I just came back from Conrad Koh Samui, so would like to share some thoughts with you. First of all Koh Samui is a beautiful place with excellent views: sea, green mountains, rocks/islands in the sea. Conrad is overlooking five islands and distant mountains. Perhaps that's one of the most beautiful views in Koh Samui, especially being up on the hills.

If you are beach lovers, you will be hugely disappointed. My wife who didn't know where are we heading due to wedding anniversary surprise, asked in the taxi if there is going to be a nice beach out there. I said no and could see small disappointment on her face at that time but once we arrived to Conrad, she understood there is not point for the beach. We've been to many (luxury) hotels and destinations but that one was certainly one of the most romantic that my wife didn't want to leave (it was even better than our honeymoon stay at Likuliku Fiji). That's also the only hotel she said she would love to come back.

I arranged airport transfers with the hotel. THB 2,950 (€70) for one way transfer is definitely far from being cheap, especially in Thailand. Conrad has their own mercedes limos in which 45mins transfer is a pure pleasure.

Accommodation consists of standalone villas that are built to offer maximum privacy. 65sqm have been well planned and offer a good size bedroom with seating area and working desk, while the bathroom is huge with round bathtub. Both bedroom and bathroom share the same beautiful view and both have sliding doors. Outdoor area has 2 sun loungers, swimming pool and seating/dining area. The only thing I would prefer is daybed instead of loungers. In villa entertainment has been narrowed to use of Mac Mini. You can watch video on demand (free), youtube, channels or connect your usb device with some media. Mac Mini works also for WiFi access. Internet was working good, stable and fast. You can't check your current bill on the screen though which is rather disappointment. We stayed in villa 206 and it offered a very good privacy with walking distance to Zest / swimming pool / beach.

We ate at Conrad restaurants. Zest is where the breakfast, lunch and dinner is being served. It's a typical all day international restaurant where all in villa orders are coming from. We found the breakfast to be excellent with little well prepared things exposed on the shelves. Their home made olives were very good. There was a thai live cooking station, so you could get some noodles, pasta with prawns. Egg station with waffles. Good choice of breads and desserts. Seating outside, enjoying the views and sound of waves while eating breakfast was wonderful. Breakfast is free for Gold and Diamond. Although you have to sign the bill, it will be waived. If paying, it costs THB 1250.

I don't know if the menu in Zest changes for dinner but we went on our checkout day for a lunch there and the menu was exactly the same as the in villa one. The food options can be limited to some after few days at Conrad. Price wise expect to pay THB 400-600 for a starter; THB 600-1200 for a main course and THB 150 for a dessert. I can recommend stir fried duck with veggies and pineapples which is a bit spicy. Chili snapper was not good to me, though I like spicy food there was definitely something too much here to appreciate the delicacy of this fish. Seabass was okay, nothing to rave about. Both caprese and nicoise salads were very good; although greek salad was just okay. Grilled asparagus salad was good. Spinach soup was mediocre, while Tom Yum soup was good but I ate better. The desserts at Zest were great disappointment to us and we tried them most. Even the coconut brulee was not as classy as the one at Jahn...

Jahn on the other hand is offering Thai cuisine prepared to the highest standards. We were delighted with the quality and the way everything was served. We ate lobster salad (very good); chicken lemongrass (excellent); lamb (good but blunt knife for this dish); lobster in green curry with lemongrass rice and young veggies (perhaps the best dish I ever ate); coconut brulee (excellent); trio banana (so so). For a 3 course order with 2 bottles of water and Moet champagne we paid THB 15,000 (€360) although more than half of the price here was champagne at THB 8,300 (€200). So the food was really worth the money.

Alcohol prices at Conrad are definitely steep. For the cheapest bottle of wine expect to pay THB 2,500 (€60); while the cheapest champagne was THB 5,700 if I am not mistaken + 17% so THB 6700.

We didn't eat at Azure as we felt there is no reason to seat in front of the swimming pool, having such a beautiful villa with outdoor pool.

The SPA hasn't been opened yet. It is scheduled to be opened next week. You can take in villa massage though. We took one 90mins deep sleep massage and one 60min power hour. You can ask to have it either inside or outside of your villa. Inside they will close the curtains to make an atmosphere and light up some fragrance; while outside you can hear the sound of waves. Hard choice but I liked the outside version better.

I have mixed feeling about the service in the hotel. Normally at restaurants it was faultless although when you call a front desk, you sometimes get a feeling like they know how to reply to standard questions and nothing more. We arrived in the evening and I was trying to make a use of in villa dining for the first time. It was 10:30 PM. Unfortunately the telephones are not working. There are different services listed under 1-5 buttons but when you press them, call doesn't go through. I took my mobile phone and called the Conrad number. To my surprise the call doesn't go through either. I thought great, we are in the middle of nowhere without being able to reach the front desk. I went out and catch the buggy driver, so he arranged for an engineer who didn't speak one word in english. Fine, he investigated a bit, made few calls and showed that I have to press 0 to reach the front desk. Great but by that time it was 11:30 PM, so in villa options are restricted to 24 hour short listed menu... I placed an order for 2 items and after 20mins they called me back to say they don't have one dish, so I ordered a different one. I got this two food items delivered at 1 AM. I must say that during the normal operational hours between 7 AM and 11 PM the in villa service was pretty fast but outside this hours it was a disaster that needs to be improved. Also whatever you need you have to press "0" and they will connect you to SPA, in villa dining, housekeeping. So inconvenient.

Overall great property, built on the hills that's why you need a buggy to get around, at least we had to when going to Jahn. As someone said it's great property now but it needs time to get some lush greenery. They also need to work on improving their service and... language skills. My suggestion would also be to wake up early. Seriously. We woke up once at 6:45 AM and it was the best and longest day for us. Problem is that at 6:30 PM it is completely dark outside, so when you go to Jahn or Zest you can't appreciate the views anymore. So wake up early and enjoy the views, folks!