VANALEE RESORT – Hotel Reviews (Ko Chang, Thailand)

Picturesque but Awful! Maybe the fact there were no reviews on this place should have been a warning to us? Overall: Terrible resort! Terrible service! It is located in a small cove with palm trees and a big green lawn that runs down to the sea. We stayed here from 29 Dec – 2nd Jan 2013, booked through Agoda.com and paid £30-40 per night (Which is Over Priced) they are also advertised on here http://thaisea.ru/bung/resort.php for 1800 thai bart or £36. I was still not happy to pay this money but not wanting to miss my taxi/ferry/minibus I begrudgingly paid. When we spoke of our numerous problems nothing was done about it or they tried to charge us extra to do so. I had been traveling Thailand since the end of Nov 2012 so roughly knew how much to pay and what level of service to expect from our money my girlfriend has been to Ko Chang before and she was appalled by the Vanalee resort. Our room, The Type A room with air con which we paid for was nothing like the advertised pictures which are clean and appear a lot bigger, the ensuite bathroom was also appalling with poo stains and pubes from whoever last used the hut it also had a faulty light. (We did find one for 2 nights who charged 600b per night and were 100 times better! With more space and clean facilities each bungalow came with a wardrobe, a TV, air con, a safe and wifi that worked). Our Vanalee bungalow was also infested with ants a problem which is not helped by the bathroom not having full height side walls and large gaps in the block work. ?? But I will start on the positives… It has its own beautiful restaurant on the sea where you can watch a beautiful sunset even the bungalows look ideal from the outside. In the end I went & brought 2 cans of bug spray, a tub of bleach and a sponge in an attempt to make the room habitable and we used a torch in the bathroom at night. We decided there and then that we would look for alternative accommodation on the island but did not check out as we were unsure of availability so close to New Years. (these 2 run the resort) We told her we had booked through Agoda and would like to check in, she tried to say that we need to pay her on top of the agoda charge which I knew was paid in full back in early Dec 2012, she then said we had to pay extra for Air con (type a room) which I said NO we have paid for that already and after about 10 minutes of discussions she said ok and checked us in; a 500b key deposit was given and we also hired a moped as we were in a rush to get to a scuba diving lesson we had booked. On one occasion we had walked to the shop at the top of the road (approximately 15 min) to discover that someone had been in our room although nothing was taken and nothing cleaned or repaired they had turned off the air con which we felt was a bit of an invasion of our privacy. The final kick in the teeth from the Vanalee resort came when we checked out. We were then shown to our room. The woman accused us of crashing the very old and battered moped they had rented to us (which we did not) and demanded a 1000b and so ensued a 40 minute argument in which the crash accusation turned into an accusation that we were too heavy for the bike and buckled the rear wheel (again which we did not), I have seen 3 people on these mopeds loaded with shopping at a time, I weigh 80Kg at most and my girlfriend is very petit so the accusation was a complete farce but still the old woman refused to give me back my passport until I paid some money… A Thai girl came from one of the shops to translate and she told them we had not caused this damage… the argument then turned into a plea to help them pay for repairs to the bike (again not caused by us) so they reduced the charge to 500b but still refused to give me my passport. Our problems begin with a 35 minute wait to check in after a 10 hour bus ride as there was no one around; finally a middle aged man woke up saw us and went to get his wife. The resort from the outside is picturesque, truly stunning!