Bill Resort

Our Members Say

 We didn't enjoy our time here and feel we wasted these days. Unfortunately we booked because it was listed in Lonely Planet. If you look around, you can find much, much better places for the same price or less. We ended our stay on Koh Samui at a gorgeous resort that was cheaper than this place. Also, the town of Lamai iteself is a seedy dump.

What's my beef with this place? Ok, first I have to say that the staff was very nice and the rooms were kept clean. However, this was far outweighed by all the negatives. First of all we had a "New Deluxe Bungalow" that wasn't deluxe, wasn't new at all (was in fact a bit tired), and doesn't really look as nice as the pics on the web. Disappointing. Cable TV? Well, if you don't speak German, there is only Bloomburg financial channel in English and once in a while a boring German news program will be broadcast in English.

The pool is not as big as it looks in the web pic (think they used a wide-angle lens), everything is crowded down there and there are noisy children about. Furthermore, forget about getting a beach chair. We were there for 2 days and didn't manage to get one. Why? The place is mainly visited by a certain nationality (you know who you are) and they play their little game of getting up early and leaving their towels laid out on the chairs to "reserve" them, returning hours later to actually use the chairs. So you unless you do the same, you will go out to a beach with all the unused chairs (at least half of them by mid-late morning) covered by towels and you are absolutely out of luck unless you want to "steal" a "reserved" chair and have a later confrontation with its "owner." Not really a nice atmosphere. Furthermore, there certainly aren't enough chairs to begin with, for high season. In our 2 days, we never managed to snag one. Well, we did wisely use our second day to hunt for a new place to stay. Until maybe in the later afternoon there is no shade from the coconut trees that you could spread your towel under, and even then you would have to worry about one falling on your head as they were not de-coconutted (I also saw a woman and her young daughter almost hit by a large heavy palm frond that made a huge sound as it hit the sand, they would have been injured). So it will be scortching sun for you, my friend, or no beach usage at all. Also, the beach itself is not very nice. I don't know what snorkeling people are talking about - I had my gear and saw maybe 4 boring fish, that's it. And definitely no coral.

The restaurant had ok food but was overpriced. It would be nice if they would turn down the volume of the music. Breakfast was not so great. Water was really overpriced too. The place has an internet area, but it too is overpriced.

What I didn't like most, I guess, was the prevading sense of cheapness of the place, and the feeling of being had. Bill (if that is the name of the owner) could offer DVDs and players for rent. The sign posted proudly in the bedroom with the dire warning of a large fine for taking your bath towel outside was not nice. The sun unbrellas advertising Western Union with "Bill Resort" stenciled on them were tacky. The showerhead holder placed at knee level (to make people take shorter showers?) was bizarre. If you stay here you'll begin to notice other little signs of cheapness too; the feeling I got there was that Bill is just out to mint money and doesn't care much about his guests. Seriously, look around and find a nicer place. I feel that we wasted not only our money, but 2 days of our trip. Perhaps the people posting good reviews of this place aren't aware of the better places for the same or lesser prices. 

46 members live in Ko Samui