Beautiful beach location. Helpful, friendly staff.Pool area and restaurant are very good. Large, clean rooms with excellent views.Airport transfers convenient and reasonable priced.
This was our third stay at this resort, which we thoroughly enjoyed, as always. Shuttle bus to town is welcome because this is a fairly secluded location.

Hey Gang...just stayed here for three weeks and was really happy. It's definitely a great place for a great price. I especially love how the breakfasts are situated right next to the beach so we can hear the waves roll in the morning. Thats something you cant do at home or even most beach hotels.

What I learned is that this building was originally built to be a private beach front community with condos sold. It didn't sell as well as anticipated, so they just transformed it to a hotel instead. When I found this out, it definitely made more sense why the rooms were so spacious and well situated.

The staff was really nice and friendly. The breakfast buffet was excellent. Very high in things to choose and quality. Exotic fruits, strong coffee, cereals, yogurts, sausage, eggs to your choice made fresh, juices, etc...all of it was very good.

The other thing was its location. For me, it was perfectly situated away from the hustle and bustle of town. Slightly remote without the Mosquitos and bug bites. It was a great place to relax and escape from the over hyped scene like Patong.

Anyway...I would definitely come back. For half the price, you get more than you'd expect.

My husband and I stayed here for a week with our 9 month old baby and it was perfect having two separate bedrooms for naptimes and separate rooms for more privacy. The condo comes with a kitchen, however the appliances and cutlery are not in the unit and you have to ask for them individually. Also, no microwave. We ended up eating out or bringing food back to our room the whole time anyway though.
If you are looking for a central location in the middle of the tourist area....then this hotel is not for you. However, if you are looking for a secluded and beautiful location with incredible views of the water and mountains....then this could be it. The hotel sits right on the beach and we had views of the Bid Buddha across the Bay. The pool is shaded most of the day and for me that was a bonus because I have very fair skin and wanted to avoid sunburn. The beach is a tidal beach so 1/2 the day it is all rocks exposed at low tide and then at high tide it is sandy.
It is difficult to rate this hotel because it really is extremely nice but we left feeling that it could be so much more if only they fixed a few small issues. 1st, the staff do not speak English well at all so we had a very difficult time communicating our needs. We have stayed in many hotels and hostels across the globe where they spoke no English at all and we are fine with the fact that not all the world must speak our language....but this hotel is trying to cater to the International crowd and so its staff should really speak English. 2nd, the resturant food is ok, but the portion sizes are meager considering the high prices. We ended up eating there only 2 times and then going to the beach bar resturants down the beach the rest of the week as the food was incredible and the cost was literally 1/4 what it was at our hotel. (For our first week in Phuket we stayed in Karon Beach and so we had prices to compare this place to....although they are not ridiculous by Western standards...they are not in line with normal Thai/Phuket food prices).
The 3rd problem was internet/wi-fi connection. It continually dropped out and they kept changing the code multiple times a day so we kept having to call the front desk to try to get the code again...however because their English was not so good we always had to physically go to the front desk to get them to give it to us.
Overall we also found that the level of hospitality and feeling of welcoming was just not the same here as it was at other places we have experienced in Thailand. We are not sure why that would be....maybe it had to do with the communication difficulties.
Despite all of these issues, we still really enjoyed our stay and the saving grace for us was the fact that we could get great and inexpensive food from the beach bars next door. We would definately stay here again, however, we were also quite glad that for the 1st week of our 2 week holiday we were able to experience the touristy side of Phuket in Karon Beach and enjoyed the nicer beaches for swimming over there.
If you do stay at By the Sea, made sure you don't miss the Phuket Night Market. Many great deals and interesting foods are available. If you want to buy Western style groceries, you can take the free hotel shuttle to the mall and get food at the supermarket.