Khaolak Emerald Beach Resort & Spa (SHA+)

We booked our trip to Thailand late, and at the time of booking, this hotel was the only one in Khao Lak with a family room available. I mention this as after reading through the reviews on here before we left we did not have high hopes for this hotel, at least we were not disappointed! For us the main issues were: Dated rooms in need of refurbishment. In fact almost everywhere needed some work. Patchy room cleaning - several days our room was not made up until after 5pm, typically when we wanted to shower and get ready for the evening. Consequently we had dirty towels, as if you placed them in the bath for cleaning, they might very well still be there, damp and musty for when you wanted to use the shower next, so we hung them up, but then they didn’t get changed at all. We were there for 14 nights and only had our beach towels changed once. There seemed to be no logic or system as to when they might get changed. We were on the third floor (top floor) and there were no lifts. We managed, but in the heat, the option of a lift with tired children would have been welcome, if you have physical limitations you will need to request a ground floor. On one occasion we tried lunch from the cafe; savoury croissants with chips on the side, which looked like they had been refried several times and were totally inedible. We complained and they offered to bring us more, but by the time they arrived we had all finished our food and no longer wanted them. They were so obviously inedible that it felt lazy that we would even have been served them. And at regular UK coffee shop prices, it did seem particularly poor. We found the breakfast adequate, and if you searched you could find tea and hot chocolate served in jugs, but as other reviews have mentioned, it did take a long time for items to be replenished, and we ate relatively early, before 8am, it did become much busier later. The pool area was pretty but tired, with the surrounding grates needing replacement and the odd tile missing. The sun beds were tired and very uncomfortable, impossible to lay on when completely flat due to a bar across the middle. Hopefully this will be remedied with the upcoming pool refurb. Lack of poolside service, it was a long trek to get refreshments from the bigger pool, and it really felt they were missing a trick to not provide this. Dangerous kids pool, with slides from the pirate ship that fed in to deceptively deep water, and plenty of places to scrap your skin, or stub your toes on the themed areas. Unfortunately not a place you can relax and watch the kids from your sunbed. On the bright side, the beach is beautiful, and there are some lovely restaurants further along it. The location is also good, down a relatively quiet road, away from the hustle and bustle, with tourist shops and restaurants where it is very easy to grab lunch or dinner. And a 10 minute taxi ride will take you to the centre of Khao Lak with lots more restaurants and on to Bang Niang market which we loved for the bustle, shopping and street food. Would we stay here again? Not unless it was our only option! Hopefully post refurb it will improve. As an aside, for trips speak to Oil, an independent tour guide from khaolak Nature and Adventure tours, she arranged private tours tailored for us at a great price.

We spent a week here after Song Kran as a family of 4. We had requested 2 interconnecting rooms, our travel agent did warn us that this was only a request and initially we were allocated a room overlooking the hotel rubbish dump (we couldn’t open the balcony doors because of the smell) and another room 4 doors away. We were able to move after 1 night to 2 rooms opposite each other (with 2 children this is not ideal). The hotel is right on the beach and in a small village catering to tourists with restaurants/supermarket/shops etc but the rooms are quite run down and need a refurb. Breakfast was ok, although it went on till 10.30 by about 9.45 tables weren’t reset and food wasn’t replenished. We arrived on Song Kran and the beach bar staff were great with the kids - getting them into water fight and painting their faces. My child also had a basic Thai Boxing lesson in the kids club which was really good but overall we wouldn’t recommend that anyone stay here.

Stayed 3 nights at the end of a 10 night holiday in Khao Lak. We always read reviews before booking and take it with a pinch of salt. I can honestly say the bad stuff you read on here is true and I’m surprised at the so many positives after having a less than satisfactory experience. For context, this is our second time in Khao Lak. We had stayed at the TUI Blue Mai Khao Lak prior to coming here. We arrived at check in time (2pm) and could immediately see there was an issue as there was a lot of to and fro between the staff. It turns out that our beach villa was not available and we had to stay in a regular room for the first night. Without asking they immediately offered an upgrade to a beach villa with a pool and free dinner every night for our stay. Room (basic) We were put in room 2949 which faced a substation - there are no lifts and it was on the second floor. Not an issue for us but bear that in mind. It was a clean room but basic, the shower did not have hot water in the evening but did in the morning. The communal areas are not very clean. We would not have stayed more than one night as it was noisy from other guests and the substation. Restaurant (buffet dinner on the beach) Drinks service was not good, we just wanted one round of water to go with the meal. The food was mediocre and very little selection. We were there early and the ‘star’ of the night which was a large fish barbecued was just bones and not replaced at all for the time we sat there. We ate there 2 out of the 3 nights, the second night confirmed that there’s very little on offer. Breakfast Well, this was limited in our opinion but we were comparing it to the previous hotel which had a large variety. It was the same food every morning, nothing changed. The fresh sliced fruit was covered in fruit flies each time. There was only coffee no tea, limited options for children and they didn’t seem bothered about replenishing things despite having a couple more hours left of service. My child hadn’t finished a muffin and pretzel she’d put on her plate so instead of leaving it I wrapped it in tissue so she could eat it later saving it from being binned. A member of staff saw me walking across the restaurant to leave and demanded in a very loud and rude manner to see what I had in my hand, I said it was just food and he pointed to a sign saying ‘takeaway 2,000 bath’, I walked off without saying another word as I was so embarrassed by the situation. I was clearly not stealing food! Beach villa with pool Had we not been given the upgrade to include a pool, the stay would have beeb ruined. The villa, like everything else at the hotel, is dated and needs serious modernisation. The interior was ok but nothing special. The pool made it, we had unbroken sea and sunset views. However, be prepared there’s a water feature in the pool so that and the sea is what you will hear all night as the soundproofing is nonexistent. You only get chairs on the patio and two loungers, table and umbrella on the grass in front of the villa but if you don’t claim the loungers, despite them clearly being part of the villas, beachgoers will take them. We put towels on ours early morning but by 8am a group of people who had taken loungers from the beach, had cheekily taken our table, which is beyond me when clearly the table was part of the villa and not to be taken - when they went swimming in the sea I reclaimed the table!!! Beach It’s a nice enough beach, small so loungers are mainly on the garden. Their sun loungers are not in good condition and are not enough for the size of the hotel. As we were at the villa we could see people at 6am putting towels down, by 7am there were only a few loungers left. The staff could see this happening and did nothing! Positives: •the beach is okay but probably not the safest for children •beach bar •toanga coffee shop - it was the first time in Thailand I could have a decent ice cold coffee with soya milk! •the pool villa Negatives •not worth the money •uninterested staff •dated •poor food selection •aimed at East European / Russian tourists •lack of sun loungers •no decent shower facilities for those with a late flight going home •expensive bar drinks •beach towels are not replaced throughout stay There are shops and restaurants outside of the hotel, all there for the tourists so not a real Thai village. It’s very experience compared to where we had been, but caters well for Westerners looking for food that isn’t Thai - sadly my child was one of them by the end of a 10 day holiday - we paid 320 baht for pizza which is a tad on the high side. The hotel is about 10 mins away from Khao Lak centre so you can get a taxi there. We didn’t as we had done all of that before arriving at the hotel. Please save your money and go somewhere else. If with children, TUI Blue Mai Khao Lak.