Definitely stay away from the W. I stayed a while ago and from the reviews on TA seems like they still have a few issues.

Here is my review that I posted earlier.

I recently stayed at the W Koh Samui for 3 nights in a Tropical Oasis - and my experience is detailed below. In summary, it was a nice resort - was it worth the price, definitely not, will we be back - probably not.

The hotel stills feels very much like a work in progress with many minor details adding up. For example as we arrived very early, our retreat wasn't ready and so we opted to take a shower in the gym. The ladies shower rooms had towels and all amenities, whilst the men's had nothing - no towels, no soap etc etc. Also, housekeeping wasn't able to service our retreat until about 4-5pm each day even though we were out most of that time. No welcome amenities were provided - not even a letter!

The retreat was nicely appointed but as others have mentioned there is very minimal privacy as anyone in the main building or hillside retreats can look into your pool/bathroom - i did catch a couple enjoying a nice bath together

I read a comment from a reviewer wishing that the private pools were heated, and i remember that person got a lot of "heat" for that comment e.g. why would you need a heated pool in a beach resort etc. However, I can definitely agree with the person that posted that comment - with the way the retreats are laid out, the pools in the Tropical Oasis catch very minimal sun during the day and so if it rains the night before, you pretty much can't use your own pool. It happened to rain every night whilst we stayed, and so our pool was always too cold to use. Im not sure if this is the same for the other retreats.

Not once during our stay did any member of management ask us how everything was going. In terms of staff, there were a quite few highlights, but also a few lowlights but overall they were very pleasant and accommodating.

There is very minimal beach/pool side service and the beach itself is quite coarse (not the W's fault of course!). The Wave water sports facility was not yet operating.

In terms of F&B, Room Service setup was good. However, the menu is quite limited and they do encourage you to order outside of the menu (whatever/whenever) however, a request of a simple spaghetti in alfredo sauce with veggies turned into a creamy chicken curry with rice (i am not kidding!) - so perhaps more training is in order! Quality of the food though is excellent. The mo-hee-toe madness night was very good value, if i remember correctly THB750 for unlimited mohijtos for 2 hours or so...

The breakfast spread was good, however, it would have helped if on the first day there, the host could have shown us around. For example were we allowed to help ourselves to the cheese in the fridge?? Pistachio ice cream with waffles - a winner!

I felt the F&B was good value for what you got. On the other hand, mini-bar prices were outrageous.

The hotel provides a handy 3 x daily shuttle to Chaweng. It stops outside a Tops supermarket which is handy for picking up mineral water, beer etc. Also the W Store doesn't sell Panadols so make sure you pick up some from town if needed.

Now to demonstrate the little things that annoy about this hotel, I called the w/w hotline and asked where i could get some cold medicine/panadol and they said at the W store. So i literally hiked up there, and of course they didn't sell any. I then asked again at reception and was told they didn't have any anywhere. Ok fair enough. However, at a real luxury hotel, any request for panadol has been met by a guest relations manager type person asking if i am ok, do i need some hot soup, would you like an extra blanket etc. etc. - nothing of the sort here.

Internet connection was very disappointing. We were never able to connect from our Retreat, only once at The Kitchen Table. Surprisingly we were able to connect effortlessly on the beach on 2 days. I am pretty tech savvy so i know how to adjust settings, but we've had better wi-fi in the african bush. This is something the hotel should easily be able to get right.

The DVD library as mentioned in the Away Lounge (which is really just the lobby) is very very mediocre as is the "library" of books which is really just a collection of design books - Modern Toilet Designs anyone?

I think that we would have got more value for money staying at the Four Seasons resort. I'm not a regular starwood guest, so i don't expect much in terms of recognition if I were staying in a 500-room sheraton, however, this is a 70-room villa property, it would have been nice if someone, anyone acknowledged us and asked how the stay was going - doesn't really count if done whilst getting into the van to head back to the airport.

I think i've covered most parts of our stay. As you can tell im somewhat disappointed, I wouldn't say that it was a complete disaster, but i expected so much more - even though i don't think my expectations were too high.