Firstly, I just want to say that I am comparing this hotel against other 5 star hotels that I have stayed in throughout the world. When I read a review, I believe it is important to now where and what the traveller is comparing it to! Here we go...comparing against Tiberio Palace Capri, Various 5 star Dubai resorts, Bellagio Las Vegas, Lowes Hotel South Beach, Royalton New York etc etc. Hope that gives you an idea of where I am at. So..we stayed in the newly built Residences. We had one of the roof top pool villas. I will write firstly about the Residences then the hotel. So we were picked up from the airport by our Residence Host and taken to the hotel. On arrival I panicked as I spotted the structure of the hotel from the side and all I could see was construction and I was promised it would not effect me. Anyway, we were taken to the rooms and the initial thought as entering through the door was WOW!!! We were checked in, in our room, given champagne and flowers. Truly, these villas are very very impressive. The villas were probably bigger than my house!!! Amazing ultra modern decor. Amazing deck and pool upstairs. Muxic system in the villa. 3 storey impressive impressive impressive!! The residence hosts Chai and Ka were amazing. We had an in room dining experience which was great. You could be tempted to stay in your villa/apartment/house all day. 10 out of 10! So to the hotel. I would rate this bit 8 out of 10. Lovely open reception, lovely pool area but few improvements need to be made. The breakfast is actually not that great. Nice but not great. Not a huge amount of choice and maybe a few isses with covering the food etc. However, it was satisfactory. The one dissapointment for me was the beach club/beach. It look so fab on the website but our first trip was quite unimpressive. Very bad smell on arroval at the beach and silebt beach club! However, we gave it a few goes and preferred it in the day. If you could pick t up and put it on an idyllic beach that would be perfect! Service at the pool bar was ok. Occasionally bits of fruit brought around but often the pool bar looked unattended. Sometimes quite difficult to flag someone for a drink. The food at the bar was great though. Now just to end....would I go again? Probably not, only because I would like to go elsewhere andthe location of the hotel was not the best for me. Would I reccommend it? I certainly would, particularly the Residences! Did it meet expectations? Yes!...Hope this helps someone out there...

As I'm writing this review, I have had about 2 weeks from the time we were at Twinpalms, thoughts are more organised and non-emotional. Therefore I believe it should be rational and non-biased. I find that one of the difficulties in interpreting the underlying words of a reviewer is not understanding the personalities hence personal requirements of the write/reviewer. *Every individual's interpretation of "fabulous" is different. Hence I will tell you a little about our requirements (my husband and I) in hotels/resorts. We find that not many hotels which are advertised or rated 5 stars are true 5 stars. We both expect the best in quality and when we pay top dollar for something we expect the best. For eg the most attentive service, the best layout bedrooms, top notch cleaniness, and good quality products in the rooms and bathrooms. We are rarely ever truely 100% happy with a hotel because of our high expectations. In saying that, hotels that we are happy with, I would love to recommend.

First impression on arrival:
Even before we arrive at Twinpalms, I have a set impression of it due to the amount of photos I saw on the website and other reviwers' cameras. True enough, the lobby/reception was very calming , soft music playing in the background, and spacious layout. Staff were dressed in a relaxed but smart uniform. The whole settting immediately gave us a nice feel. We were checked in by a staff while seated at one of the couches.

Setback: Some couches were dirty and worn.

Bedroom and bathroom:
Looked exactly like in the photos. Wooden floors, bathtub is clean, two sinks, bathroom amenities...Room is very basic, not much extras. I won't say this is a set back as it is just the style of the resort.

Setback: Floors were quite dusty ( it was better after the next day's room service). Beware of mossies...Balcony area did not look very clean, so did not spend any time on it at all. (told you I am fussy)

Pool & the garden:
Pool is ok. Garden was beautiful, with staff maintaining that every morning. They ensured that the flowers on the trees looked perfect by patiently plucking out the worn flowers.

Setback: It did look like it needed a good clean up. Some rust could be found near some chairs that are in the pool. Cushions need a good clean or replace altogether. The pool near the lagoon rooms did not look inviting to me at all.

Other facilities:
Spa was great, the staff were very friendly and they spoke in this light and fairy-like tone of voice (Thai accent?) Massages were good.

Setback: Can't find any.

Library:
Good stuff. A good variety of books and magazines to borrow. It was their concierge - we booked our island tours and Fantasea show there.

Setback: None

Resort activity:
We did a yoga class. It was great, it was just us and the instructor so we had ample attention. We needed that as it was our first time trying yoga. Instructor was great

Setback: None too

Outside of resort (Catch etc)
It really was a good spot. The staff were attentive, yes it took quite a while for food orders to arrive, but I just couldn't put that down as a setback as we were on a beach holiday (our honeymoon) what rush were we in anyway?

Quality of Food:
Overall ok. Breakfast was extremely boring as it was the same menu every single day. Some birds got to the food as it was not covered properly. Hygiene was a problem. You really have to eat smart, choose the inner pieces that birds couldn't access, only take the smoked salmon if you are there bright and early as over the course of the morning, you can't be really sure of the freshness. It was quite delicious otherwise.

Service:
Good. Staff take time to talk to you, but I realised that those staff are temp/contract workers. The permanent staff may not be as friendly, and came across rude at some times.

Would I come back again? Yes because it wasn't horrible. I would like to say something about kids. No matter what reviewers say here about not bringing kids, parents will still do that so I will save my words. But parents out there, there is nothing for kids to do here. I know some parents don't mind dagger stares, but think about your kids, they will be absolutely bored out of their minds. You are better off going to some family friendly resorts.

I would recommend it to honeymooners, older couples but not families.

We spent 6 nights there, but really, to experience that resort you only need about 2 to 3 nights. Then it will get boring as the style is just so simplisitic.

TripAdvisor has done it again for our family. Thanks to all those who wrote their reviews...We were searching for a hotel for our first trip to Phuket. We shortlisted 3-4 based on the reviews here in this website. We decided to go for Twin Palms as our other choice - the Marriott was full.

Our first consideration was about our kids. We have 2 - a 5 year old and a 5 month old. I was hesitant at first to stay at this hotel considering practically all the reviews here has point blank told families to stay away from this hotel. This was our first and foremost concern that we would get dagger looks from "honeymooners" against our whole family.

True, this resort is really for adults and designed for adults. It is even written in black and white in the hotel directory (the A-Z thingy) but they indicated that they would still try their best to accommodate children's needs.

When we arrived, we had a sigh of relief to see a few kids in the pool. That means it's not just us who would get looks from 'pairs and lovers.' Fortunately, there wasn't any kids drama or tantrums during our entire stay. A few were even happy to see our kids, talking, smiling at them. My wife and I are also conscious of discipilining our kids to make sure they do not disturb others. So families - go ahead! this should not stop you from enjoying this fabulous resort. The resort is really quite small so you never really feel there are a lot of people. A few kids would not bother you at all.

We even brought packed foods for our baby that needs heating up which the Hotel kitchen gladly obliged. We had a great baby cot which we requested before we arrived. Nice little touches really help - my wife being offered fruits, etc. All the staff are very polite, friendly, etc. Overall a great experieince for our family.

We did not mind the slight walk to the beach because they have a beach front restaurant called "Catch" that awaits you there. Great food, excellent design, furniture, layout. It's really what you see in the pictures and magazines!

Other points: breakfast is sufficient and counts where it matters most, no noise for us as others have reported. Could you borrow books and DVDs from the library. They have an iMac in the library for free browsing - but it runs Windows XP!!! ---> c'mon Twin palms what is the iMac for then?! Tolietries smell great. They have high speed broadband connection in the room for free (I am using it now as I type my review on our last night here.) - WiFi at major public spots.

Great beach quality at Surin. Not too crowded when I got there. Exceeded what I had in mind.

A few minor things: the flooring of the room is a bit rundown now. Perhaps from all the beatings of the occupants - the pool is a few steps away, you'll have sand all over coming from the beach.

Taxis costs a fortune if you want to move around. 450 baht one way to Patong beach for a 20-30 minute ride. I guess this goes for non-Patong resorts. We don't like Patong anyway. Too touristy and 10x more crowded. Save your taxi fare and enjoy the calmness of Surin Beach. We only ventured out 2-3 times. Otherwise, it's beach, pool, restaurant for us. There are a few restaurants outside which we tried. "Silk" was a bit long down the road at Plaza Surin but I would not recommend because it's waaaay overpriced for Thai food. It was even more expensive than inside Twin palms.

My daughter enjoys horses so we went riding at the Phuket Riding club - taking the horses by Bang Tao Beach. Highly recommended experience!!

Overall, a great experience for us at Twin Palms. We'll definitely come back. It's as if this hotel was really well thought of. Very cool, very hip. Just like my kind of hotel!!! Be there to experience it.

We selected this hotel after reviewing all other hotels on trip advisor and decided that despite the reported noise it looked like it had great ratings.

Whilst we got a great deal on the room from an Asian booking site - AUD$2300 for a 5 night stay during Easter in a Grand Deluxe Palm room I still felt that it was over-priced mainly because of the poor service standards and that you are expected to 'put up' with the noise of the construction, which incidentally when we called the hotel were told would be completed before our stay - don't be fooled they are no-where near complete.

The hotel was immaculate and very appealing visually. The rooms were of a good standard and spacious with fabulous bathrooms. The pool area was very relaxing (except when children were there as mentioned below) and the beach club was an excellent area to relax.

The fault comes in the service. The service was terrible. The staff clearly don't receive appropriate training. This applies to all staff. At breakfast due to being served by several different people you are continually asked whether you'd like refills etc which starts to get annoying and they remove plates from the table whilst you're still eating. At the pool area there is no service by the pool for drinks (which at the price / standard of this hotel is pretty poor) you must go and hunt someone down to get a drink as the bar is often not manned. The Beach Club is no different and whilst there, we continually had to get up from our table to re-order drinks or food despite more than 7 staff being on duty and no other customers. Staff often stand around talking or dissappear completely. Lastly, and this is a laguage difficulty (I do not speak thai and appreciate this isn't the first language of staff) it gets very frustrating when staff pretend they have understood what you've asked for and then you later realised because they haven't done what you've asked. This happened far too often for an international hotel that is trying to be 5*.

The construction work does impact your experience if you're sensitive to noise - If you can absorb yourself in a book then you should be OK. We also had some problems with construction within the hotel when walls were being constructed outside our room but were told it would only be for the day - construction workers on site that we saw (those rebuilding the walls also had their children in tow which wasn't pleasant).

This would be a fabulous couples only resort, however, it's simply too small a hotel for children not to be noticed. The pool area is pretty small compared to other larger hotels and as all rooms front the pool area it is difficult to get away from either screaming babies or boistrous children. I appreciate they have as much right to be there as I, but personally it spoils my enjoyment. Where this would not normally be a problem in larger hotels that specifically cater to families and have childrens pools etc, you can't fail to find seclusion from the noise of kids because of how small the resort is.

We also ate at the Oriental Spoon on our first night but didn't go again. Some of the food was OK and other dishes terrible - surprisingly it was the Thai dishes that were bad and my partner was ill the following day. We can't tie it specifically to that meal, but we'd already been in Thailand for over 5 nights before that and had no problem with any of the food we ate - even from street vendors.

Lastly, if you're plannng to eat at the Beach Club - ensure you make a reservation. The BBQ nights did not appeal to me and you can't get the a la carte menu on a BBQ night which is unfortunate (BBQ nights are Tues and Fri). We went to check the BBQ night out before deciding whether to book and observed that it's a bit of a free for all when the seafood is served and it smelled overcooked. I didn't think it was worth the money. Some people love buffet food though so it's perfect if you do.

Overall we enjoyed the hotel but the service and children prevented it from being the secluded and relaxing experience we were looking for.

If you aren't as particular about service as I (and I am particular as it becomes annoying) and don't mind children or have them yourself then you'll probably love this hotel and I'd recomend it to you. If however, you are a stickler for service then expect to be let down.