Santhiya Resort and Spa

About the hotel:
Great hotel. We had a super view from our room. Breakfast was excellent. Staff very friendly and always at your service. The beach at the hotel was not very good but just a few steps away around the corner you reach a nice beach. Pool terrific. This hotel I would like to return to.

About the reservation service:
Excellent as always.

About the hotel:
Amazing and relaxing luxurious hotel, making you feel as being in paradise from the first minute you arrive there. Stayed in Santhiya Garden Villa Suite for 4 nights in April, 2009. There is nothing negative we could find about this hotel. Villas look gorgeous, all of them new, spacious, made of carved teak wood, with really LARGE verandas (there were 2 sun beds with a small table, normal dining table with 2 chairs and a large bathtub on ours). Almost all walls of the villa feature large windows from the floor to the ceiling, which can be easily closed by the curtains if you look for 100% privacy (though rich rain forest trees and flowers around your villa will provide enough privacy to keep the windows open). The wooden roof of the villa covers only the part of the veranda so if you are afraid of getting burned with sun ask for a large beach umbrella and hotel staff will easily provide it in shortest time). All in-room facilities were excellent: starting from cosy cambric bathrobes and slippers embroiden with golden elephants and ending with a variety of elegant glasses in the bar. Service was very nice, all staff friendly and trying to be as helpful as possible. We were impressed with the welcome and check-in procedure. The hotel is large, its villas are situated on different heights of mountain hill but don’t be afraid of exhausting climbing up/down as there are many wooden-decorated hotel cars available upon call from your room or near the reception which will give you a drive as many times per day as you may need (free of charge). The private beach of Santhiya is very good though if you look for a really airy sand – walk through the rocks (1 minute) to the nearby beach. If you want to swim in the deep water – do it on the hotel beach, if you prefer walking for 20-30 meters in shallow water – the neighbor beach would be your choice. Closer to the left side of the private beach of the hotel (side of the speedboat pier) there is a nice coral reef with different fish and underwater habitants so do not miss the opportunity to snorkel there. We are not the swimming pool fans but the pool in Santhiya is the most excited infiniti pool I’ve ever seen in reality or on the pictures. It’s a great pleasure either to relax in jacuzzi section or massage your back and shoulders under the streams of the waterfall. What is very important – they use high quality cleaning system so no clorine can be felt in the smell of your skin or swimming suit. We didn’t try Santhiya’s restaurants because of their high prices and were very happy about many dining facilities on the nearby beach (you can eat in any of them and won’t be disappointed). Still, the breakfast at Santhiya was very good, serving not only European but also Thai food. In general, we were more than satisfied with the hotel which even exceeded our expectations. We took the special room rate at Sawadee.com (our room cost us around 172 USD/night with breakfast and all taxes) and consider that there hardly could be possible to find better alternative on all Samui group islands for the period of our stay.

About the reservation service:
Everything was clear and secure. All our comments were passed to the hotel authority.

About the hotel:
Absolutely fantastic! We have nothing to add. Beautiful rooms, luxurious, beautiful resort, nice place to stay. Great breakfast, beach, level of service provided. We loved the place and we recommend it to everyone who needs the luxurious accommodation for a reasonable price. Thanks to Sawadee and a special hotel offer (buy 6 pay 4 nights) we paid less than 50% of the normal rate. The only con was the price of the food in the restaurant, which equals to the European level. However the quality was more than corresponding. We had there the best Pad Thai noodles ever. Most of the time we ate in restaurants on the beach next to the hotel resort as the prices were on the level as you are used to in Thailand. We recommend this hotel and we would love to come back again.

About the reservation service:
great as always

About the hotel:
We had a PERFEKT stay really relaxing and fantastic facilities on the whole resort. We enjoyed the golf cars taking us to and from our room (just press 0 on the phone and the golf car is there instantly). We loved the evening walks on the nearby Thong Noi Pan beach, with is calm and cool/trendy bars dinner places. We DEFENTNENTLY WILL BE BACK... Love from Michael & Diana, Copenhagen DK.

About the reservation service:
Sawadee.com fast and safe way to book.

About the hotel:
Magnifique, exceptionnel à tous points de vue. Beauté des paysages, gentillesse du personnel, la plage, la magnifique piscine. Un endroit magique. On a déjà envie d y revenir.

About the reservation service:
Parfait comme d habitude

About the hotel:
What a fantastic resort! Stretched over a vast area with wild and tamed green nature. The main pool with a 10m waterfall is a dream. All employees where extremely friendly, helpfull and polite. The Villas are tastefully furnished and well equipped with sizeable outside bathrooms. Enjoyable breakfast – good food (good western food!) Food more expensive than other restaurants on the next beach but, you pay for service and quality. Golfcar transport service (to the gym, beach or to the restaurant) works perfectly. Tip. Make sure you arrive at samui airport before 12noon to get on the 1330 speedboat to the resort. Any later and you have to wait till 1630.

About the reservation service:
fast and efficient

About the hotel:
Santhiya is a very nice resort in a beautiful landscape. Rooms: We stayed 9 nights in the villa suite. They are available with indoor and outdoor bathroom. We had first the outdoor version and changed it after a week into the indoor one. For a few days it is a nice experience, but if you are sensitive to bugs, heat, or rain, better choose the other version. The rooms are nicely designed and decorated. The cleanliness is very good. Management & staff: like everywhere in Thailand every employee is very friendly and smiles all the time. Unfortunately this is sometimes their only competence. For a 5 star resort it happens very often that you recieve answers like sorry, i don t know, I have to check paired with a sincere smile when asking even simple questions. But that terrible inefficiency seems to be normal in Thailand. We experienced that even in American Hotels like the Millenium Hilton in Bangkok. If you have crucial questions better ask one of the managers. F&B: The food in both restaurants is very good and compared to western countries reasonably priced. Due to the fact that wages in Thailand are 90% lower than in some western countries, we did not unterstand why the food is only 10-20% cheaper than in Europe. That s the reasons why most of the guests visit after a couple of days only the restaurants outside the resort at the beach, where prices are 50% lower. Due to the fact that Santhiya offers NO bar that is opened in the evening it is necessary to leave the resort anyways, when you are not willing to spend the time after dinner only in your room. Overall impression: All in all Santhiaya is perfect for honeymooners and couples looking for silence and privacy. If you are interested in meeting other people or even entertainment, you probably get bored pretty soon. But for relaxation and some sort of luxury away from the cheep and crowded bars of koh samui, Santhiya is probably one of the best places in south east Thailand.

About the hotel:
Excellent! The best place to stay at tong nan Pan beach! Not cheap but the price is worth it! We ve had a seaview villa with an extra bathtub on the veranda. All roooms and villas are very beautiful, some have their own pool. the staff is extremly friendly, food excellent. they have a private beach but it takes just minutes to walk to the bars and restaurants on the main beach

About the hotel:
Nice Resort. You have to call a golf car each time you want to move around. Prices are very high compare to the places on the next beach but service is not comparable. Quite dificult to escape from the resort to the next beach, you have to climb some rocks and you need a torch at night.

About the hotel:
We stayed for three nights at peak-peak-peak season, and experienced extremes - both good and bad. Good: the room was great, the views lovely, the staff friendly, the food excellent (50 - 100% more expensive than the food down the beach, but worth it), the pool very nice, the facilities well-maintained. No problem with our bill. Bad: Extremely poor management. Gossip is that they have to keep replacing their managers. Only one waiter seemed to be able to understand English, and had to explain things to the other waiters like where the napkins and ashtrays were kept. Getting to the place was no problem and check-in was fine, but then we waited (and called three different people) for over 2 hours to get our luggage! Check-out was fine, but trying to get back to Koh Samui was dreadful: the boat was to leave at 1:30, but a group of tourists paid them to do an extra run just for them - leaving at 12:50! It s 40+ minutes either way, and we didn t leave until 2:50, some tourists trying to catch a 4:00 plane! That whole 90-minute period was fraught; each staff person we asked had a different story: The boat s coming in 10 minutes, 30 minutes, has to refuel, coming in 15 minutes. The problems seem to be that the owner (in competition with his brother who owns the 20-year-old resort down the beach) is just too greedy; they continue to build and build, and some guests had really questionable charges to their rooms. The other problem is that the staff are all stuck in a dorm and work long hours, so they quit and have to constantly be replaced. Having said all this, we did enjoy our time, and like the idea of an independently run resort. But they need to do some research into how chains run their hotels and develop a staff training program which includes basic English, promptness, and honesty.

About the reservation service:
No problems - very efficient!