The Shore Samui — Hotel in Ko Samui

Good:||- We were welcomed to the hotel by a lady on reception and were told we could use the kayak on the beach for free. ||- The hotel room was standard.||- The hotel appears to be family run. ||- A polite older gentleman arranged a discounted taxi for us to the airport for the next morning.||||Bad:||||You are at risk of aggressive and violent behaviour from the owners. Read below for explanation & more information.||||||We came back to our room after an evening at the beach. There were LOADS of bugs in the hallway around the lights which is understandable. We rushed into an our room to get away from them all but there were also so many bugs in our room, all in the bathroom, on the towels, in the bed, on the floor, just everywhere. We decided that it would be best if we stay somewhere else as we didn’t think we were going to be able to remove them all. I (female) went down to speak to one of the owners about cancellation with a refund so we could leave. One of the younger owners (about 30 years old) was having a meal and alcoholic drinks with friends/family in the reception area. I pulled him to the side to make my request in private and to respect their meal time.||||He immediately started shouting rudely at me saying it’s just nature and not the hotels fault to which I explained calmly that we still wanted to cancel and leave. He shouted more and started swearing at me, shaking his hands at me and giving dirty looks. He said I had 5 minutes to get out and had to clean the room top to bottom. An older women then joined in shouting at me saying all hotels Koh Samui would have this problem today (the hotel we stayed at instead did not have any bugs in the room and actually had a bug catching system to prevent the issue). This lady later claimed that I said their hotel was “sh*t” which is untrue.||||This behaviour from the owners alone is unacceptable when I remained polite the entire time discussing the issue. Any customer issues should be handled with respect and manners both of which were missing.||||The weird thing is he agreed to cancel and refund quickly but still decided to be rude and shout. Doesn’t make sense.||||I went upstairs and explained to my friend (male) what had just happened. He went to down to ask why they had been shouting at me. The man immediately pushed my friend, he pushed back. The man then punched my friend in the face, some of his friends from the meal then joined in with hitting my friend. My friend did not fight back as he felt it was unnecessary to fight over such a stupid situation. The man was then restrained by some people at the meal but still screaming across everyone at us. ||||Later when we were removing our bags and sorting out the refund, the man continued to be incredibly disrespectful and use very rude language. He then taunted my friend asking if he wanted to get hit again, my friend did not give a response. The man then picked up a full rum bottle and threatened to hit my friend over the head with it.||||At this point I decided I should record what was going on in case anything escalated and the police needed to be involved. The man noticed this and started move aggressively towards me. ||||Me and my friend walked across the road to a restaurant with people in for safety.||||This behaviour is completely unacceptable, violence should never be used in such situations, especially from a customer service point of view. I strongly recommend that if you are considering choosing this hotel that you don’t and find somewhere different as your safety will be at risk if you have an issue with anything at the hotel. There are plenty of other nicer, cheaper and cleaner hotels in the area.||||We received an apology from some of the owners friends but sadly not the owners themselves. ||||I write this review to make sure that people on their holiday in Koh Samui do not have such a terrible and upsetting experience while on their holiday. I do not want others to experience what we had to.||||I hope the violent owner and the others who hit my friend all find peace and learn to understand why their actions are not acceptable and will severely impact their life and business. ||||I wish for light and love in...

We found The Shore from TikTok a few days ago. Last minute, we called up to see if they had their private pool villa available, and luck would have it, they did! Here’s what I thought about our stay:

Overall, it was decent. Would I say this was a “luxury pool villa”? No. But then again, you get what you pay for - there is no other private villa with a pool anywhere else on Koh Samui that comes at a cheaper price. So for many people, this might be all they can afford!

There were some great upsides to The Shore: first off, the owner is extremely nice. He made check-in super easy, was quite friendly, and he is enough reason in and of itself for us to return. The location is awesome as well. Bangrak Beach is my favorite part of Koh Samui - it’s much less crazy than Chaweng Beach, filled with way less drunk party people, and a much more relaxed atmosphere. It has a healthy balance of things to do though - for instance, Lamai Beach is terrible and is nearly completely abandoned. At least here in Bangrak Beach, there are many restaurants, stores, massages and taxi stands within walking distance. Finally, I love that there is direct beach access. They have a shower for you to clean your feet off after going in the water, and all in all, the ocean is pretty clean on this part of Koh Samui.

However, we can’t forget about the negatives. To start, when we arrived, the sliding door didn’t completely close. The owner was nice and fixed it as best as he could, but it still left about a 2 cm wide crack in the door the whole time we were there…which obviously means bugs could easily get inside. And, on the subject of bugs, there was a big ant problem in the shower. The window in the bathroom wasn’t technically a window, but rather a screen with direct access to outside, so ants could travel in and out to somewhere else in the room (I couldn’t tell you where, but you saw a whole line of ants traveling across the bathroom).

Also, the pool attached to this villa wasn’t really private at all. Yes, technically no one else staying at The Shore is able to use the pool, but the pool is right alongside the main walkway people use to get to the beach; so, anybody can see you while you’re in the pool. The shower also didn’t get that warm, so keep that in mind if you’re planning to stay here.

All in all, I would say The Shore is a good value for money. It’s certainly not a luxury resort like many of the others on this island, but I don’t think it tries to be. If you’re looking for a place to stay on Koh Samui that is inexpensive and also has your own semi-private pool (only private in the sense that no one else can use it), give this place a shot.

Would I return? Probably not, but I can certainly see how others would enjoy this place. Maybe visit first and see the place...

The shore, Samui. We were assaulted and kicked out by the the owner who goes by the name of Mike. Let me first explain how it all started: We had a reservation from 13-17. However ,because of the long distance travel, and very limited ferry’s operational hours, we couldn’t get there until the 14th. Once we get there, he fraudulently canceled our reservation in order not to pay any commission fees to the booking.com. Later, we realized he had cancelled our reservation so we couldn’t write a bad review too! We paid him for two days in cash, and I even paid 300 baht more on top of that for the inconvenience which he gladly accepted. The problem started when my car’s tire accidentally hit their flower vase and broke it. Before they said anything, we had already offered to pay for it which we did. However, right after that, he suddenly went crazy on me and my wife and started shouting at us and pushing us, and told us to get out. We asked for a refund for one day as they were the ones kicking us out! They refused. We had to get the police involved and through their assistance, almost two hours later, we got our money back. By then, it was midnight, and like homeless, we had to look for a place to stay, Our vacation was ruined completely. We were humiliated, and it was a very unpleasant experience after all. I would not even recommend this place to my enemy! There is no pool by the way as he falsely advertises on other platforms. Only one private pool which only one room can use it! The balconies are right next to the stairs, so people go up and down, they can stare right into your room, no privacy! Avoid void! To be honest, even one rating is one too many...