We had the opportunity to stay in ShaSa Resort for a week. It is a boutique resort with only about 30 odd apartment units. It has 1 main pool, 1 smaller pool and an adult only pool which is fairly small. The location of the resort is about 40 minutes from the airport. It is situated in a hill slope surrounded by lush green tropical trees; away from the main road.

We booked a 3 bedroom deluxe apartment; and the apartment was huge. The master bedroom came with an en-suite bathroom and an excellent view of the ocean. The apartment is very functional and has all the utilities and equipment to make your stay very comfortable and relaxing; a home away from home. The living room has a huge flat screen TV with DVD player, iPod docking station with speakers, huge sofa and chaise lounge. The kitchen has all the utensils and cutlery necessary for any in-house cooking. The apartment also comes with a washing machine and dryer. Each apartment has a balcony which is fronting the sea. It also offers a wide collection of DVDs, books and magazines that you can easily borrow from the reception.

All the staffs were very friendly and warm; very typical of Thai hospitality. And because of the small number of apartments and guests, the staff will get to know you easily thus making your stay very personalized. While we were there, we noticed that the majority of the guests were families with younger children, even though there were 1 or 2 young couples which we suspect were honeymooners.

It has an on-site spa and massage service which we had the opportunity to sample. The service was good and the staffs were friendly. The prices of the services were obviously more expensive than outside. But we were lucky since during our stay, they were running promotions for some of their services at a discounted price.

Though we had an excellent and relaxing time staying in the resort, we would like to highlight a few concerns.

1) The location of the resort is too far away from the main town center. There are no shops or restaurants within reasonable walking distance; as a result, you end up dining at the in-house restaurant. Do not be mistaken, the in-house restaurant called ‘Beyond The Sea’ is an excellent restaurant renowned for fine dining. It is open to both in-house and outside guests. It offers both Thai and internationalal carte menu. But after having dined in the same restaurant for several nights continuously, it will naturally start to lose its appeal. And as you would have guessed, the prices are also reflective of its fine dining status.

2) The beach where the resort is situated is rocky, with huge pebbles and rocks. We did not try swimming in the beach and did not notice any of the guests swimming either. Even though the staffs mentioned that it is possible to swim if we walk about 100m towards the right side of the beach, we did not find such a location.

3) The resort provides free shuttle to Lamai and Chaweng twice a day, albeit limited number of seats. So, advanced booking is essential. However, the free shuttle only operates a ONE way service, meaning you would have to find your own way back to the resort, be it pre-booking with the resort (for a fee of course) or with public taxis (approx. THB600 returning from Chaweng). It would have been better if they provided return service as well. Since the minivan that takes your into town will eventually return back to the resort empty.

4) Another concern, though not major, more of an annoyance is the Wi-Fi connection. The resort provides free Wi-Fi connection which is a good thing. But unfortunately, for some reason the connection is always broken. You will need to carry around with you the user ID and password to login each time your device goes into power saving mode. Why the need to authenticate each and every time? Most Wi-Fi connections only require one time authentication. They should look into this and improve the Wi-Fi service.

All in all, it is a nice boutique resort where one can enjoy a relaxing stay but unfortunately, it is too far away from the town center. And for the price you pay, we are sure that there are other 5 star resorts closer to the town center; so as not to be confined just within the resort itself. The last thing you want is to dine in the same restaurant during the entire time of your holiday and not being able to easily walk out of the resort to enjoy the local atmosphere whilst having to pay for transport each time you need to go out to town (or back for that matter).

This is our second stay at ShaSa and the only things that have changed are for the better. When it just opened the breakfast was not great and we left a note to their GM. Well this stay it shows they have really listened the breakfast was enjoyable each and every day. The location is not ideal if you want to go out shopping, but most things are a 400THB ride away in a taxi. Which is cheap enough if you only want to go out every other night. We arranged a great private chef to come and teach us to cook and prepare great food as well as a nanny for most of our stay in Thailand (highly recommend both).

My two things to improve before we come back again (they listened last time):
Great kids club, but staff need to be more involved. They try to operate on a schedule and won't let the kids use paint, or pencils unless it is the scheduled time. Please fix this small thing and even charge me for the equipment if this is a concern, but with so many great nanny's in Thailand the kids club could be much better utilized as room is great size and set up really well. This aspect is a great benefit and would receive rave review if done properly.

The coffee. It's good, but could be better. Velvet smooth milk over froth and learn all the different types and even have an extensive menu. People love their coffee!