Renaissance Phuket Resort & Spa (Marriott International)

This is my first time to stay in Renaissance hotel and it was totally disappointing to us. Total 5 of us were travelling to Phuket for 4 days and chose to stay in this hotel for one night as it is closed to airport for departure convenience. Plus we were heard that the hotel was newly renovated and close to the beach. It does close to the beautiful Maikhao beach, but I would say this is the only pros when we stay in this hotel. We had a lot of frustrations and disappointments during our short stay. 1) We didn't feel welcoming when we arrived. We drove and arrived to the hotel entrance for check in, no one asked us if we need help for the luggage and parking for the car. 2) We reserved 2 rooms under different channel and informed the reception upon check in. It's ok that the rooms were not assigned to each other, but it was very disappointing to find out our room is with 2 single bed when we entered to the room. The room type I reserved on Trip.com states clearly as "King Room with Balcony and Garden view" but we were informed by the reception that the bedding is not guarantee and they had no room for us to move when we called for clarification. No one ask our preference of bedding when we checking in, so we expected to have a King bed room as this is the room type I booked online. Obviously they forced or even cheated us to stay in the room which not the one we booked. Otherwise it would be more respectful if they can let us know in advance if they were overbooked and offer alternative for us to choose which a five star hotel always do. 3) We found 1 dead and 1 live crock coach in the room, we just clean it up ourselves as it was too tired to call and report and maybe there will not come up to a solution for us and wasted time at the end. However, it does reflect the low level of hygiene in the hotel rooms. 4) Upon arrival, we reserved a table for 5 of us for dinner at 8:30pm at the Thai restaurant Takieng. 2 of us arrived the restaurant 15mins earlier, we don't mind to wait at the bar or at the restaurant entrance if the table wasn't ready, but it just wired that we were told to wait to be seated next to the table that wasn't ready. After we were invited to be seated, no one offering us menu or asking for drinks until we asked for it. Even the welcome snack was delivered to the table after one hour we seated. We felt like we were left out and were not taking care by anyone in the restaurant. The service of the other restaurant on the street that we had dinner the other night was way better than this restaurant in a hotel and it was double cheaper than Takieng. The food here were just average, the braised pork was good but the seafood like shrimp and fish were not fresh. 5)The buffet breakfast was very average, the selection maybe ok but the quality of the food is not so good. Salad and fruit were not fresh; the egg dishes were not tasty as it looks; the waffles, pancakes and the crepe were not crispy as it looks; the coffee were bad, no flavour at all. There’s many flies when we seated outdoor for breakfast, we even moved to a table with the shelter, but the situation didn’t get better. Overall, we were seriously disappointed by the service, hardware and the hygiene level in the hotel. Upon departure, no one checking on how’s our staying experience, until they sent us a cold email by system for feedback. My impression of Marriott hotel was very positive before staying here according to my enjoyable experience of staying in JW Marriott Phuket back to few years before. This time staying in Renaissance just disappointed us in every single area and ruined our holiday mood. We will definitely not coming back to stay here again.

My family and I had an enjoyable time. We stayed in the hotel. It’s clean and the room is spacious. The only thing is that you have to request for basic amenities like toothbrush or shaver etc. unless the cleaner of the day forgot to restock. Service is above and beyond. Love the buffet breakfast. Having Starbucks in the hotel is a plus. The gym is fully equipped and had a good workout too.