Waterfront Worried! I need you help...

Long time reader, first time poster...

My boyfriend and I have booked the Waterfront Bophut in November based on the brilliant reviews it was receiving. Now there is an influx of terrible reviews....we have paid our deposit, are we able to change the booking to just a couple of nights and book somewhere else??

Dilemma # 2 - where shall we book?

We enjoy relaxing, swimming, eating and reading during the day and having a few (many) drinks at night...love gorgeous grounds, nice rooms and being close to the scene.....happy to pay between $100-$200 AUS a night. Please recommend a hotel that would suit us.....

Finally can we get from Koh Samui to Phi Phi and should we be spending a night on Phi Phi?

Thank you all for your help in advance, its really helpful!

Waterfront Worried! I need you help...

I%26#39;ve booked at the Waterfront for March next year. I%26#39;ve also noticed the sudden influx of bad reviews. You have weigh up the reviews and come to your own decision. I%26#39;m certainly not going to change my booking based on just a few bad reviews.

The Waterfront is a budget hotel, so you get what you pay for. Maybe the people who had bad experiences expected too much. With sites like trip advisor you%26#39;re going to get extremes. People who had a wonderful or an extremely bad experience are the most likely to post on these sites.

In answer to your question, I think you can still cancel your booking without losing too much (I can%26#39;t remember if they charge an admin fee). I believe that once you arrive they take payment for your full stay up front, so you need to decide what to do before you arrive. It may be worth changing your booking to one night and making bookings elsewhere. Where to book - depends on your budget and holiday requirements.

I looking forward to my stay at the Waterfront. As long as the hotel is clean and well maintained I%26#39;ll be happy.

Be interesting to hear other people%26#39;s view on this.

Waterfront Worried! I need you help...

I shouldnt worry, The Waterfront hotel is wonderful. The rooms are clean and well equipped, our room faced the beach and pool and everthing else you need is close by. the owners Robin and Sue will do anything they can to make your stay enjoyable and if you were to have a problem they would try and deal with it immediately. We had the most relaxing stay there last August and enjoyed every minute of it,. My favourite time was lunchime sitting in the beautiful open air restaurant with a (good) glass of white wine, looking at the beautiful views all around me and with Koh Pang yang in the distance (?? sorry about spelling) whilst waiting for our lunch of Tom Yum and spring rolls. Cooking ( the chef) is a brilliant cook, all the food is very tasty.

My advice would be to ignore the negative reviews that have been appearing, and go and enjoy every minute as we did! Judging from your wants and needs mentioned, The Waterfront seems to fit the bill ! MY husband and I are amazed at these reviews and feel they may be written by someone with a grudge maybe ,or jealousy. Whatever, we booked after looking at many options of accomodation in Bophut area, and made our decision on the good reviews from trip advisor and sawadee.com. for the waterfront.

With reference to Phi Phi, It is quite a difficult journey to get to Phi Phi from Samui, we did it a few years ago by bus, taxi, ferry, van, coach and another ferry and it took us 12 hours. On a positive note it only cost us about 拢9 each !! You can book this from tour operator locally. It is also certainly worth considering the Krabbi area which is beautiful and scenic. Remember though that Koh Samui is in the Gulf of Thailand and Krabbi province (Phi Phi) is in the Andaman sea, and are on opposite sides of peninsular Thailand.

As stated Phi Phi is a bit further away from Samui, however there are other islands off Samui that are easy to get to - Koh Phangan and Ko Tao. Maybe have a look at them for either day trip or short stay.

Lee

From October you can fly Samui to Krabi with Bangkok Airways thus making Phi Phi more accessible.

hi - I am just back from samui and stayed a few doors down from the waterfront. only heard good things from others staying there. there seems to be a great atmosphere and apparently the owners are very friendly. I tried to stay there and it was booked out so ended up staying in the Baan Bophut which it is right beside. i have a review up for this hotel with some pics. i can highley reccomend this hotel it was amazing! only negative thing about both hotels is that you cannot really swim in the sea directly outside because of coral but it is less than a minute walk to where you can swim so this did not bother me a whole lot plus the pool was lovley so.....

hope this helps!!

I have noticed when searching for hotel reviews for creating an itinerary, that I often come across the same name of someone who has posted reviews on several accomodations with a similar itinerary to mine. I have found that these people with the distinctly negative reviews will post negative reviews of everywhere they stay. They are likely the problem, and not the particular accomodation! If there are all good reviews or all bad reviews it%26#39;s a given one way or the other, but when there are the odd mixed reviews, my guess is usually to the good ones and the others are just complainer people.

Perhaps email the Waterfront directly and air your concern. They need to know whats being posted too, and perhaps they can enlighten you. I emailed them with some questions before we went and got a satisfactory reply. And, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Waterfront - the location is one of the better in Bophut.

We stayed at the Waterfront back in March this year and had a great time we had no problems and are going back next March. We have been to many hotels around the world over the last few years.

We would recommend the Waterfront it sounds like everything you want. They offer DVDs, Books, Games, your 2 minutes walk from the Village with the restaurants and bars also the hotel bar is open all night if you wish as the Security Guard Banjon is also the Bartender.

Please look again at their website under the news section as they are clarifying the bad reviews they%26#39;ve been receiving.

When your at the top your a target for bad reviews

We have just returned for The Waterfront and had a great time. The rooms are clean and all face the beach. The beds are large and we found our baathroom to be spotless. It is not an expensive hotel so dont expect 5 star luxury but the food is excellent and the location great. The only disappointment was the small pool but it is adequate for cooling off!!

Those negative reviews came out just before our own trip to The Waterfront at the end of July. We travelled with some anxiety about what we%26#39;d find but our experience was overwhelmingly positive.

Like others who have responded, I now read the negative reviews with puzzlement.

We loved it.

It is amazing value, we found it very clean, good food, friendly ambience. We especially enjoyed poolside drinks in the evening .

Lunches are brilliant - ';Cooking'; is wonderful.

Bophut is small ,relaxed, some good restaurants. Can%26#39;t say about nightlife because we weren%26#39;t seeking it.

Can%26#39;t help with your other question.

I have recommended it to friends already and would go again

just to mirror the comments above. we stayed 9 nights in July, you%26#39;re not buying into a 5* hotel (with 5* prices to match) but i thought, particularly when we only paid 拢30 per room B%26amp;B, it was BRILLIANT value for money. lovely rooms, aircon always working, hot showers, tea/coffee, DVD etc etc etc. Great place to chill, forget all about home/work and recharge the batteries. friendly atmosphere around the hotel/pool, lovely staff. massage/laundry at bargain prices so not only can you be pampered whilst there, you can get all your holiday washing done before you get home (or is it only me that hates that bit of returning home?) my only criticism was that we only saw a couple of hours of sunshine during our stay but surely we can%26#39;t hold the Waterfront responsible for that!

go ahead and enjoy the holiday.