My husband and I stayed at the Sofitel for ten nights in January. We had a garden view classic room, whcih was just lovely. The bed was roomy and comfortable, the nice little touches like slippers and robes in the room were a treat. The bathroom was clean, modern and functional and the maids kindly topped up all the toiletries daily.
The hotel lobby and grounds certainly have the wow factor. The lobby had cleverly encompassed thai architecture giving it a very ornate feel.
The pool at the hotel is humungous, it never felt crowded, infact most of the time you felt like it was your own personal pool. My only gripe with the pool area was that availability of shade was totally inadequate. Even if you were sat underneath an umbrella you still had the sun beaming down on you. The best areas for shade were on the grass verges under the palm trees. The only problem with that was that you had to drag your own bed from the poolside to the grass everyday and they were not exactly light beds. On the positive side the sun loungers were the luxurious kind and fresh towels were provided for the beds daily.
I think other reviewers have also mentioned that price of food and drink at the hotel were scandalous. We ate at the hotel twice, primarily because I was ill and didnt want to be too far away from the comfort of the hotel or my room, but once I was well enough we didnt eat at the hotel at all, The quality of the food at the hotel was no better than the restaurants in the near by town, ao nang, The only difference was that the hotels portions were much smaller than restaurant in the town and they charged you 5 times the price for the pleasure.
The positioning of the hotel is pretty poor. Basically in and around the hotel there is absolutely nothing worth mentioning other than a couple of restaurants and the very odd convinience store. Most nights we either took a private taxi or the hotel shuttle bus into ao nang, which was about a twenty minute trip. Here you'll find an abundance of shops and restuarants to choose from and the atmosphere is simply great. On five nights we ate an indian restaurant called Tandoori nights in ao nang. You simply have to try this place, the food is the best indian food I have ever tasted. We also gave a few of the italian restaurants a whirl but they really aren't worth a mention. Your probably wondering why we didnt bother with thai food considering we were in thailand, but to be honest we'd spent the first 7 nights of our holiday eating thai food in Phuket so by this point we'd had enough.
I feel I also need to point out that the transportation in krabi is not cheap, we were spending around £16 a day just to get to ao nang and back, but as I said there is nothing to do around the hotel so we felt we had no choice but to go into town.
The hotel offers a trip to hong island, which we took advantage of twice. The trip is not free as some reviewers have stated, you either have to pay for one of the hotels very expensive packages, which includes a light packed lunch and snorkelling gear or you can pay a small fee just for the national park entrance, I think this was around £4 each. Hong island is jusT breath taking. The limestone backdrop, clear sea and white sand was simply stunning. We got there for about 9am on both occassions and we virtually had the island to ourselves. It starts getting busy around 11am and then there really is just a sea of people along the beach .Beware as well, as beautiful as the sea is at Hong Island we did see quite a few jelly fish in the water.
The beach outside the Sofitel hotel is cr*p to put it bluntly. there is lots of rubbish on it and you definitely cant sunbathe or swim there. It's ok for a quick stroll but that's about it.
The real plus point at this hotel was the breakfast. The choice was extensive. You could have your eggs cooked anyway you liked, a good variety of breads, cakes, criossants, waffles, pancakes, fruits, cereal, cheeses, cold meats, the list goes on. They had every kind of jam and spread imaginable, in fact I defy anyone who says they couldnt find something they liked to eat at breakfast.
The other positve of this hotel was the free wifi in the business centre. Dont get me wrong you had to be there at the right time and be quite eagle eyed to get a free computer but it was still a nice touch. There are a fair few computer hoggers who use the business centre but if you tried your luck around 11pm or early morning you were usually ok.
Overall a lovely hotel in a rubbish location. Would only stay here again If i couldnt find a similar quality hotel closer to the main town.
- Sofitel Krabi
- Sofitel Phokeethra Krabi Hotel
- Krabi Sofitel
- Sofitel Phokeethra Krabi
