There was a little hiccup at check-in...
There was a little hiccup at check-in (our pick-up from the airport booked as a package forgot to give front desk the all-important check-in voucher and the receptionist was at a loss as to what to do), but otherwise a wonderful resort, fantastic service even if communication between their staff seemed a little muddled sometimes, lovely breakfasts, quiet and beautiful beach, several pools to swim/float in, never a shortage of sunbeds near the beach, and no loud music to disturb the tranquility of the sea.
Their beach towel service was extremely efficient. One night, one of their security staff noticed that we`d left our key in our rented scooter and kept it safe for us until the next day. When we upgraded to a Deluxe room from a Superior, we deliberately left a carton of orange juice in the fridge because we noticed the consume-by-date had passed (courtesy of the corner shop down the road). After a day out, we found the very same orange juice in our fridge in the new room. These are small positive details, but they add up to a great holiday experience. Also, they didn' charge us anything for cancelling our first booking to go there due to the riots.
One thing that did leave me with a bad taste is not related to Merlin in any way, so I hope they don't delete this for that reason as this might be useful info to other visitors, is the restaurant down the road called Bamboo. The manager or owner very obviously hated other Asians for whatever reason. (My wife is Japanese and I`m Chinese-English so people often mistake my nationality.)
We went on the first night of our arrival and we were served by a young lad who was pleasant and polite, as I believe we were since we're quite conscious of manners. After we got the bill, we wondered if they'd overcharged us. We thought we saw THB420 on the bill, but got THB 70 change from a 500 note. The restaurant owner was at the till. Also, my wife ordered a cup of tea at the end and we found out that he'd charged us THB40 (price of a pot of tea) instead of THB20. We were both groggy and tired from the long trip and being ripped off by THB30 (0.7 euro) is not worth griping about. Especially as we weren't positive he'd made a mistake or if we had.
Anyway, returning the next night giving them the benefit of the doubt, when the manager took our order, he didn't even look at us or write anything down and gave us kurt acknowledgements. We just thought he might be in a grumpy mood, but we noticed he was asking every single customer - except us, if they enjoyed their dinner, high-fiving some and over-laughing with those who ordered a lot. It was a bit of a cringefest to be frank. We also noticed from checking the menu that, no we hadn't been mistaken, he did overcharge us the previous night. Don't get me wrong, I don't long to be high-fived, want people to overly-laugh at my jokes or even want my 0.7 euro back. We just, like anybody else in this day and age, find these displays depressing. But if you're Caucasian, you might like the guy. He's the one wearing all the gold.
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