Phuphet Resort

“Has so much promise but?”

This resort is an extraordinary place, we picked it because we wanted a place around the area and we have a couple of small dogs which we wanted to take with us. Phuphet resort advertise itself as being pet friendly so it was a natural choice. When I made the booking on Booking.com via the bigalswe… more

This resort is an extraordinary place, we picked it because we wanted a place around the area and we have a couple of small dogs which we wanted to take with us. Phuphet resort advertise itself as being pet friendly so it was a natural choice. When I made the booking on Booking.com via the bigalswebsite link I made an error on the date of booking. The booking was non refundable so although I didn't expect to be able to do anything about it I asked Booking.com to change the date. I imagine due to time difference etc it took a little time for them to respond and I had, for safety's sake re booked. Booking.com did get back to me and deleted the wrong booking even though they didn't need to, brilliant service. Following that our plans changed again and I needed to book another room which I did taking the last standard room available. Finding the resort can be a little difficult and they would do themselves no harm in providing a better map/directions. When we got there we found the place to be virtually empty and were able to check in very early but as there were no guests already staying there that needed breakfast or lunch etc the restaurant was closed until 6 pm. The resort os spread out over a huge area of gardens with various "themes" dotted around, non of which were open. The rooms were pretty typical Thai style and quite spacious. The beds were quite soft which is not that usual in Thailand. There was no table and only 1 chair in a room which was a little odd. The bathroom / shower was clean and functional and the air conditioning worked well. Later in the day our needs changed again and it would have been desirable but not essential for us to have another room. This was quite interesting as Booking.com offered rooms at 1000 THB a night but had non left and yet we were the only guests on the resort only taking 2 rooms. As we could not book with Booking.com (no rooms) we asked reception who told us a room would be 1400 THB. We found this a little odd and decided the other member of our party could take the spare bed in 1 of our rooms so the resort missed out on a sale. Just for the record 2 more rooms were taken that evening in total so they were not full. We sat outside of the rooms in the evening eating food we had bought from vendors off site and drinking beer again purchased from off site although it should be noted the coffee shop was open and as well as coffee did sell beer and soft drinks. Breakfast was more than expected with both Thai and "American" style being provided. This was served to you rather than buffet style. Overall, this huge area could be so much more, the swimming pool was empty of water, the boating pond was not operational and to be honest I couldn't see anything that was. The site and their workers have a lot of dogs so not only is the resort pet friendly but you can expect to see them wandering around freely. I came away with the impression that the site was a sort of charity for workers and their pets rather than a going concern. Would I stay there again, yes if I needed a place in that area and I had the dogs with me, otherwise no.

less