TUI BLUE Mai Khao Lak

I’ve just finished a 10 day family holiday which I found very disappointing. The Hotel requires a lot of improvement and seems to suffer from lack of direction and leadership from the management team. Positive points: - The rooms are spacious, modern and clean. Albeit there are many signs of wear and tear. - Good location near a fantastic beach. - Food is good with plenty of choice and also caters for different dietary needs. - Family friendly with an excellent Children section. For some reason Families choose not to use it and prefer using the main pool near the older hotel? Negative Points: - I personally found the reception staff quite rude and not accommodating, there seems to be kids operating the front desk with no real direction from the management team. - The main guy who coordinates the golf buggies at the reception needs to get fired in my opinion. He is rude to guests, especially the older generation. He also has some kind of dealings with the taxis. The Hotel charges 550 and the local taxis charge 300 to Khao Lak. Definitely some kind of racketeering going on. - the Hotel looks tired and requires a lot of work to get it to a 5 star hotel. The maintenance doesn’t seems to get completed. - The gym is cramped, poorly equipped and no air conditioner in the main area works ether. I know some people don’t go on holiday to workout but this is an important part of my life and I’m sure others agree. - The TUI reps seem to only be bothered about selling over priced expensive excursions and don’t really help. Top Tip! Buy and book your excursions on the beach with local booking agents. It’s a lot cheaper and more personable too. In General the country is amazing, the location is great but honestly look at alternatives before booking this place as it is a dive! Some people have noted the amount of young families which is true. There are loads of young babies and children of all ages everywhere so if your after a nice chilled break I would recommend the adults only area.

This hotel definitely does not deserve 5 stars. The rooms are very dirty, the shower is rusty, and the rails and bathroom elements are neglected and clearly not properly cleaned. The standard is far from what is shown in the photos online. The staff is not helpful and seems unprofessional, and reported issues were ignored. For the price, this was a huge disappointment – I definitely do not recommend it.

Booked a 3 week tour in Thailand through Secret Escapes and this hotel was the second stop. We were advised all 3 of our hotels would be 5 * we are mid 60’s and was quite shocked when we got here to find the place full of families quite a few with babies and children of all ages. We were put in the adults only block which was the furthest point in the resort from reception and the beach. There was gold buggies to take you around the resort. Our room was very spacious with large bathroom and lounge area. The adults only area had its own pool with pool bar. There were approximately 50 rooms and 27 yes 27 sun loungers 17 of which were placed in the middle of the pool in a small area with a bridge connecting to it. WiFi was abysmal. When that wasn’t working the TV only gave local channels and news channels. There’s no real bar area to relax in, in the evenings. There was an adults only bar in the adults area which was outside and no air con or fans it was uncomfortable to sit there in the evenings because of the humidity. The majority of the staff in reception were very young and we found it difficult to talk to them because of the language barrier. We had a leak in the bathroom so they said they would send someone 6 people came to see what the problem was. I tried to use translate app on my phone but wasn’t useful as most of them didn’t speak Thai. In my opinion this is a 3* hotel at best. I don’t really know why Secret escapes recommended it as part of our itinerary

We recently celebrated my sister’s 60th birthday at Mai Khao Lak Beach Resort & Spa, and it was absolutely fantastic! There were 29 of us in total, booking 14 rooms, and the entire experience exceeded our expectations. The staff were truly awesome — so warm, attentive, and always smiling. They made such a big effort to accommodate our large group and helped make the celebration feel extra special. Happy hour was hands down the best — great vibes, great drinks, and the perfect way for our family to come together each afternoon. And the food from the grill was my personal favourite — fresh, delicious, and cooked perfectly every time. Thank you for making such an important milestone so memorable for our family. We’ll definitely be back!

I've just finished a two week break at the TUI Blue and here's my breakdown: Food: Breakfast was perfect. So much choice. If someone wasn't happy with this, it's their issue. They had everything available you could possibly want from 7am to 11am. We were only bed and breakfast and didn't try the hotel restaurants as we enjoy eating out but from what I heard, they were a bit more expensive than the local options. Location: Great location on the beach but slightly out of town. Things die down around 10pm. You can go into town but would need a taxi as their last shuttle is at 4pm. They have two shuttles that run on the hour from 11am and return on the half hour from 1230. They will also stop at the night market on the nights these run. You need to make sure you book in advance as they get busy. With the size of the hotel, they could do with running this later and maybe another bus. Facilities: WiFi is dreadful here, slow and consistently drops out so you have to keep logging in. They need to sort it out. Reception staff were really unhelpful. We arrived at 930am and couldn't get in our room till 1.30pm when they knew we had a young child. They also expected us to just leave all our luggage in reception and go off. They also won't call you a taxi ever and expect you to walk along the beach to get one which can involve a wait. Annoying if you have things booked. I have never in all my years of travel had a hotel not able to call a taxi. So find a local number of one who you can contact. We did observe them refusing someone getting into a car we'd just come back in and directing them elsewhere so definitely something underhand going on. Rooms: Probably could do with a bit of general maintenance/tidying up but nothing major. We had a premium room with two separate rooms with a sliding door. Massive bathroom with bath and shower. Balcony on the small side. I wouldn't bother with a swim up room as most of them don't get any sun. Beds are rock hard however so be prepared. It won't be your most comfortable sleep. Rooms are cleaned regularly if you put the sign on your door. Plenty of wardrobe space. Water is in the fridge and there are water stations around the hotel and in reception to refill. Pools: The maintenance guys were always working hard round the pool and do a good job with the trees, water etc. They also reinflate the two inflatables (one in each of the family pools) when I wish they'd just burst them. There is a pool with a waterslide, pirate ship etc. Then two family pools and an adults only one. One family pool has a massive inflatable slide which unfortunately isn't treated like a slide. Avoid this pool unless you're happy to watch utterly ferral children run riot with parents who either don't care about their behaviour or aren't even there to keep an eye on them. Personally, they should put both inflatables in one and leave one pool for swimming. There is also a pool down near reception but that unfortunately was full of toddlers. I agree with the other review on babies. Though luckily we weren't overrun on our stay, I don't know why you would bring them in this heat. A lot of toddlers weren't adequately protected from the sun and one naked child actually stood and urinated in the pool. Needless to say we didn't visit that one again. Finally, there is an activity pool down near the beach. Towels are provided for sunbeds so no need to bring any. There are signs about not reserving sunbeds and staff removing towels but they never do. We had no issue getting sunbeds as we were early risers. However, you then get the usual idiots later looking bemused they don't have one after surfacing at lunchtime, then having one sunbed for their entire family and encroaching on your personal space with their inflatables and children's toys. A lot of the fellow guests here, like their children, have no manners. There are buggies to ferry you back and forth but really these should only be needed for disabled, older people, people with mobility issues, luggage etc. It's only a few minutes walk to the beach. One lacking feature round the family pool is a pool bar. We had to get our own from the room/shop everyday. There also was no toilets so again had to go up to the room. TUI: Don't bother booking your trips with TUI, they're a rip off. What you'd pay for one person, we got for all three members of our family. There's very little presence of TUI apart from sitting at their tour desk all day on their phones. On a previous holiday, you always saw them walking round all the hotel grounds and pools but not here which brings me onto entertainment... Entertainment: Severely lacking here and I've stayed at other TUI Blue hotels. Any guest entertainment (we saw a guitarist and a bit of Thai dancing) is at the restaurant near the activity pool so it seems guests only qualify for that if half board or paying more. The entertainment we saw on the main stage was lacking too. The bar near here also had a pool table with balls missing, different sized balls and cues missing tips which is just basic. Therefore we spent very little money in the hotel. We actually went out to another hotel for Chinese new year so they missed a trick there. On the whole, we had a great stay here but if we came back, we'd probably look at giving somewhere else a go.