After some research and talking to a few of B’s co-workers. We decided to stay at Katathani Phuket Beach Resort for our family vacation.  The reviews online were mixed, but the website displayed beautiful hotel rooms, beautiful grounds, 6 pools, spa, 6 restaurants, the hotel is tucked away with its own private beach, and other great amenities. We booked a Junior Suite for our stay here at Katathani Phuket Beach Resort. The hotel has two wings, Thani and Bhuri. Bhuri Wing is across the street with a tropical setting.

When we finally arrived at the hotel after a six-hour flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, a connecting flight from Bangkok to Phuket with an hour layover and an hour flying time. It took about an hour and a half to get from Phuket Airport to the resort.  We used the hotel taxi service and there was a car and driver waiting for us, when we came out the airport. The driver drove, way too fast as the traffic was heavy.  There were a couple near missed. All I could think of, we CAN NOT get into a car accident. We made it to the hotel safe and sound.   The driver gets our luggage out the trunk and a doorman greets us and says to follow him in and he will get our luggage.  However, as I walk toward the entrance, he leaves our things just sitting on the sidewalk where the driver let out us at.  B get’s our luggage his self and tells the doorman, we prefer not to have our luggage just sitting out on the sidewalk unattended. But the doorman, did not understand why we did not want our things just sitting out there on the sidewalk, while we were in the lobby checking in.  Check-in took about 20 minutes, it took three people to check us in, it seem no one knew what was going on.  As we are being checked in, another staff member brings us all a drink and bracelet lei’s.  Not sure what the drink was, it was a sweet, maybe a fruit juice of some kind. Finally, we are checked-in and the staff member says they will show us to our room.  Well, after they walked around the front of the entrance, talking to other staff members, we had to ask them to just point us in the direction of the room, because they were in no rush to get show us our room.  At this point, it is past dinner time, toddler girl and myself are just ready for bed.

Lobby of the Thani Wing

Lobby of the Thani Wing

Lobby of the Thani wing

So once we were in the room and shoes off, we ordered room service and called it a night. Room service was ok, but nothing to jump up and down about. Our room was a Junior Suite, located in the Thani wing of the hotel. The Thani wing, is the beach front suites.  It has a king bed, separate tub and shower, private balcony with views of the Andaman Sea, air conditioning, in-room safe, TV, coffee and tea, mini refrigerator, bathrobe, and slippers. The website, says “Highlight: Newly renovated room for everyone’s delight.” The furniture and decor is very dated and showed wear and tear. B went across the street to get a few sodas and when he open the mini refractor, located inside a cabinet, the cabinet door fell off the hinge.  We get maintenance to fix it, but not tonight.

Day 2 at the hotel, we head down to the front desk on our wing of the hotel to see which restaurants offer breakfast.  Breakfast was included each day as part of the package we did. At the front desk, we discover that only 3 of the 6 restaurants are open. Wait! What! Your website said NOTHING about restaurants close. A little heads-up would have been great. One in our wing, one in the Bhuri wing, and the other was across the street from the Bhuri wing. B did mention to the assistant manager that it would have been great to know ahead of time, as we would have not chosen a hotel that was far away from everything and not much within walking distance.   The restaurants open were Fisherman’s Wharf, Cinnamon, and Seacret.

Pool Time – One of the pools at the Thani Wing

Back to breakfast….  We go over to Fisherman’s Wharf, the one at our wing of the hotel to have breakfast.  It is a breakfast buffet with a pretty good spread. There is something for everyone, even the picky eater.  We eat breakfast, than head back to room to change to go hang by the pool.  Toddler girl LOVES the water! The Andaman Sea had nice size waves hitting the shore, too much for toddler girl to play in.  The flags each day for swimming conditions were at yellow our complete stay. The pool’s were nice and the water not too cold.  There are beach balls and float devices for the kids to play within the pool.  There is a kid’s pool, but toddler girl likes to jump in the pool and really swim, so she is not a fan of the kid pool. We even come back to the pool later that evening after dinner.

Day 3 at the hotel, we wake up to find a letter under our door from management apologizing for the restaurants not being open and there not being any type of advertisement about that.  Also, in the envelope was a complimentary dinner for the three of us at the hotel restaurant. We get our selves dress and head to breakfast.  We have been enjoying the breakfast at the hotel, it is a really good breakfast buffet. After breakfast, it is pool time.  That has been our routine since getting here. Breakfast, than pool.  Very fun and relaxing way to start off the day. After the pool, we decided to try one of the other restaurants for lunch.  We first walk down to Cinnamon, but they are close for lunch. Bummer! Than we go over to Seacret, which is across the street from Cinnamon. Seacret has a great view of the sea. Lunch was so-so, I’ll do a separate post on it. For dinner we eat at the seafood restaurant across the street from the hotel.  This restaurant is NOT part of the hotel.

Day 4 at the hotel, we get ourselves together to head to breakfast. After breakfast, we head to the lobby to confirm our taxi and one breakfast to-go for tomorrow to the airport. Everything is good to go! We also check e-mail, as the lobby has free wi-fi and you have to pay for it in the room. Our plan today is to explore the area not far from the hotel.  So we get  a taxi and head that way for lunch. We are back at the hotel to hang out for a bit before lunch. Toddler girl and I go to get pedicures at the hotel spa.  It was not like one I have had before.  You lay on the floor, with a scented towel over your eyes.  They did not cover toddler girls eyes, but I kept an eye on her.  She did really good for her first pedicure.  She actually fell asleep.  It was just too cute!! They even gave her a manicure, since all they really did was polish her toe nails.   We will use the complimentary dinner coupons tonight, since it is our last night.  We head over to Cinnamon, since it is the only restaurant we have not had a chance to try, since it was not open at lunch time. It is a dinner buffet, we first take a look at the buffet to see if it is something we would like to eat.  There was not anything that toddler girl would like and I only seen about two options that I would like.  B, well nothing on the buffet jumped out at him. So we head over to Fisherman’s Wharf to see what they have to offer.  We all order something off the menu.  I must say, ALL of my food was serve cold.  I’ll rant about that in its own blog post.

Day 5 checking out the hotel.  It was a quick and easy process.  The driver was at the lobby entrance already, so we did not have to wait.  We also had the option to pay our bill in US Dollar with our credit card.  We, however, did not get the breakfast to-go.  The breakfast was just a banana, juice, and muffin.  But it would have been good to each have a quick bite of something.  We say Thank You and head to the airport.

Overall, our stay was good.  There were the few minor things, but it did not make our vacation bad.  It would have been good to know about the restaurants, as we would have maybe stayed at a different hotel.  Would I stay there again? Maybe. Would I recommend this hotel? I would tell a person asking how my stay was and let them decide. I would not tell a person they should stay here or they should not stay here.  Because the person who checked into the lobby, the hotel experience may have been the best one for them.  But for us, it was just good.

Katathani Phuket Beach Resort

14 Kata Noi Road, Karon, Muang, Phuket 83100 Thailand

Telephone: +66 (0) 7633 0124 to 6, +66 (0) 7628 4096 to 100

Fax: +66 (0) 7633 0426

Email: [email protected]

Website: http://www.katathani.com

Here are a few more pictures at the hotel.

Bhuri Wing of the resort

Beach at the hotel

Chess anyone? A big chess set to play.

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