In previous trips to Koh Samui I chose options other than Conrad in part because of brand recognition.  Conrad KS is usually more expensive than other hotel brands which are often considered a notch above the Conrad brand, so I was skeptical about the value of Conrad KS at their price point.  This year for a change I tried Conrad to expand my horizons and I realized the mistake I made in the past: Conrad is well worth the price premium over other options and is in fact closer to a Waldorf Astoria than a typical Conrad.  I can highly recommend this property as one of the best resorts in the Hilton portfolio anywhere in the world.

Location

Location is possibly not the strong point of the hotel depending on what travelers are looking for.  One main attraction of Koh Samui is the Chaweng area but Conrad is at the opposite end of the island, approximately a 45-minute drive away so realistically people staying at Conrad will not go to Chaweng on a daily basis.  However for people looking for a quiet vacation then Conrad will be a good fit because of the remote area (and a dead end) so the only people on the hotel grounds are guests.  

Room

For many five-star hotels in KS, if booking the entry level room you have a sea view, a private pool, but not both.  Conrad is one of the few where you get both (at least partial sea view for standard rooms) which means many times to evaluate price we need to align Conrad’s basic rooms to competitors’ premium rooms for an apples to apples comparison.  This also means that for people booking with points in times of high occupancy, we don’t need to worry about the potential lack of upgrade: we will get the same excellent villa with private pool, the only difference is that without an upgrade the view will not be as good but it will be a sea view nonetheless.  There were concerns in the recent past on FT that Conrad had cut the number of rooms available for points redemptions.  The hotel informed me that the entry level room type is for villas #101 to #120 so they still have one quarter of their 80 rooms available for standard point awards which cannot be compared to Conrad Bora Bora which is very hard to book with points because they only have two standard rooms.  This is not the case in Koh Samui.

These days Conrad KS obviously does not have high occupancy and as a first-time Diamond guest they were not stingy with the upgrade: out of five room categories of 1-bedroom villas (excluding the Royal), we received the highest category which is the Infinity Pool Villa.  Those are villas #308-316 on the resort map.

The hardware of the villa was superb.  The room had high tech features such as Bose surround sound system in the living room, AirPlay to connect Apple devices to the TV, and there was a second TV in front of the bathtub.  Because the resort is looking straight west, all villas have perfect sunset views from the terrace and from inside the villa, in fact we could even have sea views from the large shower because of its glass wall.  

The privacy of the villa was quite good with walls on both sides of our pool and neighbors were not particularly close.  We had villa #313 so on one side the neighbor was a bit far because there was some greenery between our villas, and on the other side the neighbor was closer but even if climbing above our wall we still could not really see their terrace well.  

The only direction where guests can be a bit exposed is from above.  I could see part of the pools of the villas below us; considering that the Infinity Pool Villas are on a higher row of the resort, we did not have many neighbors higher than us.  The only villas higher than the 300 series are the Conrad Residences (2-bdr); these people could potentially see us but only if we were standing at the edge of our pool, not from our terrace.  So bottom line I would score our villa about 90% for privacy so not perfect but close to it.

The private pool was 10m long so it cannot be compared to the small plunge pool of other hotels: the one at Conrad was long enough to be swimmable.  

I would also note that because the resort is on a very steep hill, there are almost no stagnant water sources on the hotel grounds which means mosquitoes were not an issue, unlike some resorts in KS which are on flatter terrain.  

Conrad had an extensive pillow menu with 13 choices which helped us have great sleep not to mention the powerful air conditioning which worked great during our stay.

Dining

I had previously read that breakfast was so-so considering a hotel of this caliber but based on our stay I was positively surprised.  I care far more about quality rather than quantity and Conrad’s buffet met my needs.  It is not as huge as some mega-resorts but it had sufficient variety with at least 5 hot dishes every day.  In addition I believe in the past their breakfast was perhaps too western-oriented but during our stay there were several Asian options available such as a curry dish, sweet and sour chicken, stir fried noodles, congee, black pepper stir fried pork, plus the fact that they changed choices every morning to avoid repetition, and it was in addition to the noodle soup station.  To go along the buffet there was also a small a la carte menu mostly for eggs.  All in all breakfast was not a weakness of this hotel and I was quite satisfied, in addition to the venue which was lovely with the outdoor seating and the sea views.  

Service

Service was flawless from A to Z, starting from the e-mail exchange before arrival and the hotel calling me proactively at 11am to inform me when we were staying at InterContinental Koh Samui that we could move over to Conrad because our room was ready.  Once arrived at the resort everybody was friendly and helpful and there were lots of little details that showed the hotel goes above and beyond.  The most notable was probably the personalized teddy bear gift for our babymoon trip – so sweet!  But we can also mention the hotel branded colorful face masks instead of generic surgical masks given by other hotels, and the Valentine’s Day fruit bowl gift including sparkling rosé.  There were several other small thoughtful details for example the coconuts and even the toilet paper rolls were marked Conrad KS.  The bathroom amenities were the standard Shanghai Tang found in other Conrads, available in dispenser bottles.  However they told me that for Diamond guests they also bring an extra tray of amenities, one geared for women (TempleSpa) and one for men (Refinery).  I guess those amenities are also available at some other Conrads upon request but it’s nice that they bring them proactively in KS.  We also received drinks vouchers as another Diamond benefit.  Finally on Valentine’s Day there was a wedding at the hotel and we had a fireworks show at 10pm over the sea for all hotel guests to enjoy from their villa.  I guess it’s not something done on a regular basis but it shows once again the service orientation of the hotel for the newly weds.  As if all of this was not sufficient, upon check-out we received even more gifts, we especially enjoyed our polo shirts!  How generous of them.  Last but not least, we could have had 4pm late check-out if we wanted which was offered proactively.

Common Areas

Because of our fantastic villa and its large private pool, we did not use the hotel main pool; we simply went there to take a look.  The pool was nice and was just a few steps above the beach so guests could enjoy views from that area.  The beach down below the pool was not the strong point of the hotel; that side of the island has seaweeds and is therefore affected by the same issue that we noticed at InterContinental nearby.  Consequently beach lovers will find the Chaweng area to be preferable, although I believe Conrad can bring guests to an offsite beach by boat for people who desire.  The beach bar and the other bar next the Azure restaurant were both inviting like many other common areas of the resort.  I would also note they have a kids club; I do not think Conrad is a resort overly focused on families with young children so I would have no problem recommending Conrad for couples, but for people with kids at least Conrad will be a decent option.  Another common area worth mentioning is “Botanikka” near the lobby where the hotel grows their own organic herbs for use in the kitchen.  The venue is also used as a coffee shop and for guests to try their Kombucha.

Wifi

Wifi worked well but oddly download speed 10-15 Mbps was significantly inferior than upload speed 30-50 Mbps.  

Overall

Overall I was very pleased with our stay at Conrad KS and we will return.  The cash rates are normally higher than Ritz Carlton for example, and as much as I like RC KS who took great care of us last year in April when just about every other hotel was closing at the height of the covid fears, Conrad cannot be compared to RC in any way shape or form because RC’s entry level rooms have no sea view and no pool, and even the most expensive categories of villas to which they often generously upgrade to, those do not have the same level of privacy as villas at Conrad and the RC private pool is far smaller as well.  In my experience Conrad can be better compared with Banyan Tree especially if matching the top categories of 1-bdr villas at both resorts.  The Hillcrest Pool Villa we had at BT last year was in some ways better than Conrad because it was on the very top of the hill with no neighbors above us, therefore privacy was perfect and it had more real estate space outdoors whereas Conrad has the terrace and the pool but no yard space.  However, overall Conrad still beats BT in my opinion (besides beach and perhaps location) because the entry level rooms at BT are in the valley (no views).  I have top tier status at Accor but another issue of BT KS is that this property generally does not upgrade guests because they do not participate in the Accor program; I only received an upgrade there as a goodwill gesture on their part and obviously I did not earn points from the stay.  Unlike BT, Conrad can be a decent points redemption option, normally 95k pts but temporarily as low as 75k pts post covid which is competitive with Cape Fahn (SLH) which can be booked via Hyatt, and also a more attractive points option than W and Vana Belle (Luxury Collection) on the Marriott side.