Villa Napalai

Had a lovely long weekend break. The staff were excellent, had a great welcome with an excellent lunch from K. Lucky on the table when we arrived. Nice location and view and only a 5 min walk (down) to the beautiful Surin beach and maybe 10 min walk back up the hill. Regretted only having 2 nights although we managed to arrange for early check-in and late check out (at a fee) which gave us some extra time Family particularly enjoyed the pool table and food plus being looked after by the excellent in house staff under K. Patty. Villa was lovely and very spacious with good wifi but over 5 floors so may be less appropriate for those with young children or mobility considerations - that said we loved it

Whilst Villa Napalai was not cheap to rent, you will certainly feel that you are getting what you paid for. We are a large family with six children and we had more than enough space to spread out and relax. All of the bedrooms were comfortable, with the master bedroom suite offering a lot of really luxurious touches. It was an ideal configuration for a large family such as ours. The basement floor containing an excellent gym, massage room, bar area and children's play room were also well used and appreciated. The on-site staff were friendly and unobtrusive, the standard of cooking was superb and we had fun taking it in turns to choose dinner from the extensive menu. The western breakfasts were also excellent. Don't be too put off by what you may have read about Surin Beach being bulldozed, it is still a very beautiful place to surf and spend time, and there are plenty of other smaller beaches nearby where you can hire sunbeds and eat near the beach. The only word of warning: if you have younger kids who don't listen to warnings, you may lose sleep over the swimming pool in the villa, which has a huge drop from its infinity edge to below. Wasn't a problem for us but might be for some.