U Khao Yai is absolutely wonderful!
The public areas of the hotel are very impressive, high vaulted ceilings and faux French decor, furnishings and nursery rhyme artwork and ornaments - which some might consider tacky but as it’s clearly designed and presented as nouveau, the hotel is offering a modern day take on a French country house / chateau, it does actually work.
Highlights for us was the garden view suite (72m2) after which we moved when we extended our stay for a third night to a lake view Deluxe (47m2) as our suite had been sold whilst we made up our minds to stay on! However, we actually preferred the lake view (218) as it offered a far more substantial balcony and a different aspect to the front of the hotel, overlooking the aforementioned lake, fountains, more wonderful gardens and the quite impressive residential houses opposite - and all of this for 700baht or so less a night than the suite.
The Papillon restaurant we used for 2 of our 3 nights - a fair selection of “Farang style” Thai food is offered but I personally couldn’t see much further than the fabulous selection of Australian steaks and burgers on offer! Wines by the glass are well priced but further enhanced by the “2 for 1 Happy Hour” between 5-6pm and at all other times “but 2 get 1 free” offer which actually makes buying wine by the glass over 7 glasses, a lot cheaper than buying by the bottle! The service in Papillon was perfect too - laid back, no rushing, a really stylish and welcoming dining experience with fabulously presented food and friendly and efficient waiting staff.
The impeccably clean pool area is beautiful too, looking out as it does on the fantastically well tended rear gardens and river although the sun-beds are in fairly short supply at peak use times and strangely there are no parasols on offer. We did also feel that a poolside drinks / snack service should be offered - we would definitely have used it during our morning by the pool which I would add is a very pleasant temperature and has spotlessly clean water.
We did use the Spa, having booked a couples 2 hour hot stone massage therapy session and we were both very, very impressed with the spa facility itself and even moreso with the two masseuses who were assigned to us - they are clearly experts in their professions and we came out literally walking on air.
Whilst we didn’t have any real lowlights, in order to improve the hotel (and perhaps to attain a 5 star rating from the current 4) I’d offer up the following as constructive criticism:-
1. Change out all your old and outdated in room TV’s. Hotel rooms nowadays simply must offer a Smart TV. We felt that this was a BIG miss and it urgently needs to be rectified as is not in keeping with 21st century hotel accommodation AV equipment standards.
2. Provide proper in room mini and snack bars.
3. The breakfast was borderline disappointing.
4. Be a little cautious of the U’s charging policy for food, beverages and importantly spa treatments. I say this as their (admittedly clearly stated) policy is to add 10% service charge plus 7% tax to these items of expenditure and to their room tariff when booked directly with them. The end result of this was that I booked my rooms (with breakfast included) through Trip.com at a better rate than U could offer and the policy made our two spa treatments menu’d at 2700 baht x 2 = 5400 baht a whopping 6318 baht.
All in all the U Khai Yai gave us a memorable and thoroughly enjoyable experience, far exceeding our initial expectations. We are both of the opinion that U Khai Yai’s gardens, lakes and waterfalls, are truly incredible achievements, making the hotel stand out from the regular crowd.
The staff should be rightly proud of their achievements in all areas of operation - take a bow Team U Khao Yai, you are going a truly awesome job!
