Some of you might already be familiar with the hotel named Haad Tien Beach Resort. Lately, there has been a lot of buzz around the hotel on Instagram. Many other bloggers have already been there and praised the resort. Today, I will give you a very honest and 100% authentic review! I have to admit that I am not as euphoric in this review. By Looking at the reviews on Booking, HolidayCheck and TripAdvisor, one can already see that that they are not only positive.

First off, the ocean and the beach are really impressive and beautiful! And after seeing the whole west coast of Koh Tao, I have to say that the Shark Bay beach (the hotel’s) is the most beautiful of them all. Also it is only accessible for hotel guests, so it is a very quiet and lovely beach. The Hotel, however, just did not convince me!

There are two different versions of the hotel: the Haadtien Beach Resort and the Haadtien Beach Club. The club is the cheaper section of the Resort and is located directly next door. Both facilities are connected together and guests can move freely from one to the other. The Beach Club is a hotel building with many rooms – a normal hotel! The resort however, is composed of individual bungalows that are scattered across Shark Bay. We booked a Pool Villa at the Haad Tien Beach Resort.

The whole hotel area is pretty, spacious, and well looked after. The Haad Tien is surrounded by an incredibly beautiful bay (Shark Bay), which is also the most beautiful one in Koh Tao! The beach is also super pretty – completely white and quiet! The pool, which is located next to the beach, is really nice as well. The pool is a rather tiny for a resort of that size but with the wonderful ocean nearby nobody wants to use the pool anyway..

Of course, it could also be the hotel did not seem as impressive to us because we already had an amazing experience with our villa at the Panviman on Koh Phangan. We are actually not that demanding but we definitely expect the facilities and fixtures to be “somewhat” clean. We had the highest room category in the resort. This was special for us as we usually only sleep in standard rooms, but with the gigantic deal on Booking.com we had to opt for this treat! Sadly, we were kind of disappointed.

The room itself was rather cute and furnished in a typical Asian way. Sadly, there was something to criticize in every corner – the light in our bathroom didn’t work, the Internet didn’t work for 2.5 days, the cold water did not work. Also, the shower did not work and once you turned the water on it started to splash all over the bathroom! It didn’t really work…

One day, we arrived at our room a little later and our jalousie was lying on the floor. The jalousie that hung on our door and served as a privacy screen. Sadly, we were not able to put it up again and had to call housekeeping. He, however, also could not manage to put it up again and angrily reattached it onto the roof with a drilling machine!

All in all, I would say that the bungalow is not worth the name “pool villa”. Especially not for the high price. Luckily, we got a really cheap rate – otherwise I absolutely would have complained! Most of our furniture was broken or old. Also our night table light was broken. The pool on our terrace was way too cold and never reached the 23 degree Celsius mark..

The breakfast buffet was rather small and not a great deal. We had to make the coffee and tea ourselves. I’m not lazy and I don’t want to sound spoiled, but when I am on vacation and pay a lot of money, I do expect a certain kind of service. The cheaper variant, the Haad Tien Beach Club, didn’t even have yoghurt!! Also there were no veggies, no honey and no spreads for the bread. They did not have a big selection of warm food and the juices were not fresh and were always empty. Also, nothing was labelled. I honestly think that it was rather annoying that we never knew what we were actually eating. I’m not the biggest breakfast-fan but I think with that hotel category a big buffet is a must! Furthermore, I need to add that there were no regional dishes!

We had a little medical emergency during our stay – Manuel got a sunstroke and was sick for 1,5 days. So I asked the housekeeping for new sheets! However, even after asking 3 times (at the reception and the housekeeping itself) they did not do it. I also asked for more water because Manuel needed the liquids with his sunstroke. There was no shop at the resort and I did not want to leave him on his own while driving to the city on my own. I never got more than 2 small bottles of water per day.

The worst for me, however, was that I could not reach anyone after Manuel fainted at 2:30 in the morning. They did not have a list of important telephone numbers in the room so I wasn’t able to call the ambulance. I had to search for the stupid telephone number of the reception in a 2 page long pamphlet while Manuel lay unconscious on the floor. Such a nightmare!

Once I found the number for the reception, nobody answered the phone. I let it ring for at least 5-10 minutes and tried to call them a couple of times. Then I ran to the reception in my pyjamas to get help! The situation got worse and worse for me – at the reception there was no one to be found. That’s why I walked into the staff-area but again, didn’t find any of the staff. Just imagine someone having a heart attack and nobody answers the phone to get help! This is insane!! I even checked the guest folder, where it was clearly stated that the reception should have been staffed that night.

So, I called my mom and she told me what to do. Luckily, Manuel got better in the night and we were able to drive into the city to get medicine for him. After that, it got much better and he felt healthy again after a few days. Those 30 hours were just awful! It was even worse that there was nobody around to help! That’s crazy and irresponsible.  Manuel didn’t want me to publish this story initially, but I felt like you need to know what you are in for when booking this hotel!

Okay this isn’t as drastic, but for bloggers the internet is absolutely essential. The wifi at the resort is an absolute catastrophe! It didn’t work or if it worked, it was very slow. Connecting alone took me 25 minutes and once you were connected you were kicked off all the time. So, I started pre-editing my Instagram pictures and preparing the text in my notes. Even that took me 30-60 minutes! I wasn’t able to answer my emails and couldn’t even start Snapchat. Sorry to everyone who was waiting for me to answer and a BIG SORRY to my #DTC, which I kind of neglected during my vacation.