We traveled as three generations: parents, couple in 40s and two teens. The parents live in Ecuador and we visited and opted for a little family trip all together. This review is written by the 40somethings and is, admittedly, very long; we have personally relied on trip advisor reviews for years and have never written a review, yet our experience compels us to do so. We live on a lake and are very familiar how nature and wildlife can affect things. We happily swim in the lake with fish, turtles, water bugs and all other nature Lake things. We have a lot of wildlife around us and regularly see within our own property: foxes, beavers, groundhogs, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, rabbits, birds, and so on. We enjoy family hikes and bike rides through different locations within our region. We also prefer smaller boutique hotels when possible because of their unique qualities and charm. Please look at previous reviews and see — there is a common theme, bad reviews are similar; in particular, we also had a late night departure— please continue to read & I will explain why. The good things I say in my review are also similar to other positive remarks. We are familiar with Eco-hotels. The proprietor of this property consistently uses nature and natural occurrences as reason/excuse — nature is not a reason for outright dirtiness and failing to maintain a property. The hotel property offers stunning views, the trails and fauna throughout are truly wonderful. Understandably, these are trails, not a paved surface and I actually love these natural parts of the property. However, nature has nothing to do with the shabbiness of few chairs & seats around the pool. Nature also has nothing to do with the safety issues of the gaping holes within the concrete surrounding the pool. We looked past these obvious shortcomings, as we were so taken with the natural beauty of the property itself. The parents room accommodation was nice & acceptable, there are very large cracks in the walls in the interior, questionable sealant on the air conditioner — all these are easily forgiven. However, upon entering, the door would not fully close. Upon bringing this to the attention of the proprietors, we were immediately provided with a very dismissive excuse, “oh, ever since the earthquake, that door has been a problem… ~he then chuckles~”. Um. Okay. Remember, the parents live in Ecuador- and we are aware when the earthquake he references had occurred - it was 2016!! I think it is important to note here, there had been an earthquake earlier in 2023, however it was not felt within nor impact/ affect this region at all. So, my point here is that an issue that is clearly known and has existed for this many years should surely be addressed and there should be a permanent fix. Again, we overlook this issue, we were patiently waiting in their open air reception area and enjoying the vista it offers. As we persist on the request for door repair, the 40 something couple and teens await for their accommodation. I should mention here that we arrived at check-in time. The accommodation was not ready and we were told to wait. The room for the parents was soon ready and items dropped off in the room and all six await the second room and door repair. Two hours pass. In the last hour, we inquire and are repeatedly told “20 minutes” a number of times. We would have left the property and come back in the afternoon if the proprietors had been forthcoming with an actual time. We were literally leaving when we were told “it’s ready!” and we were hastily taken to the room — we check it out, drop our stuff off and leave. We spent no more than five minutes in a more rustic accommodation (to remind - it’s for the 40somethings and teens) & we walk quickly through the family cabin and see there are the three beds needed and we leave. We had delayed our plans for exploring surrounding areas and wanted to get to our plans after waiting for over two hours. We do our exploring, enjoy dinner and come back to Samai. We go to our respective accommodations & enjoy the trail to our family cabin. We go to look at the bed in the loft and it’s markedly different than what we saw hours earlier; it is markedly different because the bed is covered with animal feces. Immediate response was to see if there is an animal in the loft area, so we lift the mattress to take a peek. We were horrified to see a colony of large red ants scurry!! At this point it is clear. No one can sleep in that bed; mind you, the entire family cabin has a lot of bugs in the cabin & we were fine with them — just not *in* a bed. Once we could see there are not enough beds for all of us, we go to the reception to talk to someone about the potential for other room(s), cleaning up the feces (is there an animal in there? We’d like help in figuring it out) OR perhaps another bed fitting in the downstairs. We speak to a staff person, he is incredibly polite & helpful and informs us the proprietors will return at 9 pm. The four of us then decide to go to the parents room to wait. He comes back with updates to inform us he is trying to procure another bed to put in the downstairs area of the family cabin. At some point in his coming & going, the 40somethings woman shed some tears in speaking to her family to express frustration about the family trip. This was short lived and within a private room. I implore any reader to now refer to the prior review where the proprietor refers to “the drama” — they were not present for this and it was hardly “drama”. It was merely a few frustrated tears & they were not present at the time. Moreover, the proprietor refers to our group as “spoiled travelers” — this utterly despicable, what proprietor in a service industry refers to guests as spoiled when their only expectation was a clean facility to sleep?! The husband & wife proprietors returned around 9 pm and he made some comments (he had clearly been drinking) and there was a moment of bickering between him and his spouse (who really runs things) — it’s like Fawlty Towers with zero of the endearing charm regarding the two individuals. One snide comment I was able to hear was that we “city folk” are not accustomed to this type of travel. I explained we are familiar, as we are world travelers throughout all continents (except Antártica) and having stayed in every type of accommodation through our travels; to include all of Asia and one of us having lived in Asia. We are laid-back fun-loving people, we went to Samai looking forward to yoga together, finding spots for meditations and to enjoy the natural beauty. This can all be done with clean accommodations. It is clear that at some point in the past, a substantial investment was made to build this property. Unfortunately, it has fallen into disrepair and there has been very little upkeep to the property.…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.