My husband, our seven month old daughter, and I stayed at the Phi Phi Cabana hotel for three nights at the end of October/beginning of November 2008. I booked through an external website and got a room for around $AU110 per night. I based our decision to stay here on the fact that it is rated third on Phi Phi Island on Trip Advisor, the top two being at the top of the island and inaccessible by anything other than a long boat. There are no cars/taxis/tuk tuks on the island, so we wanted everything to be within walking distance. Below is my summary of the hotel:
Location:
The hotel is located about a 2 minute walk from the pier. There are people there to meet you when you get off the ferry to cart your luggage to the hotel. Staff also took our luggage back down to the pier when we left. The hotel fronts Ton Sai Bay (where the pier is, and a stack of other boats, so don’t even think about swimming in this area). The hotel also backs the quiet end of Loh Dalam Bay. Yes, it is affected by tides, so if you want to go swimming at low tide, expect to have to walk a bit to get to the water! The hotel end of Loh Dalam Bay I found to be beautiful and great for a paddle. Everything else is within a few minutes walk – shops, tour organisers, restaurants, local market etc, so that wasn’t a problem. We didn’t go for the bar scene so don’t know how far away that was sorry!
Check in / staff
We had no problems with check in – it was fast and efficient. The staff spoke enough English for us to be able to communicate without any problems. Checkout was as equally fast and efficient. They even securely stored our bags for the few hours we had to wait for our ferry in the afternoon. Despite having checked out, we hung around the pool until our ferry came and used the bathrooms by the pool – staff didn’t have an issue with this. In general, we found the staff to be very friendly. They always said hello / have a nice day etc to us as we were leaving for the day, and always greeted us as we returned.
Room:
Our room was located on the second floor and over looked the pool, Loh Dalam Bay, and the mountains behind. The rooms are not your modern décor fancy hotel room, but they are clean, cool, and do the job. We didn’t have a problem with the cleaning staff whilst we were there – the rubbish was always collected, and towels and sheets replaced/folded etc. There are no lifts to get to the top floors, but there are rooms on the bottom floor if you have problems with multiple steps. We had a pram with us for our daughter, and didn’t mind the steps. The bathroom is small, and the shower water did taste odd, but we learnt the first time and kept our mouth shut whilst showering! You are given two bottles of water each day (all the shops sell bottled water should you require additional water). We had a few issues with our room: firstly, our door lock wasn’t working when we got there, and even after two hours of maintenance trying to fix it, they wouldn’t give us another room (which made us rather cross mainly because we had been travelling for around 20 hours at this stage just to get there, and were cranky and tired to start with). It did eventually get fixed, and we didn’t have another problem with it. The other issue we had was our kettle which we used to boil water to wash our daughter’s bottles – it was flaking this white indescribable stuff. We didn’t bother asking for another kettle though. The bed was comfortable enough, no complaints there. If anything, the pillows were too big, but that is just a personal thing.
Food:
Buffet breakfast was included in our room rate, so we ate there every morning. The range isn’t enormous, but certainly big enough. There is an egg station, cereal, six or so bay maries containing a variety of hot food (ham, sausages, bacon, French toast, pancakes, noodles/rice etc), a variety of fruit, a couple of juices, meats/cheeses, and a range of breads. We were always there early because of our daughter, so never had a problem with bugs or the warmth of the food. We personally found breakfast great. Other than breakfast, we didn’t eat at the hotel as there is an abundance of much cheaper places to eat. Turn left out of the front of the hotel, and head back to the pier. Turn left at the road that intersects at the pier and you will walk down through a market stall kind of area with shops selling clothing etc. About half way down on the left behind these clothing stalls is an open air restaurant that is cheap and fast on service. It isn’t as flash as many of the other restaurants, but the food is great, servings huge, and it is cheaper than others around (I can’t remember the name sorry – it is recognisable by its walls which have comments written all over them!). The staff at this place even took our daughter and looked after her whilst we ate. They also do take away if you just want to veg in your room for the night (or, like us, have small children who don’t cope well with being out every night). The staff here didn’t speak English all that well, but we managed, and if worse comes to worse, just point to the dish in the menu that you want.
Tours:
We didn’t do any tours because of our daughter. We did walk to the “lookout” / “viewpoint” which is not a long walk in distance, but is steep and up several hundred steps, so don’t do it in the middle of the day like we did! The view is worth it though. You can pick up a map from any of the dive shops, and it will point you in the general direction of the viewpoint. Take lots of water and your camera. For those wanting to do tours, there are heaps of tour shops around, as well as people in the street offering a tour – you can’t go twenty metres without being offered a tour.
Pool:
The pool is fantastic – it has a children’s pool (around 60cm deep), and then the main pool – which is large, cool and over looks the bay (around 1.3m deep in one section, and 1.7m deep in another). There are inflatable toys/rings/lilos etc floating around that have probably been left by previous guests that are great for floating around the pool. We never had a problem getting a sun lounge, though if you want one that is on the bay side of the pool, get in early as they were the first to go. You do have to sign towels in and out each time you get them, but that wasn’t an issue to us (the towel table is right next to the pool) – and, if people return them when they have finished with them, there shouldn’t be excess towels lying around on the lounges anyway. We brought our own food and drinks down to the pool, so can’t comment on the pool side service. I read a review of someone complaining about the rubbish around the pool – firstly, I didn’t notice any, and secondly, there are bins around, so if people put their own rubbish in a bin, that wouldn’t be a problem.
We had a great time on Phi Phi, and at this hotel. If you are after a great big brand new modern American/Asian chain resort, this is not it, and you won’t find one on Phi Phi, so I suggest you stay elsewhere. It was perfect for a relaxing few days, and I wouldn’t hesitate to go back. We had no major problems, and no real complaints. If you have any further questions, including about travelling with a baby, please feel free to contact me.
Just a few things - be careful of the white tiles around the hotel when it has been raining - they are very slippery when wet! Also, if you a vegemite addict, bring your own from home.
Relax, and I hope enjoy your holiday!
