Sam P. Goodman

The Le Meridien is actually wrapping up a residential development at the southern edge of their property. It consists of about 12-18 villas that are being sold (starting at about $1million USD if I remember correctly from the sales book in the back of the hotel car). Other than being visible as you walk to Rim Lay, they aren't that noticable.

The new resort to the north is probably a 10-15 minute walk. It's set back and fairly low profile so not too noticeable. It didn't really seem to affect us, it was more the idea that our beach wasn't as exclusive as it used to be.

Mai Khao Lak is about a mile north and looks fairly large with a main hotel building (4-5 stories) along the back and several villas closer to the beach. I think signs said they were slated for a November 2012 opening, but I'm guessing late 2013.

Thunderroad

Good to know! Thanks, SPG.

ExpatSomchai

Hi can anyone recommend any companies for transport from HKT to Le Meridien for a family of 4?

aphro

Yes, Khun (Mrs) Ao at Khao Lak taxi. Speaks great English. She may drive for you herself, or her other driver is also very pleasant and kind. http://www.khaolaktaxi.com/

ExpatSomchai

Kop Khun Kap

flying18

Question for those of you that have stayed in a villa be it spa, pool, or ocean. Is wireless available in these rooms? How is the connection?

PresRDC

There is wireless and it is not great. When I was there, there was a business meeting and the Internet didn't work. I had to use the terminal at the check in desk to check in for our flight from HKT to BKK.

Sam P. Goodman

Our lagoon villa had its own wireless router so signal was excellent. When we stayed in a room in the main building, signal was so weak we couldn't get it. I had read a comment by management on TripAdvisor that they were working on improving their wifi signals.

buylowsellhigh

The taxi mafia charges $1500 for HKT-Le Meridien and pretty much everyone screams at you as you walk out of the airport... And LM hotel offers airport pickup for 2k. We took the taxi mafia for convenience, and going back to HKT we found a local taxi service to take us back.

buylowsellhigh

Just completed a 5 night stay at LM Khao Lak. The hotel is away from the hustle and bustle of Phuket, although one can argue that you can find similar places on phuket island. The hotel, environment and staff were top notch, probably one of the better SPG properties I stayed at.

The location is relatively remote, beach is fairly nice, although there were many signs saying "jellyfish danger, do not enter the water".

Because nothing is really within walking distance, I'd recommend renting scooters.... 350baht from hotel, or u can take the shuttle service to town and rent there for a little less.

We did similan island day tour, elephant trek, and river canoeing. One of the days was to scooter around exploring the local area. The hotel does offer tours (contracted thru local tour companies), but it will be cheaper to book the tours from one of the many tour operators in khao lak town.

I stayed in a standard room on the 3rd floor and there was zero wifi.... But it was fine because I created a wifi hotspot with the laptop for the assorted wireless devices we had. The internet speed wasn't all that great though, but I didn't expect it to be being in such a remote area.

Food at the hotel was great, but the price is around 500% higher than the surrounding restaurants. For example, one pad thai dish is around 300 baht, but at a local restaurant near the hotel, it was 60 baht. We dined at the hotel for dinner once, and the rest of the meals were either at the surrounding beaches, or at the "local" type restaurants.

I didn't use the spa/massage facilitiess because pricing was at least 1-2k baht per hour, whereas the local type places in town are maybe 300-350baht.

Overall, great SPG resort to vacation at, or in my case, a great place to do c&p redemption from my business travels.

jpdx

I know, tastes differ, but I stayed at this place three times in the last 8 months, for a total of 2.5 weeks, and I would argue that food is its greatest downfall. Most of what we had was borderline, clearly not on par with the rest of the experience. We had a beautiful oceanfront pool villa, greatly enjoyed spa services, but the food was uninspired.

We ate at the pool bar, oceanfront restaurant, Italian restaurant, and Thai restaurant, and had lots and lots of room service. There were a couple of dishes that were truly unacceptable, including a guacamole that so far past its prime that even the property's stray dog didn't touch it and calamari that were mostly onion rings fried in some foul smelling oil. The food at the oceanfront restaurant and Italian restaurant was ok, but not memorable. I was especially surprised by the limited selection and the blandness of their Thai food.

Room service was laughable. Virtually all our orders were delivered wrong. This was especially the case with substitutions -- pizza with no cheese took three attempts (yes, it sounds strange, but my wife is lactose intolerant); salads with ad-ons (olives) came without add-ons, and also without some of the listed ingredients (just lettuce and tomato). But the problems also extended to regular items listed on the menu. We ordered waffles with Nutella and vanilla sauce, got waffles with two kinds of jam. Ordered the fitness breakfast (white egg omelette), got a regular English breakfast (with bacon etc). Most bizarrely, we ordered a main dinner course with a side of mashed potatoes, and got the main course along with a flatbread sandwich with some kind of salmon/crab/mayo (which I think wasn't even listed on the menu).

The restaurants are run very poorly -- too many staff standing around, wanting to take your orders within a minute of sitting down and yanking your plates away the very second you put down your fork. On the other hand, they get flustered easily when there's an influx of guests; staff don't seem to have assigned tables, but everyone runs all over and long waits can ensue. Order accuracy isn't great in the restaurants either; there were several instances where we ordered fried rice with shrimps and it came with pork, etc.

I obviously like the place, otherwise I wouldn't keep coming back, but I would say the food is a problem. It's more significant during low season, when the adjacent oceanfront shacks are closed and activity in Khao Lak town slows down. At the same time, due to low occupancy, the hotel's restaurants go on a limited schedule; the Thai place may only be open twice a week, the Italian place twice a week, and Liliwadee has buffets on the remaining nights. After a week you really wish you could have something else, which runs counter to the whole idea of a resort, which should not have you wishing you could leave.

Land-of-Miles

I think this is a bit harsh. Whilst the organisation at the property was somewhat haphazard we had no issue with food qualty or prices in the resort however some of the service was less than stellar. We ate in every restaurant except the buffet one and found each relatively enjoyable. We loved the variety on offer and found the quality high (and we can be quite picky). During our 5 night stay we only ate out of the property once and that was a lght snack in town.

bizaro86

This is a great property, but I definitely agree with the prior poster that the food service is by far the worst element. We found the service during breakfast sorely lacking, and the food at the other restaurants was only average. I actually think the local restaurants on the beach are a huge portion of what makes the hotel. They were better (imo) and dramatically cheaper.

forumpersona999

I love breakfast at LM Khao Lak but will agree that lunch and dinner at any of their outlets has been very inconsistent.

The solution (for me) has been to have a car/scooter at my disposal and drive 5 km down the road to the JW Marriott Resort to eat ^ and keep providing feedback to the LM about issues encountered there.

They had good Thai and Japanese food there and my 5 out of 5 visits there were great.

Land-of-Miles

Service here is a problem as I agreed, but the food itself was fine and at typical resort hotel prices. Mrs LoM and I are relatively picky so we must have had a very different experience to you. To be fair we visited at a relatively quiet time so I can imagine it could get a lot worse at peak times. We were thinking about booking a villa at LMKL over Xmas and will probably now rethink.

I actually thought that the breakfast service at Baan Thai was about the best food service we encountered here. Ultimately in Thailand I expect a degree of service related issues (This is Thailand) but I would agree at the price some of the service should have been better. I still had no real issue with food quality however.