When you do a site inspection and just know you need to come back for a stay… 🌴
OVERVIEW
After conducting a site inspection of Le Meridien Khao Lak in February 2024, I knew as soon as I arrived at the resort that this was somewhere that I was going to come back to for a stay. For for our first Christmas abroad, we stayed for 10 nights, and saw in the New Year with a bang.
The Le Meridien Khao Lak is part of the Marriott brand is located about 90 minutes north of Phuket airport. It offers a variety of board basis, from bed and breakfast, right through to all inclusive, which is what we opted for – more on that later!
Its right on the beach and a short wander down the shore, there are a variety of local restaurants and shops where you can get a massage and a mai tai over looking the Andaman sea. There is also a a cluster of shops and restaurants just outside the hotel, including a mini market for any essentials, and its a 20 minute taxi ride to Khao Lak town and the famous Bang Niang night market.
ROOMS
The room types are numerous, and one of the reasons we picked the resort was for the 1 bed family room, which has a huge king size bed, with a twin bed room separated by a sliding door and 2 bathrooms – perfect for our family of 4.
There are also swim up rooms, and 1 and 2 bedroom private villas with private pools, if you really want to go to town. Although I love a swim up room, one of the key features I look for with a swim up is a sun lounger on the terrace, which these don’t have (and interesting, not many in Thailand do) so we opted for the non swim up option, and didn’t feel too hard done by.
The rooms are spacious and modern, although if I had to pick a fault, it would be the lack of storage, especially given the size of the rooms!
FOOD AND DRINKS
The food and drinks here are what really set it apart from our stay at the nearby Tui Blue Mai Khao Lak, which we loved, but lacked the luxury feel that the Le Meridien Khao Lak has.
Breakfast is served The Nest, the main buffet restaurant, and the choices are vast, including live cooking stations where you can get eggs Benedict cooked to order, alongside the traditional Thai breakfasts of noodle soup. There were freshly cooked pancakes and pastries for those with a sweet tooth.
For lunch, this can also be taken in the main restaurant, although rather than a buffet it’s an a la carte, and the menu is huge. You can also eat at the Beach Grill, which is also a la carte for lunch and dinner and has stunning sea views. There is an onsite Pizzeria serving Italian cuisine too, with pizzas straight from a wood fired oven.
While we were there, there was a beach BBQ night, which was amazing for the sunset views, but the midgies were out in force so bare that in mind if you or a client are considering it. For snacks, the ice cream and coffee bar Le Scoop is open all day, and the milkshakes and coconut ice cream (served in a fresh coconut) were firm favourites.
The drinks selection is excellent, even on the all inclusive menu, with prosecco, draft and bottled beers and freshly make cocktails. Coconut Joes is on the beach and was our go to for pre dinner drinks with sunset views and was one of our favourite parts of the resort.
FACILITIES
Its a fairly chilled out resort, like many in Khao Lak and has a real family focus. There are 3 main pools, and one of them has a swim up bar where we spent many an afternoon working our way through the menu.
There is a small onsite gym, and the resort offers a variety of exercise classes such as Yoga and Muay Thai, alongside an adults and children activity programme. You can hire bikes, which we did and had a cycle around the local area.
The kids club is open all day, and children aged 4 – 12 can be left in the supervised area and there is also an arcade lounge with games that kept my tweens out of the midday sun when they needed some shade.
Evenings are low key, unless there is a gala night, which we were lucky enough to experience on both Christmas eve and New Years eve, so we usually headed to to Coconut Jo’s for live musis or escaped the evening heat playing pool.
All in all we absolutely loved Le Meridien Khao Lak and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend!
TOP TIPS
We did all inclusive, and would definitely recommend this, if you our a client wants to maximise their time on the resort rather than venturing out to eat. We had to sign for the meals we took, and weren’t charged but did mean we could see the costs if we had not been all inclusive – and it was very expensive compared to eating out locally.
If you are bed and breakfast or half board, then wander down the beach to the local restaurants and you can feed a family of 4 with drinks for £30-£40 compared to over £100 in resort!
If you are a busy travel agent looking for a way to easily find resorts based on your client requirements then check out the Find Your Resort Membership! Watch the 5 minute introduction below and take your client enquiries to the next level!
Want even more information? Then check out my in-depth vlog from our stay!
