OYO 441 Grand Thara Hotel

You get what you pay.
It's ok for a night or a few.

I chose this hotel for its location but nothing else

This is a well located older hotel with large rooms and a most interesting restaurant. When we visited there were young women singers in the restaurant during the afternoon organized it appeared by an older madam.Food was excellent and the hotel is very spacious.Well recommended.

I was staying here before and after my trip to Khao Son. Tok the local bus from the train station and the next day a tuktuk to the buss station. The staff at the reception was very friendly, though the hotel have seen his best days but the prize was resonable so I don't complain. The bed was good and the AC works fine that was all I needed and of course a shower for a night stay. In the evening at the riverside was plenty of action and the next morning a breakfast with warm and cold dishes was included. After all you can have good value for your money in this place.

The hotel was once the grand dame of the hotels in Surat Thani. The amenities are good but old & quite rundown. Really in need of renovation. Location is OK, but other hotels are in better location & nearer to central town.

Stayed at the Grand Thara Hotel for one night on the way to Koh Phangan. The hotel is located in Suratthani town 30 minutes from the airport. The staff at the hotel spoke no English which made things difficult. The hotel and room were rundown with dodgy lighting. The hotel did offer breakfast however there was nothing particularly desirable on offer.

Me and my partner stayed 2 nights here, average hotel, customer service leaves a lot to be desired. But the room was clean, nice view of the river and temple opposite hotel, not very close to anything only shops and a market other wise you need to hire a moped to get anywhere attraction wise. Wouldn't recommend the area tbh, we've visited nicer places and surat thani is more of a pass through area.

We had a great stay here. This is not a luxury hotel, and the price reflects that. We paid less than $40 for two twin rooms and free breakfast for five (2 adults, three kids). I felt we got much more than our money's worth. The air conditioner was too cold for me, though the kids were in haven so wouldn't let me turn it down. The view of the town was great. Good hot shower. Someone else's hair in the sink, but reasonably clean. Free drinking water.

I read that the staff speak little English. That was not our experience. The girl on the front desk spoke very good English and was kind enough to write the name of the night market (FANTASTIC! You must go) to give to the taxi driver, and the name of the hotel on the back for our return trip, as this town is the 'real' Thailand and many people don't speak English. Breakfast is adequate.

Stayed one night between a flight from Bangkok and a boat to Koh Phangan. It is one of the funniest hotels I've ever seen. First, that's the LOCAL hotel, oriented at Thai thourists first. Thus, the staff does not speak English. They can not answer any questions about the boat, taxi etc. All the equipment in the bathroom is also for a local person (i.e. someone not taller than 170 cm). Rooms, corridor, elevator - everything is old and worn out. Downstairs there's a restaurant (also for local) with low prices, good food and a very funny singers. So if you have one night, want to save money and feel yourself in a 1980s asian movie, try Grand Thara.

The hotel itself is nice enough for £10 a night you can expect a very dated lift, dated rooms probably from the 1970s ~ but the mattresses were comfy enough & the air con worked well. The shower worked perfectly enough for £10 a night & the room had a working fridge & a TV, with free WI-FI in the lobby. As I say perfectly pleasant enough to use as a stop over for the night or two whilst on route to the islands.

Going back to stop overs, the only thing to note about this hotel is the sheer number of red light massage shops in the area, combined with the hookers who blatently strut through the lobby & 30 minutes leave again. The clientele are mostly Thai or Japanese young males, with only a handful of genuine Thai couples seen here. Having stayed here with my boyfriend it was a shock to say the least when a young Japanese male knocked on my door & asked to be let in to my/our room. Thankfully my partner was with me at the time but it would have been quite intinidating had he nipped to the shop!

It's certainly a colourful hotel & not for the faint hearted!

I needed a single overnight stop before my flight to kl, this plaxe was perfectly located and was as expected so cant really complain. Reception service was poor, hitel seen better days but room and breakfast was fine. All in all ik but dont go expecting luxury!

This hotel has a perfect location! Its old, but have all what you need for a good night sleep. Have stayed here three times now. The rooms costs from 9£ to 19£. But then you may not need a big livingroom with corner view, that costs the most.

Like me you are probably only in Surat Thani to go to the islands. This place is clean and they have rooms with 2 and 3 beds. The rooms are really old and never renovated (1970's style) but they are clean and spacious. Our room was unbelievably huge but super cheap.

The front desk staff are useless and don't even bother with asking for a wake up call.

Wifi is only in the lobby.

Hotel is very very dated. Everything is old ie the room, furnitures, the aircond( with no temperature control & got very cold during sleep), the lift etc. No doubt it is cheap but there are many cheap hotels elsewhere as it is just a small town & mostly popular for transit backpackers going to koh samui or phangan. The mattrese was so hard that i could feel the spring coils.
However there were some good points. The staff were helpful & friendly and location is just a stroll away to the pier which is convenient for those on transit. My husband loves this place as there is ample parking area behind the hotel which is very important for him as a biker. We requested a room facing the river on the top most floor and hence had a lovely view. However it got noisy in the morning as it was facing the main road. If piece & quiet is important to you, don't go for the riverview rooms.
The room rate includes bfast but you might as well skip it altogether. They have only plain white bread with 1 type of jam, butter and porridge. No eggs in sight! And you got to use the plastic tray & cups, which reminded me of my school canteen days. The restaurant is dark with old tables & chairs and smelt musty.
Overall, it is not really that bad for a cheap town hotel but i will give this one a miss next time. My husband likes this place for the parking convenience, nice view and convenient location though.

The Grand Thara was a complete dump. To be fair, it was cheap, but whatever low budget you're on, it's not worth it.

The place is very worn out. I dare you
to take the stairs and check out the floors. According to the furnishing, it seems like the happy days where sometime at the 70's, with a decorator from Soviet. There was a damp, unhealthy smell in the room. It didn't help to open the windows or turn on the air condition.

The breakfast was a joke. The tea tasted like coffee, and the toast was barely edible. On top of that some weird looking porridge that I didn't dare to taste.

On the good side, this hotel is situated in the middle of the city of Surat Thani. Another good thing about this place was the hot shower. Best so far of any place I have stayed at.
But the good stuff ends there.

Stayed 1 night when arriving late at the train station and leaving for Ko Samui the day after.

Strange hotel that may have been stylish 20 or 30 years ago. Nice room with air-con. Really cheap, so did the trick for us.

We stayed for one night on our way to the islands. It was perfect for us- the room was huge,clean and comfy.

The girls on reception were so helpful and so were those in the restaurant.

We wandered around the nearby area to look for somewhere to eat, there wasn't anything around so we ate at the hotel restaurant. Lots of choice and good value. We ordered Thai curries which were tasty but sooooo spicy (and we love spicy food) so ask for it mild if need be.

5 minutes by tuk tuk to the bus station to get to koh samui ferry.

Great value.

There is no point in criticising anything about this place as a room costs just THB 450 (about USD 14) per night, including a small Asian-style breakfast. That said, they did a good job in designing their website as the pictures make it look like it is quite modern with clean rooms. It is not. Basically it looks like a 30-year old hotel, the marble floor lobby and lift have all seen better days, the bathroom in my room was in a pretty bad state, and there are no frills whatsoever in the room (even the lightbulb in the bed-side lamp was missing). The bed was probably 30 years old as well, and I could feel the spring coils of the mattress against my legs as I tried to sleep. There is a old and noisey aircon machine which, even on Low setting, was too noisey to keep switched on all night.

But as I say, what can one expect for that sort of price. On the other hand - the sheets and towels were clean, the bathroom areas were superficially clean at least (though I would not wish to immerse myself into the bath tub without cleaning it myself!), the carpet in the room looked reasonably new, the fridge worked and was cold, there was a TV (but no channels other than Thai ones) and there is even free wifi in the lobby. For an overnight stop, while moving from Koh Samui up to Bangkok, who can complain!

The hotel is not really targeted at non-Thai visitors. Most signs are in Thai only, and I saw only two other westerners in the place. The check-in staff lady could speak English, but I had some problems the next morning explaining my taxi needs to the airport.

Beware that, unless you want to indulge in local Thai hawker food with the locals, there seem to be no restaurants of any sort in the area. I walked all around for maybe one hour, by the river and further into town, and saw nothing. Eventually dinner came from 7-Eleven. Indeed by 7:30pm the area was pretty dead - some traffic but very few people around. No surprise that there were no proper restaurants open.

So overall, if you're just passing through, are not too worried about cleanliness, are not hungry, and are on a budget, this is a perfectly good place to stay, and as cheap as you will get anywhere in the world for a hotel like this. Oh yes, and the view from the room was very nice (see attached picture), maybe worth the THB 450 by itself!

Stayed just the one night at the Grand Thara, breaking our journey between the Andaman coast and Koh Nang Yuan. Having spent the previous few days in a fanless hut in a forest, cheek-by-jowl with the wildlife, it was a real luxury to get a clean aircon room with a hot shower - and all for £8/night - what great value!
The communal areas were a little grubby but the staff did their best to help, with some limited English skills - a lot better than my bahasa!
Would also recommend the nearby Rabsangmai restaurant - excellent food and overlooking the Tapi River: fab tempura prawns and large beers!

I'm staying in this hotel as a stopover before I go over to Koh Samui the following day. It's so far the cheapest hotel which I have ever stayed at 450bht (as at Oct 09).

The room is clean and I would consider this better than a hostel. There are ample parking lots and breakfast is provided with the rate. The breakfast is nothing fanciful, with 2 pieces of bread and porridge. The pork porridge is yummy and warm my stomache before I set off for the car ferry to Koh Samui.

The only bad thing is the water canister in the toilet leaking and the tap mixing not able to control the flow of water between the shower and the tap.

I personally think that the room is great value for money, just that you need to set your expectation right.