Hotel Mesra keluarga di Ko Lipe

Great Escape Hotel. We went to Lipe to celebrate my mother's PhD graduation, but a massive storm near Lipe delayed our trip and forced us to enter the back side of the island. Although, the hotel's concierge team knew where to pick us up (along with our stuff). We got a warm welcome when we arrived at the hotel. It seemed like our hotel restaurant was the only open place on the beach that day due to the heavy storm, but the food was excellent. Some shops on the walking street opened for us to buy souvenirs. However, our family still had a good time together. When we stayed, our rooms were clean and neat, but there were a lot of leaves in the pool.

Apart from being almost on the beach itself, this place is a bit overrated as far as overall quality of certain aspects of their offer in services and amenities. Room is confortable, view from it is fabulous but…the pillows are horribly hard, woke up with a sore neck, the food at their restaurant is kind of ok if you choose Thai food but for American food, it is, let say, less than average, there are some choices that they scratch from their menu because they just don’t know how to cook it, simple thing bruschetta, club sandwich, breakfast is also pretty boring if you not Asian; cold and uncooked chicken sausages, cold chicken ham presented in cold water bowl, coffee is good though and toast are great, I ended up eating that only…last déception, beach access from beach front villa number 2 you need to walk about 200 meters right to the marina entrance or 200 meters left to the restaurant to get access to the beach that is about 20 meters right in front of your room. There is a concrete wall, high of about 1.6 meters that separates you from the beautiful white sand beach. See photos attached…

Stiamo soggiornando al Sita e ci staremo ancora 6 giorni devo dire che la nostra scelta è stata davvero azzecata ! Camera grande,pulita e confortevole, staff gentile e competente e pronto a soddisfare le nostre richieste dalle prenotazioni del ritorno alle indicazioni su qualsiasi cosa .La struttura fornisce molti servizi dal tuk tuk per raggiungere la camera ai teli sempre puliti e in ordine . La colazione è asiatica e continentale forse noi Italiani gradiremmo qualche brioche ma va bene e ci si adatta , il ristorantino sulla spiaggia fa bevande alla frutta fantastiche e i piatti sono buoni se non si vuole andare lontano. Punto spiaggia fra i più belli dell'isola e mi sento di consigliarlo .

We booked to stay in a fan cottage for 3 nights via the hotel’s own website which had a rate of 900THB per night which seemed better than that on booking engines. First impressions were that it’s a large ‘resort’ right on the beach next to where the speedboat ferries dock and adjacent to Walking Street which is 5 minutes walk away (though we heard no noise from it). There are a range of rooms- cottages with a/c and a block of rooms which also had a/c. There are about a dozen fan only cottages at the rear of the complex. Ours was rustic but clean with intact insect screens and a large bed. The bathroom was half open which was good for drying towels etc. All cottages have a balcony, ours was shaded by trees which kept the room cool though the fan worked well too and we actually slept better than we had in a/c rooms. Only downside to the room was no fridge. It had an old fashioned TV but who watches TV anyway on a Thai island?! Breakfast was included in the price- buffet style with Thai and western dishes. It was nothing special but eatable and enough to put you on until lunch. We liked Ko Lipe and were happy with the room so decided to stay for an extra 2 nights and that’s where we had problems. Again we booked on the hotel website and received a confirmation. We then received an email in broken English which we interpreted as saying the fan bungalows were all full and we would be ‘upgraded’ to an a/c room. We replied that we were already in the room so it would make more sense to upgrade someone else. After getting no response we attempted to clarify the situation with reception. I don’t speak Thai so can’t criticise people for not speaking a foreign language but when dealing with mostly European guests you would expect at least one member of staff to have the basics of English. Unfortunately not. We ended up in a confusion of Google translate messages with a teenage girl who was clearly sick (coughing, sneezing, red eyes and nose) and shouldn’t have been at work. I ended up speaking to ‘a manager’ on the mainland by phone but still couldn’t get any sense from them. Eventually we resorted to replying by email and were eventually told we could stay in the same room. You can go into any tour operator on Walking Street and find staff who speak excellent English. Why the hotel are unable to find staff with foreign language skills is beyond me. My guess is they are employing cheap intern labour from mainland tourism schools which is fine for basic check in and out but they should have at least one person who can communicate with guests if there’s a problem. The majority of rooms seemed empty when we stayed, the exception being the fan rooms which were very good value and always seemed booked out. Maybe the hotel could look at a way of turning off the a/c in some of the bungalows and selling them at a fan room rate? In summary, we were happy with the location of the hotel, the facilities and the room. The stay was spoilt somewhat by a disorgan