The Lamai Samui

“Romantic , relaxing , beautiful location”

Beautiful hotel , we had a king suite swim up double room. Staff were amazing , very attentive couldn’t do enough for you . Breakfast had lots of choice , restaurant food lovely . The pier very romantic watching sunset. Only fault building works going on , this wasn’t mentioned when booking . Ver… more

Beautiful hotel , we had a king suite swim up double room. Staff were amazing , very attentive couldn’t do enough for you . Breakfast had lots of choice , restaurant food lovely . The pier very romantic watching sunset. Only fault building works going on , this wasn’t mentioned when booking . Very loud until 6pm. Not really enough sunbeds for the guests , this maybe due to the building work. That said we have had a lovely time . Would definitely recommend this hotel .

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“Beautiful resort”

This was a beautiful hotel and the service is really great. This is truly the land of smiles and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Two things to consider before booking this hotel. There is ongoing construction which we could hear from the pool area- so instead of the sound of peaceful waves of the … more

This was a beautiful hotel and the service is really great. This is truly the land of smiles and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Two things to consider before booking this hotel. There is ongoing construction which we could hear from the pool area- so instead of the sound of peaceful waves of the sea, we heard a lot of construction. Also heard it from our bathroom (outside shower and toilet). When I noted our disappointment with the noise, they offered to move us to a different room which we were not prepared to do given we had already unpacked everything, and it would not rectify the noise at the pool. I would have appreciated even a credit for the restaurant or a slight discount off the total price given we paid the same as any other hotel but heard the construction. I note that we did not see any construction, they had a pretty canvass tarp hiding it so at least we did not see it. The other thing which may or may not affect your decision to book this hotel: the air conditioner was not continuous. It runs on a loop- once the room temperature hits 20 degrees Celsius (which is the lowest it will allow), it stops cooling until the room temperature hits 25 degrees Celsius and then the air conditioner kicks in to bring the temperature down. The fan runs continuously but not the cool air. This wasn’t a huge deal during the day but we both woke up at night because it would get too hot in the room. So it affected our sleep and rest. We are from Canada - Thailand is a very hot country- even in their “winter” and we needed air conditioning to sleep properly. We stayed in Bangkok and Ao Nang and didn’t have these issues. We understand the need to conserve energy but this was difficult to sleep in. Had we know about this we may have avoided the hotel. This along with the construction, which they for sure don’t advertise so they don’t lose customers.

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“A Stay That Didn’t Quite Meet Expectations”

We stayed at The Lamai Samui with high expectations, especially since my husband had visited about 10 years ago when it was still Le Méridien and remembered it as a true 5-star experience. While our private villa was lovely and definitely the highlight of our stay, the overall property felt quite … more

We stayed at The Lamai Samui with high expectations, especially since my husband had visited about 10 years ago when it was still Le Méridien and remembered it as a true 5-star experience. While our private villa was lovely and definitely the highlight of our stay, the overall property felt quite dated. Maintenance could be improved—particularly noticeable in areas like the roofs, which didn’t feel well kept. Service, while polite, lacked the personal touch you’d expect from a 5-star resort and the personal presence of the GM. It was the little things that made the difference—especially traveling with a 4-year-old. There were no special touches specially since we stayed there for a week, or activities during Easter, and my husband recalled thoughtful experiences from before (like a lantern ceremony) that are no longer offered. The beach also wasn’t swimmable during our stay, and there were no loungers on the sand or children’s beach toys—something we’ve come to expect from similar resorts. Breakfast was decent but became repetitive over the course of a week. Overall, while we had a comfortable stay and enjoyed the villa, it didn’t quite live up to the 5-star standard we were expecting.

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“Beautiful setting but unforgivably poor service”

We were delighted with how nicely appointed the ocean pool villa was. It was among the nicest settings we’ve experienced for accommodation. Photos don't do it justice. However, we felt routinely let down with the service overall at the Lamai Samui. On the first day of our stay, we had lunch at the… more

We were delighted with how nicely appointed the ocean pool villa was. It was among the nicest settings we’ve experienced for accommodation. Photos don't do it justice. However, we felt routinely let down with the service overall at the Lamai Samui. On the first day of our stay, we had lunch at their restaurant. We were at the time the only customers dining and sat upstairs to enjoy the view. Whilst the staff were kind, we found the service unusually inattentive and slow. I had to pop my head over the balcony several times to order to the table and to check what was taking so long with the meal. Whilst we had no intention of a long, leisurely lunch, our lunch visit lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes, the vast majority of that time spent waiting, initially with patience and as time wore on with greater confusion and annoyance. We could not fault the quality of the food, but our lunch there was easily and by far the worst dining service we had had in any restaurant and at any price point in Thailand, made worse by prices that are several times more than restaurants immediately outside the resort, those eateries we tried demonstrating significantly more organised and attentive service. I debated whether or not to pay the service charge at the time out of principle, but decided I would pay this nominal fee and tell Reception about my experience hoping my overall experience would improve for the rest of our stay. Whilst the response to our feedback was courteous, professional and apologetic, we unfortunately did not feel our experience of the service improved in the coming days and that little effort was made to rectify the poor first impression made. This is why upon checking out, I insisted the service charge be removed-- something that I am very reluctant to do anywhere. Our first night, we ordered a bucket of ice to the room and waited some 20-30 minutes before having to ring again. We received the ice promptly after the second call, but again, this came after generating a fair bit of annoyance at the slow pace of uncoordinated service. We are very appreciative that the team provided us with early access (by 2 hours) to our villa. This was a kind gesture and definitely a huge plus for us. We noticed however upon checking in that the shower gel dispenser in the shower was empty. This is something that should be attended to before guests arrive. Small detail but important, and again this left us feeling like we were paying premium prices for a substandard, disorganised service— a bit of a sour taste for us as we’ve holidayed extensively through Thailand for years and years, and this was our second accommodation in Koh Samui of a similar calibre. Upon checking-out, we were generously provided an appointment in a shower room at the Spa to enjoy the resort amenities before leaving for the airport, and whilst we acknowledge the generous hospitality of this gesture, the facilities even in this last experience lacked shower gel and conditioner, leaving us to unscrew the bottles and shake what was left at the bottom of the bottles. A recurring issue we experienced during our stay was the long ‘queue’ for coffee to be served at breakfast in the mornings. This was not an isolated issue, and we noticed many other guests flagging this same issue with staff at breakfast. It was not consistent whether the host showing us to our table would take our coffee order, and it was very clear how slow and unorganised this was. Every day at breakfast, we had to ask again after some 15-20 minutes had passed if we could have the coffees we ordered, coffees arrived separately generating even more confusion, and every day we had more-or-less finished eating all of our food before coffees were set down on the table— not exactly a great start to the day... every day. When we asked where our coffees were, staff, though kind, gave nonsensical responses such as ‘it’s windy’ or showed us their dockets as proof of the queue for coffee orders. Either way, this is a poor impression to make at the beginning of guests’ days. It appears to be a very serious operational issue with the coffee service alone, as the service of made-to-order foods such as omelets was noticeably prompt by comparison. The fact that so many other guests were flagging the issue should have been a major red flag. Again, this was by far the worst breakfast service we have ever experienced in Thailand at any accommodation at any budget, and a real letdown for what we were hoping would overall be a spectacular experience. Whilst we were very happy with the quality of the accommodation, we felt the service overall during our 4 nights was disorganised and slow with a lack of attention to detail, which truly is a shame because otherwise we would have left the Lamai Samui extremely enthusiastic to recommend it to our friends, family and colleagues seeking a luxury experience in Koh Samui. We provided our honest mixed feedback at 4 different points of our stay: the first night so as to give them and ourselves the best chance to enjoy the rest of our stay, at the end of our stay upon checking out, afterwards in writing to their WhatsApp as they requested of us upon checkout, and a follow-up text. The last two went unanswered-- no response-- none, which really shows the staff and management of this resort don't really care after having gotten your money. Looking for a luxurious place to enjoy Koh Samui? Look elsewhere. The service at the Lamai Samui overall is not up to scratch and uncharacteristic of virtually every experience we've had in Thailand over the last 20 years. On this last trip, we enjoyed fabulous service everywhere else we stayed and dined in Koh Samui and in Thailand during our 3 weeks there, but this place very unfortunately was the exception. Beautiful oceanfront location but absolutely dire service.

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