Great stuff, location, bad management and unsafe boat experience
Worst experience that I had in Thailand so far. The best thing in that hotel is the beach, but Maenam beach itself is great and clean, so you don’t need to stay in Santiburi to enjoy the sea and sand.
The hotel property is large and nice, so it is good for the children and the cleaning staff are nice, but other services are extremely overpriced and show no quality of 5 stars resort.
The breakfast is the same every day, no changes except the pastry, the juices don’t change too and the coffee has a bitter taste. The staff is also not so nice, they look like you bother them and I needed to ask for children spoon and cups, though the chair was already on the table.
The beach and pool bars have the same menu, which is overpriced and the food is average at best. The kids menu shows no understanding in kids needs, the chicken was grilled to ashes and it was impossible to eat. There are so many great and delicious restaurants in the area, so we never ate at the hotel anymore.
And the last but not least the management are just not qualified for their job. Some barely speak English and other just want you to pay not enjoy your vacation. We booked a boat tour for our family, because we wanted to have fun experience on traditional long tale boat. The representative of the partner-tour group Oceana saw me with one year old child, but didn’t warn be about how unsafe and even dangerous this trip will be.
The organisation was barely made. They gave us towels and put in the car, but then we came on the abandoned pier where was no room to change. The wind was getting breezy, but the way to the Pig Island was pretty ok. Then it started to rain and the wind (as it is usually in the afternoon, but again no one warned us) was really strong, so we needed to go in some small bay and wait until the weather is getting better.
It was almost 6 pm, so we wanted to return home, and on the way back we got the big waves and stark wind, my husband needed to hold as tide as he could our youngest child who cried all the way. 30 minutes we went through the waves and my husband’s back was heart. When we got to the pier, we needed to change our clothes in front of the driver in towels, because it was freezing in the car.
When we came back to the hotel, we found two apples and one orange in our room. The quantity of fruits was getting smaller every day, but this was just epic. Thailand has so many delicious fruits and the are extremely chip, but for our hotel staff it is a mystery, as I guess.
More than that, after I told the manager, that tours like that are dangerous for the small kids and they should never again try to sell it to someone with small children, I was told, that this is there partner company and the hotel is not responsible for what happens on the tour, and this all is totally my fault, because they showed me the pictures of the boat.
As you see, the management cares not about you having great experience while your vacation, nor even there guest feel safe with the products they advise you to buy, they just care about your money, nothing else. So, I can’t say, that our weekend was totally ruined, but the experience we had in Santiburi is the worst we ever had for ten years in Thailand. No way this hotel can be called “five stars”.
After such attitude from the management of the hotel we decided to leave one day earlier, then we planned before and move forward and never return to Santiburi anymore.