Centara Grand Beach Resort & Villas, Krabi

This is not a 5*hotel. It claims that all the rooms have a sea view. Our room looked onto a pond (full of mosquitoes) and a restaurant. If you looked through the windows of the restaurant you could see the sea. Our room had the telephone ripped off the toilet wall, leaving a hole showing bare bricks. A pair of used, dirty slippers ware laid out by the bed for our use. The knob from the hairdryer cupboard was missing making it difficult to open. The wooden headboard was very badly scratched making it very shabby. The paneling on the wall exposed a large chunk of breeze block wall and the coffee cup was cracked and very cheap and thick,most unpleasant to drink from. We asked the manager how many stars the hotel had & were told 5. We then asked her to come & look at the room. This resulted in an upgrade to a better room the following day, wasting half a day of our holiday. It is advertised with a shuttle service to Ao Nang. No such thing. There is a 2 hourly shuttle boat service for only about 20 people to the main pier at Nopparat which is a taxi ride to Ao Nang. The only way into Ao Nang is by private water taxi (about £10 for 10 minutes) or a very difficutlt climb on step ladder type steps that are broken and wobbly in places and slippery if wet. In addition there are numerous monkeys who will jump on you. It is very steep, almost vertical in places and very hot, the hotel staff use this to access the hotel. It took us about 15 minutes to cross. You can get round the mountain at low tide only if you want to be immersed in water up to the waist. There is nothing at all to do in the hotel in the evenings, most people are in their rooms at 8pm. Even the bar was closed for "unforseen maintenance." The restaurants are expensive, the standard of food OK but the service dreadful. We had a meal in which they forgot my husband's main course,then brought something he had not ordered. He had to wait 45 minutes for his food and the excuse was that the restaurant

We had been in Thailand nearly two weeks when we arrived at hotel for a 6 night stay,we were met at the airport bussed to the beach for transfer to the hotel all fine.The speedboat which is actually a motor launch that stank of gasoline just sat there for 25 mins while we had to wait for someone else.More than enough time for the 12 people on board to be coveyed to the resort. When we finally got underway the "speedboats engines cut out twice on the 10 min journey to the resort.Myself my wife and my sister were left soaking due to bow spray in through the open dides of the landing craft.At check in we asked for towels to dry ourselves with and were given small wet face flannels as we endured a 30 minute check process. On various days we had to do without complimentary water,room towels,pool towels. in our room the sink leaked, the phone would not phone reception. The tolet in my sisters room backed up 3 times. We had all been in Thailand for a reasonable amount of time yet everybody was ill after eating at the resort. The cost of which was vastly more than the local economy.I feel this is probably why the raft service is so poor.The resort should have had a shop selling sundries also. whilst i dont wish to bemoan the staff who genuinly appeared to try and solve problems, they usually failed.

The arrival, by boat, reveals an outstanding hotel surrounded only by a forest of green trees and sea. Staff are very kind and helpfull. The four restaurants are all very good, though a bit expensive. Rooms (the Deluxe ones, at least) are large and very nice.