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Centara Karon Resort Phuket

Was a fantastic place for relaxing, not much around but local markets and beaches. Can however travel to do more either by booking tours or tuk tuk or taxi to surrounding suburbs. Staff very amazing, professional and kind 

Fantastic place for relaxation

I stayed as a solo guest for 7 nights in June, the resort was great from check in to check out.
My room was a lagoon pool view , very big room with an extremely comfy king bed. Very clean and tidy with housekeeping daily if required.
Breakfast at Azure restaurant was very good with lots of choices.
The resort pools were all clean , lots of pool lounges.
Location is great, a little back from the main road so pretty quiet, but only a 5 minute walk to the beach.
Plenty of shops and food places close by.
Temple market on Tuesday and Friday evenings were good for a wander around.
Overall I definitely recommend the Centara Karon Resort, for solos and for families.

Karon beach holiday

We’ve stayed at Centara Karon many times before and each stay has been great but this time the Centara Karon team have really disappointed with their communication skills being quite underwhelming.
We booked our 2 week stay two months prior directly with the hotel on the Centara website. I requested interconnecting rooms and return airport transfers which were confirmed in the booking email booking confirmation we received. Booking direct and being a Centara The 1 member allows for a later checkout as well as a 10% discount on F&B purchased in the hotel restaurants and bars and with Carpe Diem running the kids club like previous visits, we thought we were in good hands.
7 days prior to our departure from Australia, I emailed the hotel to check that our two rooms were interconnected and to provide our flights arrival details for the airport pick-up. With 3 days prior to departure and not having received a response, I sent another email. 24 hours prior to departure, I sent another email and also messaged via Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. We received no response or acknowledgment of any communication whatsoever.
Fast forward to our arrival at Phuket airport and there was no transport waiting for us. After waiting for an hour we jumped in a taxi. Upon our arrival at Centara Karon, we were greeted by the very lovely ‘Ming’ who was quite apologetic and offered us a free dinner voucher for the inconvenience and lack of response. Our room was not ready so she offered for us to go and enjoy the pool. On our way through the resort, we noticed that one of the two restaurants was permanently closed. The gardens looked like they had not been maintained for quite some time and the corridors leading to our room were filthy with spider webs, leaves, rubbish and cigarette buts everywhere. Even up until checking out today, no attention was paid to cleaning any common areas. Once our room was ready, it was as comfortable as we remember, but that’s really the only good thing I can say about this stay. There were a couple of staff members we knew from previous stays and they always did their best to make all guests feel comfortable, but most of the other staff couldn’t care less. The “bartenders” couldn’t mix a glass of water and the pool bar was inundated with big ants (OMG, the ants!!). They didn’t have many of the ingredients they needed to make the drinks off the poolside menu, AND NO - MARTINI’s DO NOT HAVE BLACK OLIVES AS THE GARNISH!!!
When it came to meals, apart from the normal bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast, the quality of the rest of the food/meals including “buffet breakfast” selection was quite disappointing. Particularly the first night which was marketed as an “all you can eat meat lovers choice” for around 700 baht per person. We chose to eat in and utilize the “free dinner” voucher provided. Talk about false advertising! The all you can eat but turned out to apply only to the salad and desert bar. The salad bar consisted of 2 small plates of pasta or potato salad and a few mixed greens that you would struggle to put together to make a half decent salad. The “desert” bar was made up on a choice of 2 jelly drops about the size of a milk bottle cap. They were disgusting. It seemed that someone thought it was a good idea to put a heap of gelatin in some orange or coconut juice, cool it in the fridge and serve it up as edible!! We were more than happy to pay good money for good food but this placed missed the mark by a mile. Aside from a few poolside snacks throughout the day for the kids, we ate at the restaurants in a few other resorts close by (and those meals were far nicer and better value). The kids club was also a disappointment with no proactive approaches from the two guys running it whatsoever and activities being scare and not well advertised. With a week in and a week to go in our stay, on our way out of our room to breakfast, we were greeted by a 2 meter long Asian Water Monitor that even made the room attendant scream when I called him to help. He immediately made a few calls from his mobile phone but more than 10 minutes later no one had come and this creature was becoming increasingly stressed and aggressive as it was cornered at the end of our corridor 3 stories up. The room attendant entered the room and called    Someone from the hotel phone and around 10 minutes later a couple of guys came to relocate the unwanted guest. Fair to say along with no garden maintenance, there was now evidence that there was no pest control / prevention undertaken either. After speaking with some other guests, we were made aware that the hotel was closing 4 days after we check out for an 18 month major renovation. This was not advised on their website at anytime, nor did any of the staff mention it until I asked probed them about it. It’s almost like they deliberately kept it secret to honour bookings and take guests cash knowing full well they were far from being able to provide their normal 4 -star service. If we were aware of this when we booked, or even when we arrived to check in, we would not have stayed here this time around. We felt quite deceived actually. After all that’s happened and when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did - at checkout today. 
We had a 3pm transfer to the airport. At 2:30 we went to reception to checkout and finalist the bill. We were presented with a 20,000 plus bill which I was ok with but they didn’t apply the 10% member discount to the food and drinks we had ordered and we had a surprise charge for “sports & leisure” which we never used.
When I asked them to adjust the bill, the lovely ‘Ming’ had to call her manager “Grong” who then had to call the F&B manager to review the charges. Now, when you have all the receipts that we’ve signed for that add up to over 20,000 baht, and a folio print out that totals the same as the sum of the receipts for food and drinks, one would think that you would just take 10% off the total and reprint a bill, right? Wrong! After waiting over 10 minutes for the F&B manager to arrive, she then proceed to manually add up all then signed receipts. Using both a calculator and her phone and taking well over 20 minutes. All the while the airport transfer was waiting with luggage and family loaded ready to get us to the airport. After flipping through receipts and calculating it over and over again, the frustration came out and I had to abruptly let them know that we were going to miss our flight. After what seemed like an awkward exchange between Ming and the F&B manager, Ming printed and new bill with a discount of 1,000 baht. According to my maths, 10% of 20,000 is 2,000, not 1,000. However with the fear of missing our flight and the connection thereafter, I just paid the bill and jumped in the car. On our way to the airport, I noticed that they still didn’t remove the ‘sports and leisure’ charge that I disputed and they couldn’t provide a signed receipt for!
Now that we’re happily seated, airborne and on our way to enjoy the remainder of our holiday, I can safely say that Centara Karon was the worst experience in over 12 trips to Thailand over many years and has left a very sour impression on us. To the readers of this review, there are many newer resorts in Karon with far more to offer and better value for money than this venue.

Absolutely Awful!!

Do not book here, save yourself the disappointment. We chose to pay more for a private villa room, it had cobwebs in all the corners, doors that didn’t have seals so all the bugs and lizards enter your room at night, the private pool clearly hadn’t been cleaned (which took 24 hours to have someone finally show up with a skimmer), the toilet broke multiple times, and to top it off the room had a leak in the ceiling in the bathroom. Absolutely terrible place…. Embarrassing, tried to get some money back from our travel agent but wasn’t given anything… 

Book elsewhere!!

Is this a swanky 5 star hotel? No. It's in need of a bit of renovation (which it's undergoing right now - closed until November 2024) but the prices are adjusted accordingly.

Bottomline is you get a decent sized room that's clean. The bed is comfortable. The AC works. There's 3 large pools to choose from. The gym is well equipped. The grounds are quite beautiful. The location near restaurants, bars and the beach is good. The staff are very friendly, helpful and accomodating. Anything you need, just ask and they'll do their best to provide it.

For $30-$50 a night, Centara Resort Karon is an absolute steal. For me it's a shame it's getting renovated because that means the prices will likely go up for pretty much the same thing, perhaps just something slightly more pleasing to the eye.

Biggest Bang for Buck in Karon


In the heart of Karon town lies this beautiful property offering guests a holiday of a lifetime.  Whether you are looking for a romantic getaway or a family break, the Centara Karon Resort is a hotel for you. With shops, bars, restaurants and a beach at your doorstep, as well as a wide range of facilities in the hotel, the Cantara Karon resort is the perfect option for all holiday makers.

The hotel features three swimming pools, water slides and a kids club to keep guests active while for those looking to sit back and relax, the hotel's spa offers a range of body treatments or massages to pamper oneself. With a choice of two restaurants serving a range of delicious meals, you will not go hungry here! There are also 3 bars to choose from, including a poolside bar for when you're soaking up some sun. 

##### Your Accommodation at Centara Karon Resort:

Guestrooms are carefully designed with bright and welcoming decor. All rooms are equipped with a flat-screen satellite TV, Wi-Fi, air conditioning, minibar, tea and coffee making facilities, in room safe, a hairdryer and a telephone. Rooms are complete with a balcony or terrace. Room upgrades are available at a supplement. 

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Centara Karon Resort Phuket

Your Accommodation at Centara Karon Resort: