Flying Lawyer

I am currently staying at this property on Free Resort Nights. I got preupgraded first to a Discovery Suite, than to a Induldge Suite and at the end of the day to one of these villas with a small pool. Nothing to complain about (the gifted horse). The villa I am in lacks some privacy, beside this, great value for money.

My first impression says, the LM is nicer albeit by far bigger.

Flying Lawyer

And a bit of the second and third impression: As others said, the condition of the construction (I am working for construction industry) is amazingly bad for such a new property. The greens are well maintained, however, I have seen much better gardening in Thailand. The staff appears to be a bit W-ish and certainly not as authentic as in other places. The view towards Phuket town is a bit mediocre. The food outlets are nice, however, the Panasian Restaurant cannot substitute a real Thai placce. The walks in the resort can be pretty steep (and I am used to walking) and even in December you feel what you are doing. The pools at the sala villa are 0,8 meters deep, so do not dream about swimming

Astronomer

Stayed at this hotel for four nights in the first week of January. It was a family trip that happened to include my birthday. Overall, I think this a great resort if you are looking for some quiet family time. I would certainly come here again. Apologies for the length of the review.

Details:

Airport Pick Up – The hotel had emailed me well in advance of my stay offering options for hotel pick up. I believe the options were Toyota Camry, Mercedes E Class and Toyota Commuter. Since we were a group of four we selected the Toyota Commuter for around THB2900. Driver was waiting for us at the airport and took care of all the bags. ^

Check In – The resort has a semi open-air reception, which actually goes very well with the resort feel of the hotel. We had booked two superior rooms on cash and points, which turned out to be a pretty good deal. (I am an SPG Platinum). Upon check-in I was told that one of the rooms had been upgraded to a One Bedroom Suite while the other one was a standard superior room. He also mentioned that connecting rooms were not available. It’s peak tourist season so I was grateful that atleast one room had been upgraded. ^
At this point I was also told that only one room (or two people) would be eligible for complimentary breakfast – while this is as per the rules, I found it a little odd because at all my other stays at SPG hotels, I ‘ve always been given complimentary breakfast. However, this was fixed the next morning by the Front Office manager. ^

Rooms – We were taken to our rooms by the hotel buggy. As it turns out the superior room and the one bedroom suite were connecting rooms – effectively making it a two bedroom suite. ^^ The one bedroom suite had its own living room with a small bathroom. The bedrooms were very nice and large. All three rooms had a balcony with spectacular views. Certainly worth coming back for. ^

Food/Restaurants – During our stay we were able to sample Seasonal Tastes (breakfast), EEST (dinner), Prego (dinner) and room service (dinner). Breakfast was fairly decent with a good choice of food – included thai/oriental, continental etc.
EEST and Prego were a disaster. Food choices and taste were average at best. At EEST we noticed atleast two tables around us return food as it wasn’t good. The menu tried to do too many things without doing anything well – included Thai, Chinese, Indonesian etc. but had a very limited selection. Taste, as mentioned, was average at best. Certainly not worth the money!
Prego, Italian restaurant, was worse. Very very average food.

This resort is located in a fairly secluded area. You can’t really walk to restaurants outside for dinner. I think good restaurants would have been a really good source of revenue for the property. The restaurants really let down what is otherwise a fantastic resort.

Pools – The resort has three pools (that I saw). The pools are all mid sized infinity pools with good views of the sea. The pools never felt particularly crowded even though the resort was full. All the pools had a bar beside it with Prego pool having a swim up bar. ^

Other – The hotel is located on a cliff so it is a fair bit of uphill walk to get to the rooms. However, there is a buggy service and they are usually pretty good and arrive within a few minutes.
Staff at the hotel were very friendly overall - as is usually the case in Thailand.
The hotel staff brought a small birthday cake up to my room on my birthday which was much appreciated ^

Overall, I feel this is a great resort, certainly worthy of another stay. Its best feature is peace and quiet and beautiful rooms with sea views. The only let down is the quality of food in the restaurants.

Having said that, this hotel is not for you if you are looking for beaches and nightlife – the active side of Phuket

StationaryTraveller

The Westin Siray Bay Resort & Spa

Stay Period - 2011.5.8 ~ 2011.5.13
Room - Discovery Suite & Indulge Suite

- Good room condition & Nice view ^
- Fantastic hotel garden ^^
- Small but beautiful swimming pool ^^
- Difficult to Moving around this hotel was built on a hill
- Platinum Benefit is a breakfast and Happy Hour
- Free shuttle bus to Phuket Town
- Good food
- Starwood Privilege Card (F&B card) is available ^

Starwood Privilege Card
The fee varies by country. Valid for 1 year


Approximately 100 photos and the reviews written in Korean
To see the reviews you need a very fast internet speeds

The Westin Siray Bay Resort & Spa - Discovery Suite & Indulge Suite

3rdworldresident

now i'm staying here.

a worse stay ever for me.

no suite upgrade, so i decided to take the lowest room type on the main wing myself.

no notes notified me about platinum benefits. no greeting notes from the GM too.

overall service is so-so.

rooms & facilities are getting worse too. the beach is not swimable.

the breakfast is quite good though.

personally i don't want to stay here again but with the limited choices of starwood hotels in phuket, i have to... (i truly hope that starwood will add more choices to phuket soon.)

i'll leave this property tomorrow to naka island. hope everything there are much better than here.

starpoint_galaxy

The problem (above) is that you were at the resort during the very busy Chinese New Year period when the resort was at near 100% occupancy. This is unusual, and most hotels in Thailand in the Phuket area were also at very high occupancy for the Chinese New Year (Phuket has become a very busy destination for Chinese from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, etc).

If you come back to the Westin Siray Bay later in Feb; you will more-then-likely get an upgrade and much better service.

I've stayed at this resort many times (over 70 nights) and was there for Chinese New Year, and I did not expect or get an upgrade, and was lucky just to get a room, as the resort was 100% full; but because I am a repeat guest, they staff did manage to find a room for me for a night. I am both a Plat and a CEM guest, and did not get/except any upgrade as upgrades are based on availability and with the resort at around 100% occupancy for the Chinese New Year holidays, that is to be expected.

This is a great resort, and that is why it was full at 100% during those holidays! I think the team did great considering how busy they were!

Hats off!

3rdworldresident

honestly, for me, it's not because of not being upgraded to a suite, it was the way the treated their customers.

i truly understand that it was almost full, it's chinese new year period, no suite upgrade is fine for me (actually i decided to take lowest room on the main wing instead of the deluxe room on the prego wing myself)

the point is the service, the facility, room, etc. are getting worse. that's why i said i dont want to stay there again.

anyway i'll be there again for sure until the new choices will be added to phuket.

Shuttle-Bored

We were also staying at the Westin Siray Bay last week. Your experience and view on the staff is quite different to mine....

• On arrival, check in was a zoo - plenty of staff in evidence, just not much action. And nobody manning the SPG desk.
• Breakfast was a chaotic mess on our first morning - a sea of uncleared tables, long waits for food, and a general air of disorganisation
• Even in evenings where the restaurants were quiet, we had delays on food, wine arriving after starters, missing cutlery, etc.
• Basic simple requests required at least 3 attempts to explain them
• I got 3 calls within 24 hours to check our stay was ok. Two of them within 60 minutes.

The list goes on....

As others have noted, the upkeep of this property doesn't seem to be a priority. Our suite showed fairly heavy wear and tear - which was a common theme throughout the hotel. Broken items didn't seem to be repaired - for example the glass divider between our pool section and next door was missing.

There were a few gems on the staff, who actually genuinely seemed to care for their guests. The spa was rather pleasant.

Having had a very enjoyable stay about 150 miles down the coast at the Westin Langkawi, we'd hoped this would be a similar experience - sadly, this hotel isn't deserving of the Westin badge, and certainly should be a star or two down in its rating.

ginkoka

Agree with the above posters that service standards need fixing. Unfortunately, it seems like the attitude needs fixing at the top, judging from the defensive/unrepentant replies posted by the hotel managers at tripadvisor

RAPC

Having stayed at the hotel in August when it was quiet, the same issues could be seen back then. Service standards were low (but there are some great staff there) and there were numerous issues with the upkeep of the rooms and public areas. It looks like things have not improved since then.

During our stay what was noticeable was the lack of any public presence of management from what we saw. It is especially lacking in the restaurants where the staff are very much lacking direction. Not the fault of the staff there, but the management who need to give them clear direction and support.

mecabq

I agree that the property is so-so. Front desk service was poor -- it took forever to check in, with overzealous but less-than-professional agent going on and on and on, even though it was obvious (and I also said so) that I had been flying overnight and was eager to get on with it.

The main pool area is probably the best feature, with a few different attractive infinity pools and several semi-private seating areas that provide a bit of seclusion. Though the pools were filthy -- there was a layer of sand on the bench, for example, and the water was too cloudy. Also the jacuzzi was not hot.

Room was so-so. I was upgraded at Platinum to an "elevation suite," with the bedroom and decent bathroom downstairs, and a spiral staircase to a fairly useless sitting room upstairs. Both levels had balconies with nice views and comfortable lounge furniture. I asked about an upgrade to a pool sala (and would have been willing to pay), but they were unavailable the first night, though offered the second night.

The main restaurant lunch, which I enjoyed both days, was pretty good. I had thai food, my companions had western food, and it was all solid. We had a few bottles of wine, which were good quality and price by local standards. They also have some inventive cocktails. Small things took forever -- they didn't bring water refills, a cigar ashtray, or matches despite repeated requests, eventually saying that they didn't have any matches. They said that they ran out, inexplicably. (I don't know why the general manager wouldn't run to 7-11 and buy a box of lighters, but I guess that's not the normal problem solving approach that we find in this part of the world.) One enterprising waitress eventually produced a cigar torch lighter, however, on the second day. The main dinner restaurant/lounge was closed both nights of my stay for private events. Breakfast was average, with no local dishes at all and only a basic fruit selection.

The beach is really poor. There is no drink service, and it's not really possible to walk into the water without shoes.

Buggy service and bell service overall were excellent. Every time I called, the buggy arrived within five minutes.

As others have mentioned, the location in Phuket is not great. There are not really places to walk from the hotel. Each night for dinner, I took a taxi for half an hour to a different neighborhood.

Overall, I would rate this hotel pretty solid value for money (the room was about $200 -- though taxis to the airport or to an interesting dinner spot run in the $25 range minimum so that added $75 per day to the cost), and OK if you want to just lounge around the hotel for the most part. But there are many better options on the island.

Eastside

I agree 100%. I am now in the hotel.
Every day the best is the happy hour from 17:30-19:30 on the splash pool bar wiith free drinks for PLT.
Forget the rest... Singapore is waiting

starpoint_galaxy

Just stayed at this property again (in route from Bangkok to Phuket to Krabi back to Phuket and on to Bali); stayed two nights at the Westin Siray Bay (again).

We found the service to be excellent; but I have had ongoing problems with the resort's limo contractor.

I also had problem with the LAN cable in my room; which was a simple LAN connector problem but four staff were unable to solve it after hours of work.

Other than that, the suite assigned was beautiful and the room was nice with a spectacular view. The service from check-in to check-out was outstanding even though the resort was very busy (but I can see how non-Platinum or CEM members might not have the same experience).

This is one of our favorite properties; but we have a long term relationship with the staff here and stayed here for a few months during "soft opening"; so we are lucky.

On the other hand, I did leave my car here for over a month (while traveling to other SW properties in Thailand), and frankly most SW properties take quite good car of our car; starting the engine once a week or so to keep the battery in good shape. For the first time, this was not the case as the Westin Siray Bay and we had to spend $100 USD for a new battery when we returned to the property.

Chaiwattpin

Now I've been stayed at Westin Siray Bay Resort,Phuket.
Re visited : 3rd time for me&family
Peroid : July
Room : Superior Seaveiw rooms
Pros and Good experience in this resort
1.Good Location with Panoramic sea view nearly 180 degree.
2.Friendliness ,polite and helpful front reservation staff :
3.Well-treated and respect our platinum recoqnitions :
Benefits : Room upgraded to Indulge suite for 2 rooms
Happy hours about 06.00-07.30 pm
High speed internet ,so smooth and rapidly.
4.Variety of Buffet breakfast and Drinks@Taste restaurant where you can see panoramic seaview easily.
5.Great Happy Hours :
-Open-air location /Live songs from the local musical band/ Unlimited non-alcoholic and alcholic drinks/ Well-trained and friendliness bartenders.
6.Best Heavenly spa for relax : Well-trained therapist and aromatic atmosphere@Heavenly spa.
Cons and Bad experience in this resort.
1.Not easily to walk around the resort, on the hill.However it has a small car"tuktuk" and shuttle golf cart transfer.

Tips : Great and valuable resort to spend the times for relax in Phuket area.

3rdworldresident

back here again and quite surprised by a bit improvement.

got discovery suite upgrade which is nice.

most of staffs are nice and helpful.

breakfast still great.

finally this place is back on my to-go list again.