Mafiya Resort Cambodia — Hotel in Koh Rong

So I’m giving this a solid 3 Cambodge stars. Anywhere else in the world it would be a 2. As a western expat living in Cambodia, I try not to sugar coat things. ||Location. |This is both the best and worst feature. For a 2-3 day getaway from the mainland, the remote location is great. Not a lot of tourists, very scenic, and a very well kept beach area. However, it hard to get to and it’s only accessible by boat as there are no roads connecting it to the other beaches and villages. Beautiful water, gorgeous sunsets, and incredible views of the jungles. ||Facility.|We stayed in the family room. Air con was excellent, bed and bed linens were more comfortable than most places in Cambodia, and the villa was spacious. The bathrooms had really poor water pressure and the sewage system can’t handle 4 people taking showers and using the toilets at the same time. The villa was in decent condition, but certainly rough around the edges and could use some updating and floor patching and sanding. Think more rustic cabin in the woods and less all inclusive Caribbean beach resort. ||Food.|One restaurant of mediocre quality. For being a heavily Asian visited resort, the Asian food was really lacking in flavor. Khmer food is delicious and most of this was just bland. I mean, no pepper sauce with the Lok Lak? Super fresh seafood, but it all needed more seasoning. The western style food was ok. Fresh and made to order pizzas and burgers. Breakfast was passable with Asian staples and some other items. If you are a teacher mid westerner with no taste for Asian food, this is not the place for you. ||Noise.|Well that is always an issue in SEA. The tranquility of any location can be quickly ruined with screaming parents and aunties, screaming children, the need for jet skis to be run to close to shore, obnoxious drunk folks, etc. I’ve really never stayed anywhere in SEA where I could truly say people respected a sense of volume control. ||Activites.|You can swim, snorkel, and walk around for free. Everything else seems to be controlled by a Chinese operated restaurant down the path that each time I went in had no one who spoke English or French. We went to another location on the island to do some scuba diving, but it was 100$ boat ride each way. The hotel did help set up the boat for us which was great. ||Service.|I’ve read a lot of peoples comments about the poor customer service and that is just not true. What foreigners must realize is that English is not widely spoken in Cambodia and those who do speak it to a certain degree will tend to say whatever they think is the least confrontational which mean saying yes even when they mean no. Khmer is an extremely complicated and nuanced language as is English. Speaking clearly and slowly in English to those bilingual staff members is not considered rude and is appreciated. While there, a British couple was trying to discuss how they wanted their meal prepared in the most complicated of terms. The waiter just nodded and continued to write down what he could. When the food arrived they were obviously upset. People, if it’s a picture menu point to it and assume that is what you are going to get. Don’t think that the local staff will know what a three minute egg, medium rare, slightly seared, etc means. I am bilingual, but still struggle with certain cultural terms in my non native language. I found the staff at the resort super pleasant and helpful. Kindness goes a long way...

DONT STAY HERE ! Whilst this is a beautiful resort it is very very remote and is geared towards its staff not its customers. Staff in an adjoining resort have been having a party since we arrived yesterday evening !! Well good for them cos they're not paying $150 per night ! It costs a fortune to get here by boat $40 each way for a couple irrespective of starting point on the island, the staff barely speak English and are not particularly helpful and there are a lot of them, many of them standing around chatting to each other. The breakfast items were either cold or were not refreshed (frazzled bacon, fried eggs that were overcooked as left to long in hot plates, cold mushrooms etc). I asked 3 times for the coffee to be refreshed and when the waitress brought it back the first time it had the same amount in it and was cold instead of a new pot (and then tasted dire). It was as if she had taken it away and done nothing with it but bring it back and put it on the stand. At the time my wife and I were the only two in the restaurant and the staff outnumbered us by 10-2 so it was not as if the staff were rushed off their feet. Shocking for a resort of this cost per night. They badly need their own boat service rather than contracting it out to an expensive speed boat company (GTVC) or need investment in roads to this part of the island to enable other forms of transfer. Consequently there were hardly any Westerners staying on the resort. Trust me...steer clear, as there are other beautiful locations with much easier access with more...

the days seem not to pass in this structure. More than a paradise beach, it felt like hell. staff not at all attentive to customers, telephone in the room not working, broken TV, wifi at times. menu worse than the worst. I'll start by saying that I eat everything: Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian and even Cambodian. the food was a breakfast mix but you paid dearly for it. sautéed risotto that was boiled, pepperoni pizza that was actually ketchup pizza, bacon and salad sandwich that you saw at breakfast and the bread wasn't even toasted. |cutlery and plates always dirty, then I saw how they were washed, it was better not to know. the beach full of plastic, a beach towel abandoned for three days and cigarette butts everywhere. the staff didn't clean, they covered it up. the staff don't speak English and therefore didn't know how to help you. Of all the holidays this was the worst, I come back more stressed than before and the agency I had relied on for a long time has...