Aurico Kata Resort & Spa — Hotel in Karon

I stayed at this hotel for 5 nights in March 2025.First of all: if you have flexible travel dates, avoid Phuket in March — prices were absolutely insane. We paid €1,200 for two rooms, while the same rooms are available for only €530 at the end of June. Despite the high prices, I still enjoyed my stay at Aurico.The hotel is located in Kata, which is considered one of the quieter and more relaxed areas of the island. Compared to the chaos of Patong, that might be true, but "quiet and relaxed" is not really how I would describe it. The traffic was crazy, nightlife was everywhere, it was very crowded, and the worst part: as soon as you left the hotel, there was a strong and unpleasant smell of sewage, garbage, and fecal matter.The hotel itself is situated in a small alley, well away from the street noise. Nearby, you’ll find many restaurants, shops, barbers, massage parlors, and bars. Many of the vendors actively try to attract customers. Due to the unpleasant smell, we didn’t try any of the local restaurants. Several 7-Elevens are within a 5-minute walk. The main road is also close, making it easy to catch a bus to nearby villages, beaches, and Phuket Town. The night market and bar street are about 10 minutes away on foot. Both Kata and Karon Beach can be reached within 10 minutes’ walk as well. The hotel also offers a shuttle service to Kata Beach twice a day.The hotel opened in 2019, so it’s still relatively new. Unfortunately, the furniture already shows noticeable signs of wear, and the linens, curtains, and towels should definitely be replaced. Nevertheless, the room was spacious, clean enough, and the bed was comfortable. I also liked the private balcony.The pool area is great. The pool itself is quite large, especially since some rooms have direct pool access. There’s also a whirlpool and a pool bar. The breakfast buffet was varied and delicious, with a daily changing selection. Thanks to many Chinese guests, there were tasty Chinese breakfast classics like steamed dumplings and fresh noodle soup. Additionally, there was bread and cold cuts, an egg station, pancakes, and every day some hot dishes which, in my opinion, didn’t really belong on a breakfast buffet (such as heavy meat dishes and pasta), but were still tasty. The à la carte dinner may have contributed to some of these unusual breakfast items being served as leftovers.The front desk and restaurant staff were very friendly. Check-in time was quite late (after 2 PM).Most of the other guests were from Russia and China, which was interesting. I won’t comment on why many German tourists seem to prefer staying in Patong — in my opinion, a complete shithole. Fortunately, all guests at Aurico were polite and well-behaved.All in all, I enjoyed my stay at Aurico and in Kata, but overall I wasn’t very impressed by Phuket itself. It’s dirty, overcrowded, and overpriced. While Phuket is often called a tropical paradise, and the nature and weather are indeed tropical, it’s hard to fully enjoy the beauty. Too many disrespectful tourists who mistreat the locals, dirty beaches, and polluted seawater. I probably won’t return to Phuket. In the end, I was very glad not to have stayed in Patong, where the seawater turns brown from sewage being discharged into the ocean.Two recommendations: Surin Beach and...

NO BACON!!

THE BREAKFAST BUFFE is heavily Asian influenced - fried noodles and rice, soups etc. However, there is a table with toast, croussants, jams and such, and there's a chef's station to make your eggs the way you like, but there is no bacon. An abundance of waffles and pancakes are available, along with choclate sauce/honey/maple syrup and jams. There's also cereal incl. chocolate, so it's great for kids. Food varies slightly from day to day. I bought plain yoghurt from 7Eleven every day to have with my breakfast as well.

THE HOTEL The staff of the hotel were lovely and very catering to our needs. There was a lot of people from a certain demographic staying here, and we had a few encounters with rude and inconciderate guests, like shoving us out of the way during breakfast, yelling at the hotell staff, leaving the gym in a mess etc. To be honest, these rude people probably don't know travelling-etiquette very well and think they're entitled to do whatever they want without consideration of others. Aside from that, it's a very neat and tidy hotel, spacious lobby, they offer drop-off and pick-up to/from the beach twice per day.

OUR ROOM was looking nice, but lacked functionality. Little things, like more hooks in the bathroom or some shelving to put toiletries on, drawer-space next to the bed. The shower worked well, it was large and spacious, could fit two people, shampoo and body wash provided, the water pressure was strong too. We were staying for 2 weeks, and we adjusted to it quite quickly. Because we stayed on the bottom level, we constantly got woken up in the middle of the night from people above us shuffling around their furniture! It was very annoying, to say the least, like they were changing all tables and chairs around at 1am in the morning. For the love of human kind, put some furniture felt pads on those chairs!! Even earplugs could not keep that noise out.

THE BED was very comfortable (king size), just sayin :)

THE GYM was good, it had everything an average gymgoer would want. The fixed squat machine was very hard to move as it got stuck due to lack of maintenance, ie. needs some oiling. There were dumbbells ranged 5-25kg. Leg curls were good, shoulder/bench press was good. Upholstery looked new and fresh too.

POOL AND SWIM UP BAR was great - large area to sit at, and lots of tanning beds and a lounge area with tables and chairs. The pool was never too busy, and you'd never had to fight for a good spot to tan. Very clean and crisp water. We had a room with pool access, which was convenient, but you get less privacy because everyone can see into your room if curtains were not closed. Also, if people swim by and splash, your clothing outside to dry is gonna get soaked. I did not approve of some families letting their children use emergency equipment as floaties. If they can't swim, there's a shallow area for them to be in. The pool is only 120cm deep at most, so adults can walk in it. Hotel staff could be more firm in telling people off when they're not abiding by the rules. Emergency equipment is NOT TOYS.

OVERALL we had a good stay, because the staff were super friendly, it's located close to delicious food and markets, and the beach not more than 10...

Aurico Kata is ao much more beautiful and high class than the Trip.com pictures make it look!

The breakfast buffet has a chef cooking eggs the way you like, fruit and cold foods, potatoes, soups, curry’s, rices, stir-fries, potato varieties, breads and pastries, muesli… I like food 🙂

The pool is out of the hot sun which doesn’t look as good in pictures but a part of it catches the sun if that’s what you like. It also keeps it nice and cool and private on a hot Phuket day! Every balcony has a pool view and/or access from the room. So it’s not like the resorts where only some people have the view. There are also different pools and they stretch such a long way that many people could be in the same pool and still be private.

Back to food! The restaurant doesn’t advertise its menu well, but lunch and dinner is very very good and prices are similar to as if you were eating outside of the resort after all of this inflation! Higher, but not by a lot and it’s very good quality and nice being close by or even ordered by room service or by the pool at no extra charge. There’s also a pool bar in the pool that I enjoyed ordering from, particularly during happy hour. Try the Mai Tai! We did a cooking class to learn Thai foods and had a lot of selection off their regular menu of a 3 course meal to learn and cook. It was fast doing it, but we are so happy to have learn it and it was cheaper and with better selection than any other cooking class I looked for online! Afterwards was our bigger eating session of the trip as I ate a full duck breast and the entree satay chicken skewers also used a full chicken breast! They were very generous with the food and we have a certificate and recipes now. Yum, Tom Kha Gai everyday at home now!

The pool also has a variety of beach chairs for relaxing and tables with the ordering QR code at them. There are water jets to be like a spa, a sealed off kids pool, waterfall features, a bridge that crosses over the pool and even slow motor equipment for kids to use in the pool (and some play items).

The gym and sauna have good hours and there is a child play area, really only suited to very young children (blocks and ball pit).

The rooms have a peaceful crickets sound chirping in the background (tonight at least) and the pool shuts at 8pm so as to not cause noise at night… but it’s not noisy in the day either. The air conditioning maintains the temperature and power shuts off to save energy when the room key is out.

It’s under a 10 minute walk to either Kata Beach or Karon Beach and within the same street there are several high quality and well priced restaurants, cafes, massage parlours, hairdressers, bars, 7Eleven for cheap bottled water… really anything you could want. Although only a little bit further is everything else!

With how crowded Kata Beach is and how quiet but well-located our resort is, we couldn’t be happier with our choice of accomodation and will be back if we ever...