Do not stay or dive here unless…. you are a non-discerning teenage partygoer, preferably one who smokes and has multiple tattoos and piercings, who is content with diving/learning to dive with a mediocre dive facility during the day and then partying into the wee hours of the night. If not particular about lodging or one who takes diving or safety very seriously, you will be fine here but it definitely wasn’t for us (me and my husband). We came to Ban’s to do several recreational dives (or “fun dives” as they are referred to here) but had such a bad experience with our room and first dive that we cancelled our remaining pre-paid dives and lodging, loosing money in the process in cancel fees. The irritable female staff member who assisted us was curt, rude and visibly indifferent about our experience or the reputation of Bans. Our “deluxe” room, #65, had a leaky A/C unit that dripped onto the floor and into the closet. The water caused a stinky mold growth on the ceiling and left the wood around the unit to warp rendering the closet door inoperable. The bathroom facet was broken and the fan, connected to the bathroom light, sounded like a WWII air raid siren (I’m going to the toilet - duck and cover!) Two single beds, pushed together to make a double, were situated about 2 feet away from the wall with a very awkward configuration of an unusable table and upside down lamp behind the headboard area. At first I figured the designer was just a dimwit but later realized they had attempted to make a singles room into a double for us. The in-room safe was closed and had to be reset by maintenance, and the TV had blaring static on most channels. Outside we were treated to noisy construction. At night we were serenaded with thumping bass noise from the resort’s restaurant/bar until 2am. The second day we changed rooms only to have dripping water from the A/C unit serve as an in-room waterfall which had to have a trash can placed underneath it at all times in order to avoid an in-room swimming pool. Although somewhat organized, in their own way, with a pleasant staff member running the dive shop; overall the dive operation left much to be desired> In summary there were at least 50+ people on the dive boat, an old, run down two-story contraption not easily accessed from the pier, the gear was heavily worn and the dive masters, many of which chain smoked when not in the water, seemed more concerned about joking around and discussing their drunken antics, than assisting divers and maintaining decorum. Despite bad dive conditions, obviously no fault of Ban’s, my female dive master wasted half the dive in an area with no visibility until we turned around and headed to an area with abundant sea life. Only one male dive master who assisted me on the surface (Anthony I believe) seemed to be concerned about the divers and conditions. Not a good dive experience to say the least. Do some research and pick a smaller, more reputable “professional” dive operation if you are going to Ko Tao for serious diving and don't want the party crowd and poor accomodations.

We decided to stay here because it looked very good at first sight. Unfortunately, there turned out to be many drawbacks:

- Dirty bed : we took the better roomtype of 2000 baht (got it for 1800 because i did a couple of dives). Paying 1800 baht makes you expect clean beds, but ours was full of stains (the cotton was even hard/stiff). At first we thought the sheets were just a bit worn down, but upon closer examination, on our second day, the stains turned out to be semen stains. So we'd be sleeping in a dirty bed. It took us some talking to the staff to get it cleaned. The staff was unfriendly. No sorry, no excuses, nothing..

- noise: the noise from the open air bar was really really loud. And I am even a techno / loud music lover... It went on until around 0:30 at night, so we weren't too happy about that

- overcharging: the staff tried to overcharge us when buying the boat tickets for the way back to Samui

We wanted somewhere that was on the beach and had a pool and where we could dive so Ban's ticked all of the boxes.

We asked for the nicest room they had which we were quite happy with... until the sun went down. Ban's bar was a stones throw from our room and the music was pumping until about 3am. We went down to complain and I was gobsmacked at how rude the lady was that we spoke to us. I asked that considering we were paying the highest for a room, we be moved higher up so that we could get a good night sleep. She then said 'you get what you paid for' and maybe you should just stay somewhere else because this obviously isn;t the place for you'. At that she turned around and carried on with what she was doing!!
It wasn't just her. Every member of staff there apart from one girl in the restaurant was rude and unfriendly. Quite upsetting when you are only on holiday for 3 weeks.
We couldn;t move at such short notice and we were only there for another 3 days. The next day we asked again and they reluctantly moved us 3 rooms up. I might also add - No breakfast included!

As for the pool, it is no place to go if you are not diving as it is full of learner divers. It is also as warm as bath water!

The diving itself was fun but you are crammed onto a boat - about 60 people. You have to fight for somewhere to sit in the sun!! When you do finally get in the water, you are surrounded by the 60 people you thought you had just left on the boat!! If you see a shark so did the other 60 people so its gone by the time you can get a proper look in.

AND when we had our washing done - my new bikini went missing!! Grrr

Not recommended

We arrived from the ferry about 3pm and check into the resort our rooms werent ready but as we passed the pool on the garden were 2 single beds out in the sunshine and that only minds one thing bedbugs, so we didnt think anymore about it until we woke at one am with bedbugs sharing the bed with me and my partner so luckly for us we have friends staying in the resort and stayed with them that night because their was no-one to talk to at this time of night, the girls at reception changed our rooms and did not charge for that night and washed all our clothes diving with bans was great my parnter said but for me stuck on the beach for day was a bit boring but he really enjoyed his course and had a great instructor