Santhiya Resort and Spa, Kohphangan hotels Thailand

*Reviews of recent stays*	*Comment on the hotel*	*The reservation service*
Nataliia and Oleksandr Globenko 2009-04-22	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi 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.	Everything was clear and secure. All our comments were passed to the hotel authority.
pamela molnarova 2008-09-11	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi 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.	great as always
Michael Rasmussen 2008-08-03 until 2008-08-10	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi 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.	Sawadee.com fast and safe way to book.
Grassagliata 2008-07-28 until 2008-08-05	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi 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.	Parfait comme d habitude
per & lisa 2008-05-09 until 2008-05-15	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi 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.	fast and efficient
F & J 2008-04-19 until 2008-04-28	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi 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.
Martin Haas 2007-09-09 until 2007-09-18	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi 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
FEDERICO ESTEBAN LUNA 2007-07-09 until 2007-07-16	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi 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.
Peter J. Collins 2007-01-02 until 2007-01-05	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi 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.	No problems - very efficient!
Oliver Goggi 2006-12-24 until 2006-12-28	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi Really lovely place. Beautiful hotel rooms with lovely view, loads of amazing woodwork in every building, There is a private beach which is okay, and an amazing, though inexplicably cold swimming pool. Food was great at breakfast, but the lunch and evening restaurant food fell a little short for me. Like everywhere it seems in Thailand, there is building work going on in the background, but it didn t really affect our time there. Staff are great, and golf buggies a nice touch.	Good
Brian Smith 2006-09-11 until 2006-09-12	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi The Santhiya is under construction and will be a lovely hotel in a year or so, but avoid if possible for the time being. Bad start to the trip, but we went with the flow and went to the ferry dock got the local backpacker’s boat over, were greeted by a lovely truck at Kho Pangan after our speed boat was “not available due to mechanical failure”. Then hellishly jostled shaken and stirred for the next 50 minutes on dilapidated roads with giant fissures from heavy rains. After complaining about the trip, the manager upgraded our room to ocean view and it was quite nice, elegant and cozy. The pool is new and doesn’t have enough mature foliage yet, but it is quite massive and fun to be in. Be careful of all the rough boulders around the edges! Not a kid friendly pool. The beach is terrible on your feet, but could be OK for swimming once in, but you’ll need to bring water shoes. Many couples seemed to be enjoying the kayaks. On the return, they rustled up a boat for hire and we were taken back to Kho Samui directly. What a difference it made! You’re looking at just shy an hour vs. two the other way. Wouldn’t recommend or stay at this hotel again. Could be fun if you want isolation, a rugged beach, and privacy. The TV was huge, by the way. The pool villas looked especially gorgeous. Oh, don’t bother with the front desk at night. We called at 3:30 to get mosquito repellent or coils or something and no one ever answered.	Fine, but make sure you really want to stay where you book as the first night is absolutely non-refundable.
Laura Dowsing 2006-07-28 until 2006-08-02	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi The hotel is beautiful with stunning views over one of the nicest beaches on the island. However I can not reccomend the hotel because it has lots of problems that really do need addressing and quick. We checked in at the end of July taking advantage of the soft opening promotion- pay for 3 nights and get 2 free. We arrived to find that the hotel was nowhere near finished with building work going on everywhere (including in the room under ours) and not sceduled to be finished til December 2006!However we didn t let this bother us too much as we were there to enjoy Koh Phangnan and not sit around the hotel all day. The main problem at the hotel was the service (or distinct lack of it!). The staff didn t seem to have a clue what they were doing at all. There seemed to be no decent management and nobody around who knew how to run a hotel. Breakfast was cold 5 days in a row, you were left waiting for ages at reception even though there were about 4 staff working and trying to get a golf buggy up to the room was near impossible! It was a joke and if the hotel wants to charge £300 per night for their best villa (which may I add is on the side of the road) they need to sort it out. The icing on the cake came on check out when the receptionist insisted that we pay for a snickers bar out of the mini bar even though we hadn t had it. We explained that we hadn t had it and even though we had spent alot of money at the hotel the receptionist could not let this one snickers bar go. It took her half an hour of ringing various chamber maids before rather rudely she knocked it off the bill. What a joke!The hotel is at the end of the same beach as the Panviman and if you are looking for a decent hotel in the area I would definatelly opt for the Panviman over the Santhiya! If only I can be a fly on the wall when this hotel gets a few more guests. They are not going to know what hits them.	No problems we ve used this service two years running and had no problems at all.
Ron Sculatti 2006-07-07 until 2006-07-09	Santhiya Resort and Spa, Thong Nai Pan Noi after resort was only open 8 days, we had it to ourselves. our bungalow was 104 and we were in heaven. the teak structure was impeccible, very romantic, esp. the outdoor bathtub on the deck. the staff, GM Arfan, Sao, and the spa staff all were very courteous and to be cherished. Massages were perfect, esp. the Thai massages. the meal service was slow, considering the occupancy rate being so low. also the bar service at the pool was virtually non-existent. loved the pools tho,and the beach needs some sand brought in. overall experience was fabulous, can t wait to return, and I m a travel agent... thank you for a very romantic holiday, should be considered for the ideal honeymoon.	great