Mai Holiday By Mai Khao Lak

早餐很一般， 食物是凍的，沒有保溫，如一家大小入住是很好，很多活動。 沙灘太小沙灘椅，但酒店房間有沙灘席可自行帶去用

This is first and foremost a family orientated hotel, as the giant Teddy bears at the main door indicate. There are 4 large pools accessible to children and one smaller one serving the adults only section. While the swim up bar here is a nice feature, the limited outside seating space and only 20 sunbeds for potentially 200 adults means that few guests can actually enjoy this area. Those with swim up rooms have more space but are mostly shaded. The rooms are lovely and spacious with separate sitting area and balcony and the bed was huge and very comfortable. Wifi is a problem, very weak signal and constantly dropping out. Maybe because the adults only section is furthest from reception? It's a 7-10 min walk along the hotel service road which is always in full sun so not pleasant. If you're lucky you might get to flag down one of the buggies, but during the day they're usually transporting luggage for guests checking in or out.
From reception it's 5 min walk to the beach which we loved, day and night. At the hotel the buffet restaurant charges £17 per head. At the beach we spent 2-3 hours over food and cocktails for approx £20 for both of us. If it hadn't been for the beach area I think we'd have been really disappointed and bored with our week here. Breakfast is a good selection but busy and noisy due to all the kids. Why not serve breakfast for adults only in the sky bar/restaurant?
Staff are friendly and helpful although check in was chaotic. We arrived at 3pm after a 2.5 hour transfer and it took an hour before we were allowed to our room. At one point we counted 13 staff behind reception but it was only when I spotted the manager and spoke to him that we were actually given our room key.
This is probably a good choice if you've got young children. Lots aimed at them day and evening. But I wouldn't recommend for adults only as the same thought and attention has definitely not been put into their holiday experience .

This hotel is poor:
Took approx 1 hour to Check-in. No arrival wet flannels or drinks provided so had to ask for them, (other guests had received them).
No Wi-fi available for 2 hours after arriving.
Free meal ticket which we were entilted to was not supplied, we had to ask for it.
Upon entering the room, the toilet was blocked.
The shower was not working hot wate only, no cold water.
the room was very very dark, had to use a torch to do my make-up.
Dressing table stool was very very low, couldn't even see the top of my head in the mmirror, had to drag a side table from another part of the room to sit on.
No English channels on the TV except for one motor racing channel!! no english news channels!!
Fridge barely cold & was not chilling the water.
Shower tiles were very roughly grouted over & heavy mould in the tile grout.
Once they got the shower working it ran hot/cold inconsistently whilst in yuse.
Room whcih as in the reception block was very dated & in need of refurbishment.
No feeback form was available!!
My advise if you end up staying at this hotel is to go to the stalls on the beach to eat/drink.

We travelled with 3 families (6 adults and 4 kids 8-12) and stayed for 2 weeks. This was our second visit to Mai Khao Lak and we were equally as happy. Stayed in the top section (pool access jacuzzi suite). Modern, clean room with a separate living room, which doubles as a kid's room. Walk off the balcony into private spa area which joins massive swimming pool. There are no shortage of wet options with 5 pools from the beachfront area to the peaceful adults only pool area at the top of the resort. Loads of choices for bars and food. The new Thai restaurant by the beach is very comfortable with great food. At the kids pool area there is another kitchen and bar with great lunch options. The staff are always friendly and helpful. There is an hourly free shuttle bus from reception to town which is convenient, otherwise walk to the beachfront and you can get a tuk tuk (if you order through reception it will cost more!). Breakfast buffet is easy to navigate, with a huge selection of coffee / tea, fresh fruits / yoghurts, cooked food, cereal, pastries, cakes and sweets, loads of bread choices and cold cuts & cheeses. This was a big highlight for the kids and great way for us to all gather and catch up to start the day together. The beach and ocean are very nice, and the many options of beachfront bars, restaurants, laundry services and massage places are all within a 1-5 minute walk from the resort. We visited most of these during our stay and never had a bad experience. Kids club is awesome with plenty of fun and varied activities to engage the kids. If I had to fault something - the internet inside our room was poor, but in most other areas of the resort it was fine. So the 2 big questions... would we go back (a third time)? YES! and would we recommend it to friends? YES! Thanks to everyone at Mai Khao Lak for another memorable experience! See you next time!

NOT AN ADULT ONLY HOTEL! it's a very family oriented hotel with one small adult only bit at the back. You still have to deal with screaming children and absent-minded parents at the breakfast buffet everyday. Don’t say it’s adults only. It's really big so you have to get around on a golf cart. The pool and whole resort seems very badly designed and some thing seem like a law suit waiting to happen, especially the pool and the bath, the entire pool perimeter is covered by marble tiles which is the first thing you step on as you get out… MARBLE? wet feet? Law suit! Also the tiles of the pool are a camouflage colour, and so are the stairs around the pool, so you will randomly walk into stairs, as they’re invisible. The bath is also built for people around 6 feet or taller, as I struggled to get in an out, and having a shower the edges flooded and went all over the floor, so we needed extra towels everyday.
The reception staff were nice, however the bar staff and pool bar staff were always angry looking and seemed like when you ordered from them, it was the worst part of their day. Our fridge was also leaking all over our floor, however after the 2nd person looked it, they seemed to fix it.
Bad stuff out of the way, the entertainment was nice at the sky bar, a really nice band called strings of the streets.
The restaurants weren’t much except for the Talay Thai on the beach, best Thai food we had on our whole holiday, and everything was only 100 baht.

Amazing first trip to Thailand. Will definitely be going back.