Sabana Resort

Handy for the beach

We arrived to be told that our rooms weren't ready and we'd have to stay somewhere else for the night. Not a great start to a holiday!

The hotel is undergoing refurbishment and things were behind schedule. We weren't exactly happy about this but what could we do? The hotel arranged for accommodation elsewhere for one night and we did get two quite good rooms near the swimming pool in the end so it wasn't all bad.

Rooms are single storey in a kind of long house style with 5 or 6 rooms per building. Outside there is a patio area separated by partitions (see website for photos).

The rooms were nicely decorated (the website photos are out of date and make them look really plain and boring - they are now much nicer). We had standard (garden) rooms and they were some of the best standard rooms I've stayed in.

The deluxe rooms are mostly up high - with views of Nai Harn bay. They involve lots of steps to climb so not particularly good for those who find stairs a problem.

Some of the standard rooms were not in a great location. There was a nasty sewage smell behind the main building so if you were put in a room near there it wouldn't be very nice.

Breakfast was good but it was very busy when we were there (New Year) so they were constantly running out of things but this wouldn't be a problem during non-peak season I'm sure.

We ate in the hotel for dinner one evening and the food was really good, so I'd recommend eating there.

In the end it was quite a good holiday but I think if it had been our first visit to Thailand or if we'd arrived after a very long flight, we would have been much more stressed and disappointed with the room problem.

Unique Quality: The resort is literally over the road from Nai Harn Beach which is a very nice beach (one of my favourites on the island). It isn't as busy as some of the other beaches and the water is clearer in my opinion so it is a good location for people who want to use the beach every day.

The hotel put on a gala dinner (one of those compulsory ones) for New Year which had the potential of being a good night but was sadly quite boring. I think the problem was that it simply went on for too long. They started the buffet at 7pm and of course everyone had pretty much finished eating by 9 and were wandering around looking for things to do. The entertainment wasn't good enough to keep everyones attention and people ended up going off to different bars and the fair across the road and coming back later (the drinks were also more expensive for this evening which didn't do the hotel any favours as people simply went elsewhere to get them cheaper).

There was however a firework display at midnight which was really good and almost saved what was really quite a dull evening.