Stayed at Central Samui Village Hotel in...
Stayed at Central Samui Village Hotel in July 2007...The hotel is located in the far south of the island which is a very nice area of Samui, very REMOTE and not much directly around the hotel grounds in the form of restaurants, pubs, massages or any entertainment...My 1st impression of the hotel itself was that it was fairly big...It's located on a hill slope from the reception at the top, right down a number of stairs past all the villa's down to the pools and beach at the bottom...So plenty of steps to climb daily, so wouldn't recommend this hotel for elderly people...The room was a fair size, pretty modern, wooden floors, very light and airy, fairly spacious with a huge king size bed...The bathroom was neat and had a huge shower...There were three stunning pool areas leading down to the beach, with sufficient pool loungers and umbrella's for the guests, with the main pool area overlooking the main beach...I loved this beach and although very rocky and not really suitable for swimming because of the surrounding reef and low tides, but with three beautiful pools to swim in what more do you need...The beach also has stunning trees for some shade and ample loungers to laze at all day long on the beach which is also not overcrowded, so you do feel like you have alittle privacy...The beach area also has volleyball, table tennis, canoe's, darts etc to enjoy through the day...The dining area is also beach front where breakfast is also served and I found it to be a stunning area to relax and have a drink or meal at without fighting the crowds...The breakfasts were superb with great presentations and selections of all their food and certainly the best breakfasts by far from other hotels I had stayed at on the island...Although I did find the hotel prices for meals and drinks very expensive so didn't use the hotel facilities that much...One big negative about this hotel is that there aren't any other restaurants or pubs within walking distance of the hotel on the beach or hotel itself, which means you are very hotel based and need to either use the hotel shuttle bus(which is free to Lamai and Chaweng area 3 or 4 times daily) to get out and experience the islands entertainment, restaurants, pubs etc in the evenings...Just remember to book the shuttle as it gets booked up very quickly which means you then have to take taxi's back and forth to Lamai which is approx. 10/15 minutes and Chaweng 30/40 min one way and gets rather expensive...Would I stay at this hotel again, the answer would be "YES DEFINITELY", and although it is pretty remote has a great beach to laze around all day long...Unfortunatey the weather wasn't the best over my two weeks stay on samui but I suppose that's the luck of the draw, but still extremely hot enough to catch a great tan...Overall Samui has changed a lot since my last visit in 2001 and become very commercialised, but I suppose that's expected with the number of tourists visiting the island and of course become more expensive than my experience of Phuket with regard to shopping, meals and getting around...But still a very beautiful and fairly rustic little island and when leaving or arrivng the airport is probably one of the most beautiful little airports in the world...
