Hotspring Beach Resort and Spa

We really wanted to love this hotel because the setting and the villas are genuinely fantastic. The Hot Springs Villas are the highlight of the property. Having your own private pool in the back garden, together with a 40°C hot spring bath shared between two villas, is a wonderful experience. The communal pools are also very nice, and the beach is beautiful and well maintained. It is a little awkward to get to from the villas or reception because of the distance, and unfortunately the restaurant by the beach is currently being refurbished and cannot be used, but the beach itself is lovely.

The staff are generally friendly, but the service is extremely inconsistent, and this is where the hotel falls short.

The biggest problem for us was housekeeping. There seemed to be no fixed time at all for cleaning the room. Every day they came at a completely different time. Even if you put the “Make Up My Room” sign out and then leave for breakfast, the pool or a massage, or specifically ask reception to clean the room while you are out and are told that someone will come straight away, there is no guarantee that this will actually happen.

On one occasion, we asked reception at 7.30am and were specifically told that the room would be cleaned while we were having breakfast. We came back at around 9.30am and it still had not been done. They eventually turned up at 2.30pm. This is particularly frustrating when you have a private pool, as the cleaning takes well over half an hour and you obviously don’t want someone cleaning around you while you are trying to enjoy it. They also cannot properly clean the garden and pool while you are there.

Another very strange thing happened once. A member of staff would suddenly start banging loudly on the door and windows and shouting to tell us that he was leaving a little dish with two bananas outside the villa. We had not asked for it and, as far as we could tell, this was being done at every villa. Being woken up by someone banging on your windows and shouting just to deliver something you never requested is really unnecessary and completely at odds with the peaceful experience you would expect here.

The massages are another story. We had a complimentary 30-minute massage included in our stay, which was actually good, so we decided to pay for an additional one. We were offered the outdoor area and thought it sounded lovely. It wasn’t. There was an enormous amount of noise from the nearby swimming pool, with people jumping in and shouting, so there was absolutely no relaxing atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the therapist was the worst part. She immediately told me that she would do the massage with my trousers on rather than in a swimsuit, which was what had happened with the previous massage and was much more comfortable. During the massage she actually pulled the trousers from both sides hard enough to tear them. And then, incredibly, she answered her phone while she was massaging me. When I complained and someone happened to open the door at that exact moment, she simply hid the phone underneath the pillow so that she would not be seen using it. I honestly couldn’t believe it. This was an extremely unprofessional experience and I really hope management looks into this particular therapist, because she is doing the hotel no favours whatsoever.

Twice we’ve needed the guest service: once at 11.30 pm when we returned from an activity to collect the key, and the other at 6.30 am when we were leaving for an activity to collect the breakfast box (which was quite a task to arrange). On both occasions, the person responsible was asleep under the table in the small adjoining lounge and neither responded nor appeared for ten minutes.

There are also a few issues with the villas themselves. The exterior lighting is poorly designed, with some lights belonging to one villa and others to the neighbouring one. If your neighbour leaves a light on, or isn’t there to switch it off, the room can remain surprisingly bright throughout the night because the curtains are quite thin.

The drainage from the hot spring bath is also very noisy at night, and the decorative water feature in the pool seems to be switched on at random times. On some mornings it started very early and was quite irritating when you were trying to sleep.

The most worrying issue was the false ceiling. It seems there is some kind of gap where animals can get in, because throughout the night we could clearly hear something walking and scratching above the ceiling. That really isn’t something you expect from a villa of this standard and should definitely be investigated.

Breakfast was probably the weakest part of the food experience. There isn’t a huge amount of choice and, considering the humidity in this part of Thailand, it is difficult to understand why no air-conditioned area is made available when the hotel clearly has one. Sitting through breakfast in the heat and humidity isn’t particularly pleasant.

Dinner was very hit and miss. We had some genuinely excellent service from one of the female members of staff, who was extremely professional, but other members of the team were the complete opposite. The same gentleman who was shouting outside the villas about the bananas was also working in the restaurant and seemed to cause more problems than he solved. On one occasion he didn’t write down our order properly and brought things we simply hadn’t ordered. Several members of staff also have very limited English, which can make communication quite difficult.

The location is fine if your main purpose is to stay at the resort and enjoy the hot springs, but it is a long way from pretty much everything. If you want to go out for activities or explore the area, the journeys can be very long, so this is definitely something to bear in mind when booking.

Overall, this is a hotel with huge potential and some genuinely outstanding facilities. The Hot Springs Villas are fantastic and having your own private pool and access to the hot spring is a very special experience. However, the service is simply too inconsistent for a hotel of this standard. There are too many small things that, taken together, make the stay much less relaxing than it should be.

I would absolutely recommend it if your priority is having a beautiful villa and enjoying the hot springs. But if you are looking for a proper spa or wellness retreat, this probably isn’t it. The atmosphere is much more lively and playful, and some areas can be quite noisy. With better housekeeping coordination, more consistent restaurant service, proper attention to maintenance issues and a serious review of the massage service, this could be an exceptional property. At the moment, the facilities are considerably better than the service.

My wife booked the "Take it Easy" package as a special gift for me, which required us to travel 60km from mainland Phuket. Unfortunately, the execution of this service was highly unprofessional. ​Because I was not familiar with the full itinerary, the staff took advantage of this and completely skipped the welcome drink, the hot spring bath, and the cold water plunge. They were fully aware of what was included in the booking but chose to skip straight to the massage. ​When we brought this to the front desk’s attention, their handling of the situation was unacceptable. They tried to rush me into the hot spring and cold plunge after my full-body massage, which completely defeats the purpose of a proper wellness sequence. They then blamed us for being "late," despite the fact that we had explicitly communicated our arrival time of 3:00 PM due to our travel distance. ​Their final "solution" was to tell us to return the next day—showing a total lack of empathy for the 60km journey we had just made. To make matters worse, the front desk promised a manager would call us within 24 hours. It has now passed that window, and we have heard nothing. This establishment lacks basic customer service protocols, communication, and an understanding of wellness. Truly a wasted journey.