Splash Beach Resort Maikhao Phuket — Hotel in Mai Khao

I stayed at a single bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a living room for 4 nights. Overall, I did not hate being there, but it certainly isn't a 5 star hotel.

Going more into detail - Cons: • First and foremost, the room was dirty. I mean a lot of dust (especially the carpet), stained couches, some kitchenware that was literally black from dirt, limescale at the bottom of the kettle and so on. It's clear they don't have the man power needed to really maintain such a big room. • Similarly, it feels like the room is falling apart. The air conditioner works well, but it's extremely noisy. The non-IH stove looks like it's older than my grandma and doesn't work at all. I tried to fry an egg, but had to give up and throw it away after 30 minutes because the pan would just not get warm enough. • INSECTS inside the room. The ones I found are ants on the carpet for some reason, spiders and baby cockroaches. A lot of them. • I was actually staying at the resort for work, but my room had zero Wi-Fi connectivity (which is the only option as there are no ethernet sockets). It's the same Wi-Fi network throughout the whole resort, and it worked fine outside, but not inside the room. • Some of the staff cannot communicate in English very well. That's a very bad idea when your resort caters primarily to foreigners. • When you check in, they welcome you with a surprise that is never mentioned before that: either give them your passport to hold as a deposit and have that on your mind the whole stay, or give them 4000 baht (which basically means you'd exchanged 4000 baht from your currency just for it to sit at their drawr your whole stay and can never be used). Also, be sure to remember that when you check out. They WILL NOT remind you. • The location within Phuket is bad. Even to the next by airport It takes about 15 minutes in a car. Other than that there really isn't anything special to do but the resort activities. It takes about an hour by car to get to the center of phuket, and with never ending traffic jams it feels like forever. • There is no free transportation arrangement between the airport and the resort. Both a hotel arranged taxi and Grab will cost you at least 500 THB one way. • The television screens in both the living room and the bedroom were laugingly small compared to the room size. Probably smaller than my computer screen at home. Sitting on the sofa, I literally could not read anything on the menu when turning the TV on. • Moving between different parts if the resort like your room, the lobby, the beach, the restaurant and so on will either take a few minutes of walking or you can wait for a golf cart to pick you up. These golf carts drive on the very narrow roads that are used for walking, so when walking you will often find yourself having to stop and wait for them to pass, while awkwardly being squeezed to the side. • The shower gel and shampoo provided are of really bad quality, and no conditioner. Other amenities like a tooth brush and tooth paste were not included. • There was a mystery door in my room that was locked and could not be opened. Perhaps a connection to the neighboring room. Zero explanation from the staff about that made it feel uneasy.

Pros: • There is a 7/11 and a Lotus's GO Fresh (a Thai minimarket) about 10 minutes walk from the lobby. They have quite a large selection, even covering fresh meat, vegetables and fruits if you have a kitchen. • The fitness center was medium sized but sufficient for me. It was a bit hot though, the air conditioning should be stronger there. • The outside area including the ponds and gardens are well maintained. You cannot deny how beautiful it is. • As other people indicate, the planes taking off from the airport nearby are loud and can be clearly heard every few minutes. However, they didn't disturb me that much despite my sensitivity to noise.

I did not go to any of the water parks, nor did I eat at the breakfast buffet or the restaurant, so I cannot say...

We stayed at this resort in 2019 and had such a fantastic experience that we decided to return in July 2025, even pushing our holiday budget to do so. We chose this resort specifically because of the onsite water park — it’s what sets this place apart and why we were willing to pay a premium compared to other options in Phuket. We booked 3 rooms back in March and even confirmed at the time that water park access was included.

Just one month before check-in, we were informed the water park would be closed for maintenance during our stay. This was devastating — the entire trip was planned around taking our children to this water park. We immediately requested a refund, which was denied as the booking was “non-refundable.” In my opinion, this is completely unethical — the resort failed to deliver on a major feature that was central to our booking decision and one they continued to advertise. I refuse to believe this maintenance was planned at such short notice, which is what the hotel claimed.

Without the water park, the property is isolated and nothing special. Yes, the room upgrade we were given as compensation was beautiful — and that’s the only real positive. The food and beverage credits didn’t go far, and the food was average at best.

We were also offered a complimentary driver to Phuket Town, but this turned into a frustrating experience. The driver dropped us on the side of the road near Central Phuket Shops — nowhere near Phuket Town — and couldn’t communicate with us. We had to pay for our own taxi to reach the correct location and return. To make matters worse, we were told to be ready for pickup at 8:30 PM, but the driver didn’t arrive until 9:00 PM. This delay with two tired young children (aged 5 and 9) was unacceptable.

When we checked in, we were asked to provide a cash-only deposit — no credit card accepted. As we had just landed and didn’t have cash on hand, I was forced to leave my passport at the front desk, which felt extremely uncomfortable. This is definitely something guests should be warned about in advance.

The on-site spa is incredibly overpriced — over $100 AUD for a massage. If you walk just outside the gate, there are plenty of massage places where we received 5 massages for $130 AUD total — much better value.

Even small things were disappointing. The kids club advertises art and craft activities in the lift, and my son was very excited to join the “Rubik’s Cube” session at 4 PM. We dropped him off at that time, but staff told him it had already been done earlier. No explanation, no update — he was understandably upset.

To make it all worse, we had to walk past the closed water park every single day of our stay — a daily reminder of what our children had been counting down the months for, and what the resort failed to deliver. It left a real cloud over our trip. I find it deeply disappointing that this hotel refused to refund us so we could give our children the experience we had promised them.

Buffet breakfast was okay — lots of variety and regularly restocked — but the food quality was average.

Check-out was the final frustration. Our key stopped working 30 minutes before check-out time, and we were locked out of our room, waiting outside for over 10 minutes to be let back in. Then, during check-out, a staff member accused us of ordering a fruit platter to the room. We hadn’t. Every room service item we ordered was through the hotel’s own app — so we had a record. The hotel presented a receipt with a scribbled signature that didn’t match any of ours. We ended up leaving the hotel a full hour after check-out time, unnecessarily delayed and annoyed.

Overall, this stay really tainted the wonderful memories we had of this resort. We’ve raved about it to family and friends in Australia for years, and as someone who works in tourism, I’ve even referred clients here — but never again. We won’t return, and we’ll be warning anyone who asks to...

Splash Beach Resort is an absolute disgrace to all 5-star hotels. My experience there was not up to standard due to the large volume of guests and low staff-to-room ratio. I've stayed at many 5 star hotels and resorts, therefore, i had expectations for Splash Beach, which they weren't even close to meeting. Their service was mediocre at best and some guests were even ignored and not attended to. Here is a list of reasons why they do not deserve their 5 star rating:

1. The check-in was a very lengthy and time-consuming process, when signing up to connect to the Wi-Fi, the room number and last name is required. However, when filling out our last name, it did not work, after numerous attempts, we figured out it was one of our first names (they did not inform us of this)
2. The resort is absolutely massive, however, they did not have enough buggies to serve every guest. Therefore, we were forced to walk everywhere on a narrow path in which only 1 buggy could fit through. This was a problem when a buggy would try to overtake us.
3. When calling for a taxi from the hotel, it will take at least 15 minutes for it to arrive. No taxis are on standby, making every guest wait.
4. The housekeeping is atrocious. The only thing they do is make the bed and provide new towels. During our 5-day stay, they only refilled the shampoo/conditioner once. They did not take the trash out, they also did not put trash away when it was obviously on the table. They did not vacuum the floor and the floor itself is very dirty. I could not walk around without getting my feet absolutely dirty.
5. They did not provide toothbrushes as part of he necessary toiletries, we had to request for them at reception.
6. For 600+ rooms, they only provided us with 2 small pools, which were always crowded. They would turn on very loud disco-like music at the pool, disturbing some guests.
7. The Thai restaurant called Baan Thai, located in the resort, offered extremely poor service. They forgot to make one of our dishes and the food was average at best. This was a huge disappointment as we would have liked to taste authentic Thai food.
8. When going to breakfast, their poor hospitality was displayed through the lack of staff to show us to our table. They only recorded our room number and just left us without showing the way like they did on the first day. They are extremely inconsistent.
9. The buffet breakfast lacked variety, they did not switch even a few dishes up and fruits were of poor quality.
10. Splash Beach Resort is located right next to Phuket International Airport, however, they do not provide free hotel pick-up and drop-off. We had to ask for a taxi, which took 15 minutes minimum, and paid a hefty 700baht for a very short ride to the airport.
11. The buggies tried to pick up too many people at once, making the buggy overcrowded and past the maximum safe passenger limit.
12. Air conditioning was also of poor quality. When set to 19°C, the air conditioner did not work, its lowest temperature would be 24°C.
13. The resort's waterpark, Splash Jungle, had a very slow payment system when we wanted to rent towels. Money was charged onto a small wristband, and we would use this wristband to pay for everything inside the waterpark. However, when renting towels and a small cabana, the system did not work and we waited for a very long time for it to work. These are just the main reasons why my family and i are very disappointed with Splash Beach Resort. We would have liked decent hospitality and cleanliness. Next time we are in Phuket, we will stay at another resort that can offer 5-star service and...