Lovely hotel, lovely grounds but...
Apr 12, 2020 MandR1863382015 Bexley, United Kingdom
We stayed at the Slate for a week towards the end of Feb prior to picking up a cruise (an odyssey for another time).
I booked the hotel nearly a year in advance and chose a pool suite for the privacy.
Coronavirus was beginning to spread outside of China so we were keeping an eye on Government advice and that given by our travel agent who said…
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We stayed at the Slate for a week towards the end of Feb prior to picking up a cruise (an odyssey for another time).
I booked the hotel nearly a year in advance and chose a pool suite for the privacy.
Coronavirus was beginning to spread outside of China so we were keeping an eye on Government advice and that given by our travel agent who said it was business as usual from both the airlines and hotels. Nothing adverse from our cruise company either so off we went.
We arrived at the hotel mid morning and we greeted by very friendly staff who booked us in and as the room wasn’t quite ready we enjoyed a lovely cold drink while a very pleasant Irish lady who was part of the management team explained all about the hotel.
Thailand is very popular with Chinese tourists and because of the lockdown in China they were missing so occupancy was well down although they reckoned it was at 75%.
Once we were settled in and after a few days we noticed the only large congregation of people was at breakfast. We ate at all 3 restaurants none of which were full at any time. The food was very tasty but was overpriced as was the wine mainly imported from NZ.
Because of the island’s tin mining past the design of the hotel is very industrial with factory type plumbing, metal surfaces with plenty of rivets on show. A shabby chic look with some places more shabby than chic ! Plenty of metal sculptures in the grounds too.
The hotel occupies a large area with lovely gardens which were well manicured. Dotted around were 3 pools with adequate loungers, shade and towels and waiters on hand for drinks etc.
Our pool suite was at the far end of the grounds a 2 minute walk away from a very sparsely populated beach but nonetheless plenty of bars around for drinks and snacks.
The suite had a walk in shower, separate toilet and outdoor bath. The bed was very comfortable, complimentary water replenished every day as was the usual shampoo, conditioner and shower gel.
Our only issue was with the pool which was in shade for most of the day apart from early morning and the odd 30 minutes throughout the day which was so disappointing and defeated the object of booking such a suite in the first place.
It was all down to the design. The building was ground floor and one above. The room above had it’s own balcony but running off the balcony over the shallow end of our pool was a slatted roof feature which shaded us. At the far end of our pool was a very large pitched roof covering which combined with the branches of a tree in the garden and the slatted roof of our upstairs neighbour guaranteed very little sun in our garden. Definitely not worth paying the extra money.
Ending on a positive note, the staff were very warm and friendly and nothing was too much trouble.
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