Hello Hive! I've been away.. again. Not complaining, just saying..😀 and it was the right time I guess, right before they lock everything down again. Covid situation got pretty bad here all of a sudden. It is currently Songkran - which is the Thai New Year national holiday. It's the biggest holiday of the year - a whole week (9 days with the weekends around it). Just a week before, outbreaks started slowly popping and it couldn't have picked a worse timing. Now the virus is spread in every province. However we wanted to miss the Songkran week for our travel and do it right before instead. Sognkran is known for leaving Bangkok empty and filling up pretty much every tourist place in Thailand with locals. We did travel with Nat's dad again and this time instead of him treating us, it was us returning the favor for Koh Lipe. We had a bit of trouble around the booking of the hotels (Nat booking for the wrong month 😅) and in the end we ended up staying 2 days in a villa room and 1 day in a normal room at the same place. This place was probably one of, if not the best one we've stayed at in so far in Thailand.
The Crest
The initial plan was to go to Khao Lak and take some photos and videos for a friend that owns a tourist agency there. She had some health issues though and couldn't really show us around, so we decided to go to Phuket instead. We still drove to see her for a day. Phuket itself was like a ghost town even before they announced some more strict measures. While going to the islands we did see a lot of stores and even hotels closed but here it was even worse. Malls, restaurants, whole walking streets, even 7/11s and family mart were closed because there are no visitors. Hotels were doing okay at least (mostly the bigger ones).
The Crest is one of those bigger hotels, a bit far south in Phuket. It is build up on a pretty big hill which makes for some nice view from pretty much all sides. Transportation to you rooms and from the parking lot to reception is done by these little transport cars. They also used them for room service.
This one was the parking pick up car.
And these smaller ones were to take us to or from our rooms.
We arrived fairly early so we had to wait quite a bit before we could check into our room. Good thing I had my nintendo switch with me and played some good old Monster Hunter.
There were different types of rooms - Villas, frontline pull access, normal pool access and normal rooms either with or without a view.
The Villa
Even though it is called a villa - it accomodates only 2 people. There aren't separate rooms or anything, it is just a pretty big hub with it's own pool. We had a small kitchen, a bathtub right next to our bed (because why not?) and a little couch area.
The room looked amazing and I could've easily spent my whole holiday just relaxing here.😀 Unfortunately we had full day trips planned for the next two days and that wasn't an option. When we first arrived though, we had plenty of time to enjoy the pool and lay around for a bit.
The pool had this green light underneath that would light it up during night time. It wasn't too bright but enough to let you enjoy it during night time. The seats in the pool also have a jacuzzi option.
The only thing that I'd say was a con here were the damned mosquitos. There were so many in Phuket and I guess they were starved for tourists too. Our room wasn't an exception and I was bathing in repelent 24/7..😀
Reception and surrounings
The reception was leading straight to the main pool and outdoor areas.
The outside area leads to a place where you can just sit and enjoy the view. It also had this big chess board underneath.
The staff were amazing and super helpful. We had access to room service 24 hours a day and we could order anything from the restaurants menu at all time. On our first day here we had to leave really early and since we would've missed breakfast, they prepared lunch boxes for us to take.
The restaurants
There were two dining areas - one was used for breakfast and one for lunch and dinner. The second one was on the rooftop so when it rains they move people down again. Breakfasts here were pretty good, they had a lot of things to offer. It was a buffet as most hotels nowadays would do it. You had your 'egg station' with a chef preparing different egg dishes, cooked food, salads, pastries and many more.
Freshest honey I've seen in a hotel. Constantly dripping down, filling that cup for pancakes or toast. :)
The dining area however was fully outdoors. It was quite pretty at night because they would have lights decoration.
They offered a variety of cousines - Thai dishes, western dishes, burgers, pizza. Everything we tried was quite tasty but I'd say a bit pricey.
I did enjoy my time in the hotel quite a lot. Most places you go to - you are more excited about going around and exploring. I was somewhat excited about going to Similan Islands because everyone said it is very beautiful and one of the best places to visit in Thailand. I have been to Phuket before though and it wasn't at all my favorite of places. We never did take the long full day trips and instead explored the town, beaches around and some of the closer islands. What I'm trying to say is that for the first time I was quite happy just staying in the hotel and relaxing (not that we did that).
I have quite a few pictures from this trip I still need to edit. We did a lot of snorkeling and Similan Islands were quite pretty, so I hope I can share that with you soon enough. The only unfortunate thing was that very few places allowed flying a drone. I only used the drone on our last day in Phuket. Even at the hotel they wouldn't allow it because of a recent complaint from a guest.