Great Beach House in West Railay!
CONCISE REVIEW:
Railei Beach Club was overall a great beach house and time! (200US) or 6000 baht for up to 7 people(if 2 are ok with sleeping on 7ft couches and 3 will share a kingsize bed) very close to the beach, a good western style kitchen with refrigerator and gas stove, NO AC, mosquito nets on the beds and couches, VERY CLOSE TO THE BEACH, no roof showers WOO!, overall a great house to stay at. 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms w/showers 1 kitchen 2 living areas, nice kitchen, you can get a house closer to the beach but this is around 30-40m from the beach and much cheaper than the ones closer to the beach.
LONGWINDED REVIEW:
Reservations: After searching online at places like virtual tourist i decided Railei Beach Club sounded like a good place to go, so i went to the website and searched through their listings of beach houses to rent (pics included on the site). I decided the best for our 4 people was house #10 as it was fairly cheap, at 6000Baht(200$US), and very close to the beach(30-40m i think). The staff was courteous and helpful when i talked to them over the phone. They recommended the taxi service to their hotel and as this is my first vacation to pay for coming out of college i decided to just take the easy way, taxi service is 1200baht and they like you to have cash to pay for it when you get to the hotel, if you dont have the cash they are flexible.
INFO ABOUT #10: http://www.raileibeachclub.com/10-baankhunmarcia
no AC, it does have a refrigerator, fans in every room, a gas stove and the kitchen is fully stocked with utensils, plates, bowls, and different cups and glasses, it even had a toaster!(thats a big deal to me cause i live in thailand and i dont get to eat toast much as they seem to like rice and noodles over toast :P)
There were also a good number of electrical plugs around the house, not a lot of them but probly 6-9 scattered across the house.
Arrival: when we came out of Krabi Airport we were greeted by a sign with my first name saying Railei Beach Club. The taxi looked alot like the little minivans you see around thailand people travel in, seating about 8 people and said Railei Beach Club taxi or something like that on the side. The driver was very friendly and spoke enough english to get by, but i had a friend who is very good at thai which made the communication much easier. One thing important to know is that West Railei has no roads in or out and no grocery stores, only a few minimarts. Because of this, you want to stop at a 7/11 at least, if not a tesco lotus and pick up food and drink if you drink any. Most food you wont be able to find on the beach(cooking food that is, if you just wanna eat at the restaurants dont worry about this part) and drinks of all kinds(alcoholic and non-alcoholic) will be a good bit more expensive on the beach. One more nore about buying stuff, if you're lazy, like me, and dont wanna do dishes you should get paper plates and plastics utensils. After stopping at 7/11 and picking up some essentials we got to the dock(TRAVELTIME: airport to dock probly 30-40 min travel time). IMPORTANT: At the dock the hotel longtail picked us up(you'll have to get a little wet no matter what longtail you get on so wear shorts or prepare to roll up your pants to the knees:IMPORTANT. The trip was really nice, with good views of the surrounding beaches and cliffs (TRAVELTIME:dock to the beach about 15 min). On arrival hotel staff picked up our luggage and took it to our house. you'll get wet again here more than likely.
Time there: The house is really nice with 1 master bedroom with a King size bed(two mattresses shoved together, cant really tell when you're laying on it though) and private bathroom w/shower. A second bedroom with a Queen Size bed and no bathroom. An extra bathroom w/shower is located right outside the second bedroom. I loved the showers as they both have walls but no ceiling and its kinda cool bathings with trees over your head, just be on notice if it starts raining you need to grab any clothes you may have left in the shower and bring them indoors. The power is on from 6pm - 6am; this may be a turnoff for some people because when the power goes off at 6am if you're under the mosquito net and have all the windows closed you may get a big hot pretty quick. However this was very good for us as it forced us to wake up fairly early and we got to go to the beach early which is beautiful. If you do want to sleep in you can always just leave the windows open and you should be fine to sleep in to your hearts content.
There are 2 living areas, one indoors and one semi-outdoors, the indoors living area has two sofas which double as beds for 2 people if you wanna go cheap here(6000baht split 6 ways is a pretty cheap rent for this house) The semi-outdoors one has a bigger dining room type table as well as a picnic table , the dining room table is under the roof and the picnic table is not under the roof. You can also sign the guestbook in the indoor living area if you like its got names from all over the world.
sheets get changed once a day and towels once every 2 or 3 days thats about all the housecleaning you'll get. I think you need ot clean up the dishes when you're done with them.
Unique Quality: KAYAKS for rent near the office, the ones on the beach down the way are cheaper if you're only going for 1 or 2 hours but if you wanna paddle somewhere and hang out at another beach its cheaper to just rent at the office for a half day or full day.
FREE FLOATS and goggles: there is a pile of water floats and tubes and goggles and other fun water things near the office which is free to use, just return it when you're done! be wary of the goggles with only one eye-piece! :)
Wifi? - the book says their is wifi at RBC but i couldnt pick it up and i never asked the office because i always forgot so i'm not sure what the status of this is but know it should be available if you ask for it.
NATURE! you are surrounded by wonderful nature here, there are trees and limestone cliffs and supposively monkeys(never saw any, it may be too hot for them in april)! the nature really was quite nice and peaceful especially if you leave your windows open to sleep to.
Things we didnt partake in that were available -Cook: from the office a thai cook can come to your house -Shopping: the staff can go shopping for you for a price -Massage: in house massage or you can get one on the beach
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