We arrived on Monday at the La Flora, the weather was heavy rain and its been constant showers ever since. On arrival we asked if we could upgrade to a pool access room only to be told they were all full, which was a bit surprising, since the complex is quiet and are still advertising all room types available during our stay. Further investigation of the complex showed that there were indeed many many pool access rooms available - but it was almost like they couldn%26#39;t be bothered to change our room obviously they are doing extremely well and don%26#39;t need the extra cash. We also met a couple from England at our welcome meeting and they had experienced the same issue when trying to upgrade.
The room we are in is excellent, seperate bath/shower/toliet - the only problem was that the toliet would flush away at first. This took 2 days to get resolved and we received no apology.
We have however taken the opportunity to have a thai massage at the La Flora which was excellent and very relaxing.
We have eaten at the paradise restaurant which which really quite nice, the green pepper which was excellent and Dior/Lara which was better food. All restaurants are withing 200 metres to the hotel. It is a 150 baht to get a taxi into Khao Lak and 60 baht per kilo for laundry at the nearest shop to the La Flora.
Khao Lak now has 2 cabaret shows. One called Angel and the other called Moo Moo%26#39;s. We have been to Angels which was great fun - don%26#39;t be afraid to get up and dance with all the girls and boys at the end of the show. At the moment they are charging 100 baht for the show but reckon this will go up when the high season starts. It is a 100 Baht for a drink, but reckon these are inflated to cover the cost of the show as well. Well worth going to though and a good fun night! My wife was very taken with the boys!
Overall shame about the weather, the La Flora is on a par with the merlin - breakfast at the Merlin I would say is better, but the rooms at the La Flora better.
La Flora Resort Part 1
Thanks for the great report. Where is Angel%26#39;s located?
La Flora Resort Part 1
Many thx-
Especially enjoyed reading your report ( and your up-date re food and drink costs) , because we are staying at La Flora in March 2010. Looking forward to more reports ... if you get chance. Hope the weather improves and that you have a great time.
Hi,
we just returned from a 2 week stay at the La Flora.
as far as the weather goes - I confirm that it was not the greatest, especially on Monday and Tuesday 5 %26amp; 6 Oct - but maybe that made leaving the place easier. I have to say that despite the weather (during 2 weeks time we had 5 days of constant heavy downpours, about 5 days of on and off rains and cloudy skies and only about 5 days of decent weather with some periods of sun and even clear skies) we enjoyed our stay there immensely.
I will try to make a more comprehensive report on this and the souroundings later on today but I just wanted to comment on the issue of the pool side rooms - our rooms were located right opposite from the poolside rooms and directly above them and during the entire 2 weeks there were practically no guests there. I do however believe that the response you got from reception was a simple misunderstanding as the weak point of the staff there is their very limited knowledge of english. they simply do not understand any complex questions, nor is their vocabulary sufficient to explain what was going on in those rooms - namely that they were all undergoing slight renovations, some small paint jobs and a general ventilation of the rooms themselves in preparation for expected guests. the first guests started to arrive into thos rooms just as we were leaving this week and there were only 2 rooms as far as I could see that were occupied, whilst all the rest were undergoing some cleaning operations.
I wish you a pleasant stay there and hope that the weather will improve a bit as this is certainly a downpoint of staying there now.
kind regards Jarek
Hi
Angels is on the main road that runs through Khao Lak/baing Naing (Excuse my spelling!!) If you go to the main road from the La Flora, turn left and its about 100 m on the right, Moo Moos, is about another 200m on the left.
The weather is still pretty poor, yesterday was good with a good 5 hours of warm overcast weather, still enough to get sunburnt as I found out to my cost!! The smell outside the room isnt pleasant though.
We%26#39;ve spent the last couple of days in resort, last night was a Thai Buffet night which was quite good with local dancers. At the moment were planning on eating out at a beach restaurant about 100m from the La Flora, I think its called the Chong Fah restaurant.
A couple of things, make sure you always spray insect repellant on, I%26#39;ve been bitten to pieces one night when I forgot.
The pool in the resort is very small, luckily the beach is great.
I do wonder what the future holds for Khao Lak though, in the main village a McDonalds restaurant is almost complete, is this the first international food chain to move in?
With regards to the pool access rooms, most still seem empty. We considered that there maybe a communication issue here and asked our resort rep to ask, since he is Thai, no problem, answer came back the same, they wanted to know why, we simply said, look great with the pool.
Downside to all this is if you want a pool room book it at time of booking, we emailed the resort 8 weeks prior to arriving asking about these rooms and never received a response.
Overall all the facitities are good but if you scratch at the surface you can find some blemishes, once back I%26#39;ll put a proper review on the website. In my book the La Flora had a lot to live up to, since on my last visit to Khao Lak we stayed out at the Merlin which was top notch and had the same official rating.
At the moment i%26#39;d say its a great resort but leaves me feeling a bit underwhelmed.
We%26#39;ve been here ten days now and the weather has finally turned for the better. We%26#39;ve eaten out quite a bit.
The Chong Fah beach restarant was very good one night and quite poor another.
We ate at the Lobster which is up the road near the main highway and found the food excellent, I%26#39;d reccommend any dish with the red snapper. Prices for the fish are by weight so they do vary somewhat.
We spent a day touring the Phi Phi Islands and I must say the scenery was breathtaking and well worth a visit.
yesterday we lazed about the pool reading and unfortunately getting cooked like a lobster, factor 15 last minutes in the sun and heat here... you have been warned ;o)
Last night we visited one of the newly opened restaurants, the Satong which is about 100 yards up from the Chong Fah restaurant, like most places in Khao Lak the food was great.
For people coming to Khao Lak with kids, McDonalds opened 3 days ago, it was packed with locals trying the new food, from what I gather they werent very impressed!
Hi,
Good to hear that the weather has improved for you and is picking up.I myself will not be going to McDonalds but can imagine that the locals would not be impressed with this style of food compared to their wonderfull dishes and for a few days will be a novelty for them.Still if you have a family and children they all seem to love the happy meals.
Julie
Just back from Khao Lak and I have to say we had a ball. If anyone needs a travel agant/guide in the Baing Naing area, I would highly reccommend Lora from Dior Travel / Lora Restaurnat, just along the lane from the paradise restaurant.
The La Flora is a good resort, it won me over in the end, the staff were fantastic as was the service throughout the resort. We%26#39;ll post a proper review later on this week.
We ate out loads of times, all but one was a good meal, and that must have been a one off (Chong Fah) since we ate 3 times there and 2 out of 3 were excellent, I have to commend there Pad Thai which was superb, wrapped in egg!
If you need a break from Thai food, Pinnochios was pretty good, nice to have a break with a Pizza though a tad pricey.
We also took time to look at the rooms in the resort next door, the Ramada and they also looked excellent, in fact were looking at booking the Ramada on our next visit.
Glad it worked out for you and that the weather improved. What trips dodid you do via the TA ?
Hi
We only did one trip to the Phi Phi Islands. Lora picked us up and was our guide throughout the day. On a previous visit she also organised a show and overnight accommodation from Khao Lak to Patong, all ran smoothly, so I would definetely recommend her.
She also took us around the Khao Lak area, to a waterfall, turtle sanctuary and off the beaten track. All we paid for was petrol for her car!
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