yang1980

I found there is Avis car rental inside hotel? Anyone rent there?

yang1980

I will go to Krabi after spend two night at Phuket and two night at Phi Phi. Any other recommendation to go while in Krabi? Any other good island? How about Phang-Nga Bay, how far and how to get there?

ldsant

Thanks moa for providing the exact thread. I'd ask that the discussion is continued in the existing thread provided.

ldsant
*wood Moderator

yang1980

Just came back from there. The hotel is nice and new but the beach is not good at all. The sea water is dirty and I don't even want to go swim there. You should stay there no more than 2 nights if you plan your trip.

Land-of-Miles

Mrs LoM and I were married at the Sheraton Krabi so it will always be a special place for us. The recent changes were urgently required as the original swimming pool area was quite small and the restaurant choices rather limited. All that said the staff were excellent and our room was very nice (upgraded to a Seaview Suite).

All our guests were also big fans of this property. My only concern for future stays is that the normal hotel rooms were a little drab. Since the property does not have a huge number of suites, this would be a concern for upgrades for future stays. I have not seen the Zen room type but understand it offers a combination of the fresher decor in the suite in which we stayed with a ormal room layout.

We will definitely be heading back to Krabi at some point during 2008. From what I could see of other properties in Krabi, only the Sofitel bore any comparison with the Sheraton. The Sheraton Krabi is very much in the mould of relaxing beach destination and there is not a huge amount to do in the immediate surrounding area. If you want to explore Krabi then you are probably advised to hire a car (we drove from HKT then back to the Sheraton Grande Laguna in Phuket). This then gives you much more flexibility.

mileagemax

Anybody tried the new pool and restaurant at Sheraton Krabi? Any photos?

The hotel emailed me saying it was all finished. I would like to stay there again, but their rates are very high at the moment.

Seem like there are a few 5 star (or wannabe 5 star) chain hotels now in Krabi... Sheraton, Sofitel and local Thai chain hotels... Centara and Amari (just opened this month). Would love to hear any comparisons.

bgdc

We spent three days at the Sheraton Krabi in mid November and I regretted my decision to book there pretty much every day.

Check-in: quick and easy. The staff was pleasant, got us a lock box and overall they were efficient. They refused to recognize my Gold level, so that sorta got under my skin.

Room: A pit. First we booked supposedly the highest level room. Well if that's so, then the poor folks with the worst rooms must have been in hell. The overgrown Mangroves essentially have you in a gloomy forest. Why the hell don't they offer rooms with an ocean view? It's a huge property and yet it's massive hike to the sea - even though the place is oceanfront. The room featured - a broken AC unit (it had no temp control), ants, aa dirty tub and a bed so hard you could use it for ironing. The bathroom felt dirty and neglected.

Food: Forget about it. They have two full restaurants on the property. One offers buffet food at insanely out-of-whack prices and a limited ala carte menu. The other place is a ridiculous fusion joint infested with mosquitoes and staff that are eager to please a in a scary, intimidating way. Seriously, we wanted to leave but the staff would not allow it - just grinning and demanding we stay. It was like Stepford Wives meets Big Night. In room dining was decent; though we found it funny how many dishes on the menu are unavailable. Why not update the menu kids? We discovered it was better to walk off-property to the nearby restaurants. The food wasn't that great at those local locations either. Really Ao Nang was the only option. Sadly...

Location: Middle of nowhere. I'd been to Ao Nang before and loved it. That was 1999. Now in 99 Ao Nang was small, with a simple paved road and a bunch of cool little joints. Now it's overrun with tourists, kids, traffic and everybody has their hand out. It was jarring to arrive in Ao Nang and discover a Burger King smack in the middle of the main road! Luckily, the Sheraton does offer a reasonably priced shuttle service to run you from the hotel to town. Too bad the trip takes 15 minutes. Seriously, why build a hotel in the middle of nowhere? Is this just a common trait for all SPG properties in Thailand (we experienced this with the dreadful Le Meridien Phuket Beach too).

Service: They were always pleasant, arranged shuttles for us and in general got the job done.

Overall, the service was good. But the lack of dining options, cruddy room, lousy view, and out-of-the-way setting made the Krabi Resort a place I wouldn't suggest for anyone. Really, the highlight in terms of accommodations had to be the Ascott Bangkok Sathorn; now that place is nice and knows how to deck out suites, treat customers.

Land-of-Miles

I would agree that the standard rooms (and I assume this was what you had) are a little drab. The Zen rooms and the suites are however very nice.

You say the hotel did not recognise Gold, what sort of recognition do you expect? I never had much recognition as a Gold. The property only has 3 floors, so they cannot really offer a "SPG Floor". Given the number of SPG Gold Cards in issue (and that almost anyone can get one after spending 5 minutes googling for "free SPG Gold"), I do not see how they can effectively offer anything more.

All rooms are some distance from the sea. We had an ocean facing top floor suite and it did not have much of a sea view, more of a tree view, this is just the way the property was constructed. I suspect that they are slowly refurbing the standard rooms to make them all Zen rooms, if not then they should be.

The restaurant choices were a little limited but we found the available restaurants OK, there was in fact 3 places to eat, the buffet restaurant with limited but fair a la carte selection as you mention, the beach bar and Geckos. This has now been boosted by the new Indian/Thai restaurant. The room service selection is very comprehensive, reasonably priced and tasty. The catering arranged by the hotel for our numerous wedding guests was very high quality and extraordinarily good value for money.

All in all we really liked the property before the recent improvements and cannot wait to go back some time in the not too distant future.

The Ascott Sathorn appeals to a totally different market. It is meant as a long stay business hotel/serviced apartment complex. I thus do not think it is at all comparable, neither is it in a location I would choose as a tourist. I am sure you would probably like the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit more, but then it is a nicer property as a Plat.

itsaboutthejourney

And a negative review of LM Phuket Beach too. Someone sounds a little... Krabi

mario33

SPG Gold benefits : 50% bonus points, 4pm late check-out (resorts excluded) and preferred room upgrade (which could be a "better" room within the same category you booked so its not really a benefit).

I suspect you are a newbie to SPG and got your Gold card comped. Ever wonder why they dish out Gold cards to anyone who asks ....

goodgirl

I booked their cheapest room/rate somewhere around September / October and got a Platinum upgrade to their best Suite in the building closest to the beach, very very nice suite. I would not have liked any of their other rooms including the Zen rooms. I think it was Suite 201 in Building A.

Richard1148

I booked an award stay for a suite which costs an extra 4k points per night. For the 3 nights (all weekday), it comes to 24k points. I could use only 1,600 points plus $30 per night for a cash & points award for a standard room that they might upgrade to a slightly better room for my Gold status, but I wouldn't count on it. Is the suite worth using the extra points? SPG is not my major program, so I do not have a mega number of points left if I do the suite.

Land-of-Miles

Are there differences between the suites? I am not sure which one we were in (I thought 301 but I will check my invoice when back in my office) but the resort is roughly horseshoe shaped. Thus there are 2 buildings which are close(ish) but not hugely close to the beach.

I was initially a little disappointed with the suite we had since it seemed quite a bit smaller than the suites we normally get, certainly it was much smaller than the SGS we had just left. All that said the decor was fresh and modern, the bathroom was very large and we had 180 degree views over the trees to the beach. We came to really like the resort, which was partly as a result of the excellent friendly and competent staff.

At an extra 4k points per night I would definitely recommend the Suite upgrade. I would not be happy in a regular room, which had something of a Holiday Inn theme about them. That said all 6 rooms I paid for were very clean and in good decorative order (I just found the decoration a little drab). On our next visit we would pay for a suite (with cash or points) rather than gamble, but this is just a matter of personal taste. All our guests were happy with their rooms.

This resort is very clearly a 4* rather than 5* property and whilst it does not bear close comparison with the excellent Sheraton Pattaya, the staff and service were absolutely 5*.

bgdc

Actually, I earned that gold status. No comping.

I suppose I just expected the place to have better rooms than what they offered.

bgdc

Just found that two of our three hotels during our last visit to Thailand were subpar given the price, accommodations, offerings, service, etc. I would do everything in my power to dissuade someone from ever visiting either location. I've traveled extensively for work - mostly under other programs - and I left Thailand wondering how the SPG properties we visited can possibly stay in business. For instance, last year I stayed sporadically at the Renaissance Marriott in Munich for about half the cost of either SPG property and the room, the service, the entire property was infinitely better than LM Phuket or SG Krabi. It's funny because we heard many guests comment on how nice the LM Phuket and Sheraton Krabi are and I had to wonder how little people expect of a hotel.

To each his own.