3 Star Hotels in Koh Lipe

Upon arrival at reception, I immediately noticed the sewer and old food smell above the kitchen. -note to self, do not eat here- For the price we paid for a beachfront villa we were handed a plastic card to trade in for a beach towel as if we were at a hostel. Not a very nice beach towel by the way. Over washed and clearly been recycled a few years. The villa (111) was spacious and on the beach. The bathroom is enormous. However, hasn't been cleaned properly in eons. The drain in the shower is open, so don't take your jewelry in with you. Also gives off a powerful aroma of sewage when the shower is going. The villa is walled by glass doors ensuring a great view of the beach and everyone that is planted on the beach and directly next to the villa. The curtains are not blacked out. Very light up at night. The cocktails we ordered from the bar had zero mixers or juice. Tasted more like kerosine than a drink. The Mali resort next door is awesome for cocktails and they let you take it back to the room. Just return the glassware. The bed was not bad - One pillow, really? Do I need another plastic card to trade in? Breakfast- hmm. Caters to Chinese culinary splish splash. Not even Thai options were available. No fresh juice. No musli. No bacon. The meat that is offered is highly mechanically separated and processed. The coffee comes out of a machine, and regardless of the button you choose, it all tastes the same - muddy water. Did I mention the Mali resort? Awesome breakfast options for 250THB. Superb coffee. Overall, we enjoyed the balcony on the beach and the drinks and snacks at the Mali resort. For the price we paid, we'll be back at the Ten Moons Resort.

Stayed 4 days 3 nights. Dream beach and best view. The bay is the best and most beautiful from all 4 beaches on Lipe. The rooms are spacious and modern. Seems renovated a few months ago. Buffet is alright and reasonable for the price. House keeping seems understaffed or they do not know when you are out of the room. If you sleep in, in the morning you get a basket with water and refreshments placed at your door. But seems they do not comeback later in the day to clean. We didn’t get any house keeping. On third day, had to ask twice until house keeping cleaning came. But everyone at hotel is very friendly and welcoming. Be careful not to leave the door or balcony open in afternoon and evening. There are many mosquitos around the bungalows due to the plants and they will immediately come in. Mosquitos only around the bungalows, not at the restaurant, cafe, beach. Location and beach is sill the best. We will come back.

The environment of the hotel is very original, and the price is super cheap. It was so cheap that I didn't dare to book it at first. I was not sure if it was good or not, so I only booked it for two nights. Later, I stayed very comfortably and added another two nights. The whole hotel is like a resort, the restaurant food is good and the scenery is very good, the location is very convenient in the whole island. There is a diving shop in the hotel, and diving will send you to the room. And sap is also very comfortable. Very recommended.

The hotel has an excellent location with quick access to every available beach on the island. Inside, the hotel provides all the amenities you might need for a comfortable stay: a cooling pool, an excellent breakfast with several options, also free both ways transfer from/to the port. Our room was always clean and tidy, and the beds were comfortable. Check-in was very smooth, and the girls at the desk are very hardworking with smiles on their faces; they were happy to assist with everything. We enjoyed every minute of our stay and highly recommend this hotel.

We were met at the pier by one of the hotel team members who carted our luggage all the way to the hotel. Check-in was a bit odd as there is no front desk so everything is done at the bar. Our unit was at the very back of the resort, backing the kitchen which was very noisy first thing in the morning and woke us up every morning. It's definitely dated and could use some updating. The mini fridge in the unit worked but was literally falling apart and we had a mess of rusty water a few times. Safe in the room didn't work for us. Tons of mosquitoes early morning and at dusk so make sure to bring or purchase good repellent and the coils for the front deck area if you plan to sit outside. No pool but the snorkeling right out front of the resort was really good when we were there. We were told by the owner that throughout the year the visibility and water will change, so although we had perfect water, it won't necessarily be like that in a few months. Some of the fish are a bit aggressive so careful of that. One bit me hard enough that it broke the skin surface and I was bleeding. The beach chairs were nice as well but get taken up pretty quickly. Beach towels were available at the bar. The free breakfast was ok but the coffee was often only lukewarm. Tons of flies flying around the bar area so best to try and get a table nearby to eat at. We had lunch a couple times from the resort and it was pretty good. They brought it right to our table on the beach. Main busy area isn't too far of a walk down the beach. Out of the 7 islands we visited in Thailand, Lipe was the most unfriendly we found as well as the most expensive.

Apart from being almost on the beach itself, this place is a bit overrated as far as overall quality of certain aspects of their offer in services and amenities. Room is confortable, view from it is fabulous but…the pillows are horribly hard, woke up with a sore neck, the food at their restaurant is kind of ok if you choose Thai food but for American food, it is, let say, less than average, there are some choices that they scratch from their menu because they just don’t know how to cook it, simple thing bruschetta, club sandwich, breakfast is also pretty boring if you not Asian; cold and uncooked chicken sausages, cold chicken ham presented in cold water bowl, coffee is good though and toast are great, I ended up eating that only…last déception, beach access from beach front villa number 2 you need to walk about 200 meters right to the marina entrance or 200 meters left to the restaurant to get access to the beach that is about 20 meters right in front of your room. There is a concrete wall, high of about 1.6 meters that separates you from the beautiful white sand beach. See photos attached…

When we arrived at the immigration office, two Ricci staff came to us, took our luggage, waited for us. They drove us back to the hotel on their motorcycles. As soon as we arrived, we had a coke and delicious pineapple juice. They helped us to get our luggage to our room. Most importantly, the beautiful lady at the counter gave us good advice to watch the sunrise/sunset and also recommended a good massage. This hotel is very close to the pedestrian street, about 15-15 minutes to Sunrise Beach, so the location is very good. There is a 7-11 next to it, so you can buy whatever you want, whenever you want.

Ten Moons was amazing and the Staff even better. I am a single father traveling with my two children and this Staff predicted whatever we needed or wanted before we could speak it. Pen and Fa were wonderful in coordinating day trips for us. Somehow are room was cleaned everyday while we had our quick breakfast. Markie, Panida, LeLe and EiEi were so wonderful in the restaurant. My children looked forward to going there for every meal to be able to joke and laugh with all of them. They taught us a lot about island life and Thai language. We miss them already and will definitely be coming back as often as possible. Oh, and Smiley the dog. We will miss him too. This is an wonderful place.

The location of the hotel is on the top of the mountain, and you can ask for a car up and down the mountain. There are about 100 plants, the decoration of the house is relatively old, and there is not much food in the restaurant. The price is relatively high. But the view is really great. Although there is a swimming pool on vacation, I always feel that the bedding and towels are relatively old and not very comfortable to use. The room is a bit damp. Not recommended for comfort, but great for the view. Breakfast is relatively simple, but enough to eat. The recommendation is still full, because the scenery is great.

We booked to stay in a fan cottage for 3 nights via the hotel’s own website which had a rate of 900THB per night which seemed better than that on booking engines. First impressions were that it’s a large ‘resort’ right on the beach next to where the speedboat ferries dock and adjacent to Walking Street which is 5 minutes walk away (though we heard no noise from it). There are a range of rooms- cottages with a/c and a block of rooms which also had a/c. There are about a dozen fan only cottages at the rear of the complex. Ours was rustic but clean with intact insect screens and a large bed. The bathroom was half open which was good for drying towels etc. All cottages have a balcony, ours was shaded by trees which kept the room cool though the fan worked well too and we actually slept better than we had in a/c rooms. Only downside to the room was no fridge. It had an old fashioned TV but who watches TV anyway on a Thai island?! Breakfast was included in the price- buffet style with Thai and western dishes. It was nothing special but eatable and enough to put you on until lunch. We liked Ko Lipe and were happy with the room so decided to stay for an extra 2 nights and that’s where we had problems. Again we booked on the hotel website and received a confirmation. We then received an email in broken English which we interpreted as saying the fan bungalows were all full and we would be ‘upgraded’ to an a/c room. We replied that we were already in the room so it would make more sense to upgrade someone else. After getting no response we attempted to clarify the situation with reception. I don’t speak Thai so can’t criticise people for not speaking a foreign language but when dealing with mostly European guests you would expect at least one member of staff to have the basics of English. Unfortunately not. We ended up in a confusion of Google translate messages with a teenage girl who was clearly sick (coughing, sneezing, red eyes and nose) and shouldn’t have been at work. I ended up speaking to ‘a manager’ on the mainland by phone but still couldn’t get any sense from them. Eventually we resorted to replying by email and were eventually told we could stay in the same room. You can go into any tour operator on Walking Street and find staff who speak excellent English. Why the hotel are unable to find staff with foreign language skills is beyond me. My guess is they are employing cheap intern labour from mainland tourism schools which is fine for basic check in and out but they should have at least one person who can communicate with guests if there’s a problem. The majority of rooms seemed empty when we stayed, the exception being the fan rooms which were very good value and always seemed booked out. Maybe the hotel could look at a way of turning off the a/c in some of the bungalows and selling them at a fan room rate? In summary, we were happy with the location of the hotel, the facilities and the room. The stay was spoilt somewhat by a disorgan