We stayed at the Phuket Beach Le Meridien for 4 nights in early November. Considering the price, service, food, accommodations and inconvenience, I would not recommend this hotel to anyone.

We had "deluxe" ocean view room on the 6th floor. The only thing deluxe about it would appear to be the price. Our curtains were smeared with a red substance that might have been blood but we didn't touch to find out. The sheets were dirty, stained and apparently unchanged. Our AC unit had two levels - blowing full blast or ceasing to operate. The cleaning staff seemed disinclined to remove used glasses and replace them with new cups. The bed, while not as horrific as those found in Sheraton Krabi (a pit of epic proportions), felt like a piece of plywood with some foam taped to the top.

With the resort so far removed from any town, you are forced to use the hotels shuttles or car service. So if you want a decent meal you can drop $20 total for a round trip to Karon or Kata. Otherwise, you're stuck in the hotel eating highly overpriced food that's decent but not nearly on the level of anything at say Mom Tri's restaurants. I guess the remote nature of the resort sort of forces visitors to determine if it's worthwhile to pay a king's ransom to leave or pay a king's ransom to eat at the hotel. We paid more for a dinner at the resort than we did at Mom Tri's boathouse restaurant (one of Phukets best restaurants)...there's something so very wrong about that.

Room service has a minimum order of almost $20. And that includes their silly 10% gratuity too. So really there's no way to get a decent, reasonably priced Thai meal at the "resort." Seeing 350+ baht for even the most basic Thai dish, made my stomach churn. How could we find an entire meal at May Kadee in Bangkok for under 250 baht (two people, two dishes, shakes, dessert, water) but this places charges more than that for just a fried rice that's half as good? Don't even get me started on their joke breakfast options - pay obscene amounts to eat at a buffet ($20 in Thailand for a buffet is ludicrous) or order in your room. We opted for the room service by our third morning as we saw zero value in paying $40+ to stand in lines for food.

Service jumped from good to appalling. The staff at times seemed on top of things and at other times they couldn't find their butt with a map, picture and mirror. The staff couldn't find our reso for hours - even though we booked through SPG over-the-phone and had a confirmation number. Heck, they even had us down for an airport pickup, but couldn't find our booked nights. Flipside, when we asked for help with resos at various restaurants, they were quite helpful.

The only extremely positive thing about the location - they have a great Scuba diving company located right on the grounds. Sea Fun was exceptional the days we used them for diving and they stood out as the absolute best experience during our stay at Le Meridien. Mom Tri's runs a close second for our entire Phuket trip.

Lastly, the place is absolutely over-run with kids. Egad, their are children everywhere. This wasn't as bad as Ao Nang (what happened to the gorgeous, secluded, fun beach I visited for weeks in 1999?!) but this place is definitely a hot destination for european families.

Anyway, Le Meridien seemed run down, overpriced, too-remote and really not worthy of being called a 4 star resort. I wouldn't stay there again if the price were half as much.