Palmeraie Beach Resort Rayong — Hotel in Rayong Province

Palmeraie Beach Hotel is located on the mainland in Rayong, a province in Thailand which is probably best known to tourists as the place where the boats leave for Ko Samet. It's about 3.5 hours drive from Bangkok, but you'd need your own transport to get there as it's a bit off the beaten track.||||The hotel is located down a small lane off the main road about half way between the more popular beaches of Suan Son and Mae Pim, positioned directly on a very nice and quiet beach. The beach is clean (contrary to some older reviews - I guess they started to clean it up recently), with clear water and nice, powdery sand. It's a perfectly pleasant beach to relax, swim and sunbathe on, but there isn't really anything else within walking distance of the hotel (no shops, massage, restaurants, etc), or even within a 5 minute drive - you'd have to drive a few kms either to Mae Pim or Suan Son if you wanted to go out for a meal or to check out another beach. But, for those who just want to chill on a quiet beach, the location's fine.||||The hotel restaurant is fairly basic but good, serving decent Thai food in the evening and at reasonable prices. Not exactly gourmet dining but nice enough, and it's always pleasant dining with the sea just a few yards from your table.||||Breakfast was OK, but nothing more, without much choice and I could see it getting boring after more than a couple of mornings. Still, it's about what you'd expect in a hotel at this price point, and I've had worse breakfasts in more expensive places before.||||The swimming pool is nice and big but suffers from a few broken tiles. Also they only have about 1 mat for every 3 sunbeds - not a major problem when we stayed though as rarely were more than a few sunbeds taken. It's a nice place to cool off and for kids to play (there's also a smaller pool for very young children).||||The rooms really have seen better days though, being old, worn and with a slight musty smell. The building that houses the rooms could also do with a facelift, with dark corridors, tatty furniture and generally a bit of a dilapidated feel about it. There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with our room, all the appliances worked and it was clean, but it could definitely do with some refurbishment.||||Staff were friendly and helpful, although I got the impression they were a bit stretched at times.||||Overall, this is a decent enough hotel on a great beach, that just needs some renovation (on the rooms at least) to bring it up to date. For the price, though, it's...

We stayed at this hotel at least 3 times before but 9 years or more ago. Back then it was a nice hotel, always busy, and value-for-money. ||||We booked for 4 nights. We checked out after 1 night and went back to Bangkok!||||As stated the drive-way is a bit of mess, but we should have guessed what was to come by the empty car park on check-in; we saw only one other room being used on the night we stayed. ||||We carried our bags from car to check-in desk watched by a very lazy male staff member (we saw only handful of staff during our stay). The corridor of the building we were staying in had a huge hole in the ceiling which had not been fixed. The rooms were dirty, dusty and musty – I suspect the maid changes the bed-sheets, towels and cleans the bathroom only. Breakfast was very poor. No hot water in the showers of the 2 rooms we had. We decided to check-out. ||||The hotel is in a great location, end of a nice beach, etc, the buildings are basically ok and the gardens are lovely, it just needs some care and attention, some paint and furnishings. ||||Come on the owners of Palmeraie Beach Hotel, either refurbish the hotel to its former glory or...

The hotel is quite old, I remember being there 20 yrs ago... and seem like nowadays they haven't even renovated a thing! First impression - very bad road lead to the hotel, 5 big potholes! Second impression - we opened the door to our room and were welcomed by a giant cockroach! And the third impression - the toilet bowl is very, very old, with broken sitting-piece. The room smell old and damp. The mattress and sheets are all worn-out. ||||Good thing is that they still keep the pool clean, the beach is nice and quiet. ||||Anyway, overall, I recommend you avoid this hotel, at least until they decide to do...