cheaply priced bamboo huts and was only interested in trying to persuade us to upgrade to another room.
Throughout our stay we were only made to feel welcome by a couple of the staff and on the whole felt really uncomfortable. When we asked for fresh towels or toilet rolls (because the room was not cleaned once during our stay) we were made to feel that we had really put the staff out and was suprised that we were not charged extra!
We pre-booked an air conditioned bus through the resort which was to take us to the airport on our last day...only to find that the a resort management had kept our money and got one of the staff to drive us instead in an open top truck. The driver subsequently dropped us off at the ferry port instead of the airport and we then had to pay extra for a taxi the other end. When we spoke to the management both on the telephone and in person to complain they ended up shouting at us and refusing to give us our money back or help at all.
When we arrived in Thailand we paid 2200 baht to be picked up from Krabi airport and dropped at the resort. Again, a member of staff picked us up in the truck and we later found out that the resort offers a free pick up service from the pier at Ban San Lanta to all customers...so ultimately it cost us £35 to be driven from the airport to the pier...not sure that petrol in Thailand is that expensive!
However, the bay is beautiful, the rooms are good value and the food is adequate which meant we decided to stay for the duration.
A great island, but not a resort we would recommend in a hurry. The website says 'A warm welcome greets you' and this could not be further from the truth.

We stayed in the Kantiang Bay View Resort and paid Baht 2200 per night (no breakfast) for a so-called “beachfront cottage” which in fact was far away from the beach and the only panorama was the massage hut...
The once beautiful Kantiang Bay is ruined by the huge Pimalay Resort and their long ‘plastic’ boatjettie.
Kantiang Bay View Resort was one Big disappointment, everything there is wrong: Unfriendly uninterested – underpaid - staff and an arrogant manager, NO room service, a housecat sleeping (!) on the fresh bread, too loud music from the beach bar and bad food and so on. With other words a NO GO PLACE