I'm surprised with all the negative reviews of Ban's. My experience with Bans was similar to all my other experiences in the south of Thailand. The people there are tired of tourists and they are rude and disinterested. Ban's is no exception - and no worse than anywhere else I stayed. While at Ban's, I stayed in a budget room that was clean and acceptable for the price (1/2 off since I was in the diving school). I think the more expensive rooms are closer to the beach and bar and, therefore, are more noisy!

In my experience the hotel staff was acceptable, but certainly not accommodating. The real problem I had was at the restaurant. It was totally unacceptable!!!! The food was marginal and you honestly had to beg to get a menu or to get anyone to help you. If you managed to order, it might take 5 minutes to get your food, or it might take 1 hour. I quit eating there after my second day -- but found several of the competing restaurants to be almost as bad.

Having said all that, my experience with the dive school was very good. I had the best instructor imaginable - his name was Ronan and he was Israeli. He was fantastic!! My dives were not overcrowded and Ronan did a very good job of maximizing our time in the water and our experience while underwater.

Koh Tao, generally, is very popular as a European backpacker destination. It has cheap accommodations, very cheap diving schools and lots of drinking and having fun. If that's not what you are into, I would strongly recommend trying someplace else. I'm only 36 yrs old and I felt like an old man there :-) Of course, if you have any aversion to thousands of <25 backpacker-types, I would avoid Thailand all-together!!

Overall Koh Tau is a wonderful place but choose where to stay and/or dive very carefully. I stayed at Ban's for 2 months to complete a Divemaster course & I found the staff here to be extremely obnoxious, arrogant & very, very rude, both the Thais and the western diving instructors. Ban's completely ruined my experience of Koh Tau to be fair. I've never been as badly treated nor spoken to in such a rude manner anywhere else. Horrible place & people.

The diving at this place is top quality. I learnt there in 1995 and went back just recently to do some more diving. It is much expanded now and we booked to stay in one of their suite rooms whilst using their diving facilties. The rooms themselves are fine, hot water, air con, balcony, etc. The only problem was that the bar and restaurant at the resort is close to the suite rooms and turns into loud music-playing hang-out every night until 2.30am, pumping out base that will resonate through your bedposts and disturb, should you be trying to catch a bit of sleep after a hard day on the beach or out diving. Dive here, it's great. But if you stay here also and want to sleep at night, beware.

I can only recommend staying here if you are doing a diving course. First, because the rooms are half the cost with a course, and the discount only applies to days when you are actually doing a course. Second, because there's not much to do unless you are diving (although it seems the same goes for most of Koh Tao)!

We asked for a standard air-con room, but were upgraded to deluxe air-con for the first night. We ended up staying in the deluxe room and paid the discounted deluxe rate for the remaining nights. It was quite a nice room, and it looked almost like a villa from the outside! The room was very clean, with a mini-fridge, a safe, and lots of English TV channels. We noticed a faint sewage smell in the bathroom, but everyone else in my diving group said their standard rooms stunk of waste. Our room was fairly close to the bar/restaurant so you could hear music in our room late at night (not a bother for me, but maybe for some).

The Ban's grounds are gorgeously landscaped, with huge plants, flowers, paths, bridges, koi ponds, waterfalls and statues. The pool is always full of diving students so forget swimming there. The beach directly on the resort is quite small and not really good for swimming either. But it's a short walk on the beach to better locations, especially at night when all the bars set up on the sand. The location is central on Sai Ree Beach and is close to both peaceful and party bars and restaurants. You can even take a hilly walk to the main town in about 20 minutes, but bring a flashlight at night! There is a convenient 7-11 and ATM nearby.

The staff were largely indifferent (at best) to the guests. The restaurant staff were particularly disorganized and inconsistent. Sometimes you'd sit down and you'd have to flag someone down to finally get a menu. Or the food would be slow to come. To be fair, the service was sometimes fast but it was basic at best. Seriously, I don't think I saw one staff member smile in the five days I was at Ban's.

The diving instructors, on the other hand, seemed very knowledgeable and experienced. I was pretty assured of the quality of instruction, since Ban's is one of the biggest and oldest dive schools on the island. However, I did have the impression sometimes of being on a PADI production line. As a first time diver I wanted a big school, but I think I would go with a smaller school in the future.

Ban's Diving Resort is great ONLY if you are doing a diving course, if you are young, and you want to meet lots of people! Otherwise, I'd scout out somewhere smaller with a better beach and more balanced crowd.