Red Ginger Chic Resort

Red Ginger is an excellent choice for anyone staying in Krabi. It has an excellent location just a bit off the main drag and close to several restaurants, a grocery store and the main beach. The room was quite nice and mine had direct access to the pool -- which was a nice surprise. The pool was quite large as well -- great for an afternoon cool off swim. There was plenty of room for clothes in the wardrobe as well as a big table and chair. The buffet breakfast hit all the basic food groups with an omelet bar, cereal, yogurt, a selection of Asian dishes, pastries, etc. The staff were always helpful and positive. Basically a quality hotel and a great value compared to vacation towns in the USA and certainly Europe.

This hotel, in my opinion, is not a 4 star property. It is tired and feels old. It desperately needs to undergo a period of modernisation. At the least, it requires a good deep clean. There is no visible management and the staff are generally inattentive and seem uncaring. There are no porters to help bring luggage from the roadside into the hotel and then to the room. Our room, supposedly a ‘superior’ double overlooking the pool, was tired and aged with poor lighting. The hard bed was on a platform that could be dangerous clambering on and off in darkness at night. The toilet and shower was tiny and in fairly poor condition. For breakfast, the restaurant was staffed with inattentive personnel who wandered around picking up the odd used plate and relaying a table here and there. Quite often there would be a line to use the single toaster. The coffee machines sometimes worked correctly. The bacon, when available, was fried hard. We did not care to sample the other cooked food on offer. There is no table service, it is a buffet. Poolside, there are not enough sun beds and no one seems to care that guests reserve a lounger (with a towel) for hours without use. During our 9 days at Red Ginger, I never witnessed anyone checking the condition of the water in the pool. In fact the water looked decidedly cloudy by the end of our stay. Unsurprisingly, as there had been 2 foam parties in it at various times. The poolside towel station is no longer in use for towels but serves as a dumping ground for bits of equipment. Pool towels are refreshed by the room cleaners. When we checked out, nobody asked us about our stay or enquired if we enjoyed it. Had we not paid in advance we would have moved hotel after the first night. We will not be returning are Ginger Chic resort.