The Taste Phuket Hotel, Phuket

You would love The Taste Phuket, if 1. Street noises keep you satisfied, but you would not make only a single noise yourself (don't even think of watching TV) 2. You don't read, or you love to read with your own flash light 3. You are good at fixing things, in case you can't unlock your door knob or your soap holder just fall apart at a single touch 4. You are totally independent, and you don't expect a single help from the staff 5. All you need is pure bed and breakfast, and not hospitality or a single smile 6. You don't mind unpracticality and malfunctionality as long as it's posh I wrote on behalf also of my other 11 friends, all of us occupied 6 rooms out of the total 12 rooms of this small hotel.

I booked a veranda room for my short trip to Phuket for the Vegetarian Festival. The location is great, just mins walk from the central attractions. The veranda room had its quirks though. The room is large but there is nowhere to store or hang clothes so for 4 days I kept my clothes on the floor. The in-room toilet was a bit odd - just an area cordoned off with a curtain - a bit like a curtain around a hospital bed I thought. The mirror is outside the bathroom area, not above the sink. I felt it was designed by someone who never thought about what it was like to stay in the room. The room door is a large clear glass plate that swivels in the middle and the lock is at floor level - not very convenient either. You have to be very sure you pull the curtain behind the door carefully so that any passing staff or guests can't see you in bed. The hotel locks the front door overnight and guests don't have a key. This was inconvenient for me as I was leaving before dawn and coming back after midnight depending on what I was seeing in the festival. The hotel's solution was to knock on the door and wake up the hotel staff which made me feel I was an inconvenience to them. All in all I liked the hotel but I didn't love it.

Super service Agoda.