If words like unremarkable, beige and generic excite you, then boy oh boy do I have the
place for your next vacation.
Hi there, my name is Kevin.
This channel came from a love of traveling, a love of the full process and the journey
itself.
I feature airline trip reports and high end hotel reviews from all over the world.
My reviews aren’t sponsored by airlines or hotels so you can be sure to get my unbiased
honest opinion.
Am I an expert?
You can decide.
Am I fair?
Yea, I am.
Let’s get into it, welcome to Phuket.
If you’d like to know the nightly rate that I paid or my next five videos in queue, please
check out the description below.
As any regular viewers know, price pays a very important role in my reviews.
If this Marriott was let’s say, half the price of the near by JW Marriott which I just
posted recently, then perhaps my opinions would be a bit different.
But as I’m writing this I did a quick look at random dates in June, August and October
and in all three cases, this Marriot is pricing higher than the JW, by $5, $103 and $26 respectively.
I’ll be honest, there’s nothing offensively bad about this hotel- if you watch until the
end, you’ll see the score that I came to took off points more or less evenly across
all categories.
It’s just a very run of the mill, vanilla, cookie cutter, fill in the blank with more
words like this, kinda resort and so I’m not going to beat around the bush, based on
my experience, there are far better resorts to spend your money at.
The design of the lobby area is where they decided to spend all of their local design
dollars because once you leave this area, there’s really no indication whatsoever
that you’re even in Thailand.
Upon arrival you’ve be given a cold towel and a pea berry iced tea.
Let’s take a look at where Nai Yang actually is.
If you hold your right hand in front of your face and make the L sign, your index finger
is Mai Khao beach, the corner is the airport and the base of your thumb is Nai Yang beach,
a small crescent shaped area just to the south of the airport.
As the property approaches the beach is spreads wider, giving the resort what should be a
great chunk of real estate.
I generally film in the early mornings to avoid guests and staff in the clips as best
as I can.
This was not that early, around 8:00 and you may notice a distinct lack of staff, considering
this is the lobby.
Yah, me too.
Of the 8 resorts I stayed in on this trip, this is the only one that felt remotely understaffed
as a whole.
As a whole, the service was middle of the road.
The best service was likely at reception and in the bar up here, with the worst easily
being from the bell staff, who were often just staring at their phones.
The views from the lobby bar were nice enough, but there was nothing to set it apart from
a litany of other generic lobby bars, which brings me to the comments that will say, “It’s
a Marriott, what did you expect?”
Well, more than this.
I actually saw quite a bit written about this hotel so I thought perhaps it had a little
extra something.
There are buggy services available but they’re more or less just to get down a couple of
levels as the area where they can actually drive is limited and the resort as a whole
isn’t that big anyway.
One level below the lobby is just a big open space with some fake grass in the middle portion.
I’m sure it’s used for events, but ever resort on earth has spaces like this, there
are many things you can do with them to make them feel a bit more integrated and thoughtful.
Also on this level is the all day dining venue which we will check out tomorrow for breakfast.
Down here, we see the beginning of the pool.
There’s one smart design they did here and that’s that these lagoon pools and the primary
pool near the beach are in fact all one pool.
Let’s head down to the ground floor to check out my room.
I booked this with Bonvoy points and when I checked in my measly Gold Status was recognized
well and I was given a three category upgrade.
Mind you, the categories are quite close together.
I was given a Garden Cabana King.
Opened in 2016, the hotel has 180 rooms.
For the most part the room was in decent condition and felt new and if I was in St. Louis or
or at an airport hotel anywhere on earth, I’d be perfectly happy with it.
But in Thailand, I think a few touches of Thai influence would be nice.
Sorry St. Louis.
Otherwise, snarky comments aside, the room was nicely outfitted.
I did appreciate the round dining table slash desk, but you’d think a hotel that’s fairly
new would put more than a single USB port at the bedside.
The mini bar was fully stocked.
Quite ironically, better stocked than the JW who only provided instant coffee.
So you already know how much I paid for my stay here, but do you know how much the hotel
paid me to publish this video?
Yeah in this case you already know its a big fat 0.
Not only was Marriott unaware I’d be making a video, they have no idea who I am and that’s
how I like it.
Why?
Because content creators are recognized every day, on the street, on a flight, in a hotel
and instantly, the VVIP alarms start ringing in everyone’s ear pieces and suddenly their
experience is no longer typical.
When I’m making a review video, I don’t want special treatment, so I film anonymously.
That is more challenging than you’d think though- so that’s why every like, comment
and subscription really does mean a lot and helps the channel grow to keep this twice
weekly content flowing.
Thanks very much for watching today.
The bathroom was clean and well laid out.
I am a huge fan of wet rooms and I’m glad more and more hotels are coming around to
notice how great they are.
Last up we have the terrace.
In theory, this sounded really nice, but in reality the lack of grass and cleanliness
of the cabana left a bit to be desired.
It does have pool access though at least, it is awkwardly shallow though for adults.
Ok so as we head to the main pool area and take a look at some oddly placed turtles,
let’s see who this place would be for.
So, obviously it is geared towards families.
There were loads of kids here and there is also a full kids club.
While I was here there was also a sizable conference going on as well as a few flight
crews.
Now, the one reason I would say you might really want to come here is if you can get
a good deal on one of the pool villas.
For a good price, that might make it worth it for you.
It also might be good if for some odd reason you have an overnight layover as it’s pretty
close to the airport.
For the pool, it’s fine.
During busy times though it is a bit chaotic though with the way they have the seating
spread out all over.
Here we have our first look at the beach, an odd one, you can see.
Obviously this is low tide.
If you enjoy sitting on the beach but you don’t tend to go into the ocean, then this
is genuinely a place you may enjoy.
Even when the tide is fully in though, the water was very shallow for just about as far
as you could see.
Originally there were two separate restaurants down near the beach in these two buildings
but now it’s just the one restaurant with a bar and lounge on the left.
And then on the right side, we have Big Fish.
I cannot even begin to explain how much this annoys me.
If you noticed, the sign at the entrance of the resort had the same problem.
I’ll stop talking about generic design, in here the problem for me is the tables.
They’re a full 3-4 inches too low, which just makes for a really uncomfortable dining
experience.
Walking away from the pool, we have some of the villas on the left and the kids club on
the right.
I frequently get asked, why don’t you explain more about the kid’s facilities.
The answer is, can’t.
There are two way I’d be able to show it to you.
First, wait until it’s open and then walk in their with a camera.
Or, me, the White American solo-traveller asking the hotel if I can film inside the
kids area.
I hope you understand that both of those situations come off as highly creepy, not to mention,
I make a point of not telling hotels I’m making a video- and so a long time ago, I
just decided to not try to film inside kid’s facilities.
Ok, dinner.
There are no menus on the hotel’s website and the only menu I could find was from 2019
and it was entirely different from what was on our menu.
For starters, a Thai sampler platter and a Pomelo salad.
No and no.
Capital NO.
The sampler was just a greasy mess and the shrimp on the pomelo was not at all fresh
and very mealy and the sauce was clawing sweet.
Barely touched it.
The mains were definitely better than the starters, but all of the food took forever.
It was an open kitchen, with four cooks and it was one of the more dysfunctional ones
I’ve seen in a while, with the expeditor on the line, but not actually cooking anything
as the other three drowned trying to get food out to this restaurant as well as a beach
party that was setup for the conference.
We sat down at 6:25.
Starters came at 7:28 and mains at 7:49.
The next morning for breakfast we have The Andaman Kitchen.
It was a fairly extensive buffet with an egg station and noodle station.
My problem here was just the food temperature.
Everything, everything was cold.
Cold food at breakfast buffets is normal when they first open, trust me, I get it a lot,
but its rare that it’s literally every dish.
Keep in mind the steam you see is from the water, not the food.
That looks safe.
Overall, I hope you can see what I’m saying.
I wasn’t cursed at, the rooms weren’t dirty, the pools weren’t falling apart-
I’m not saying it’s that bad, but it’s just not that good either, in a market that
has near endless selection, especially in this high four low five star category.
The three other Phuket resorts from this trip are all around the same price or cheaper,
I’d recommend you check any of them out- or even the Pullman Naithon which I reviewed
last time I was here.
All of that said, I really do hope you found today’s video useful.
If you did, please be sure to click that subscribe button and turn notifications on, we’ve
still got four more resorts in this series but first I’ll see you next time on Bangkok
Airways from Phuket to Koh Samui.
Oh and thanks for watching ‘till the end.