Banyan Tree Phuket

Thanks to Niwat, we had a great holiday in Banyan! We'll definitely come back soon. Thank you very much:)

My husband and I had a mostly lovely stay at Banyan Tree Phuket! I heavily researched Banyan Tree prior to booking our reservation both online and via email communications with the property. The food and beverage department delivered strongly on both fronts: food quality and service. Niwat, especially, took great care of us across all the restaurants we dined at—he worked long days since we typically saw him at lunch and dinner. We dined at Watercourt (both breakfast and dinner), Saffron (dinner), Hojo (dinner), Saisons (afternoon tea), and the poolside bar (lunch and dinner). On all occasions, we enjoyed the food—especially our steak dinner at Watercourt—and received extremely attentive service. We also had a delightful private lagoon dinner cruise on the Mekhala—the meal, ambiance, and friendly service made for a beautiful evening! In addition, we did a private afternoon tea cruise with Niwat as our host and captain which was absolutely amazing! Luckily, we were invited to attend a cocktail reception at Tin Tapas bar and were able to share our compliments about the incredible staff with the food and beverage manager. On our last evening, we were enjoying a cocktail at Saisons when a staff member actually tracked us down and presented us with such a considerate gift of three empty beer bottles. Let me put this into context, when we dined at Saffron for dinner, I was chatting about a project I do for a souvenir from the countries we visit. My husband and I try local beers from the given country, bring the empty bottles home, fill them with sand and place that country’s flag in the bottle. The staff member presented us with additional Thai beer bottles to add to our collection! How thoughtful was that? The Banyan Tree Spa was also another particular highlight of our vacation. My husband and I had three couple’s massages with Peach and Ant, and they were absolutely the best massages of our lives! Both these ladies were very skilled massage therapists and truly individualized our treatments—especially for me given some of my medical situations such as a total knee replacement and arthritis. I had a massage shortly after returning home from Banyan Tree, and it paled in comparison to the Banyan Tree Spa! Peach and Ant executed our services beautifully in a peaceful, serene atmosphere. Our housekeeping and landscaping services were also excellent both inside our villa and outside. Housekeeping was efficient and unobtrusive going about their business. There were many thoughtful touches—leaving glass water bottles and a nightly turndown gift such as incense and wooden bookmarks bedside, arranging our shoes neatly, and leaving beautifully scented incense burning at turndown service. Landscaping kept our lawn and surrounding greenery lush and our swimming pool pristine. Now, overall, our stay at Banyan Tree was wonderful, but that’s not to say that there weren’t some frustrations. Namely, I communicated clearly many times through email that I had surgery prior to our vacation and was looking for serene, peaceful environment for our first vacation following my surgery. Everything was going pretty well in our Grand Lagoon Villa until approximately our last week at Banyan Tree. That’s when a large Indian wedding party arrived—I am half Indian and am familiar with Indian weddings which tend to occur over multiple days—and completely disrupted our sense of peace and tranquility. In fact, one afternoon my husband and I were relaxing outside by our villa pool, and he was standing fairly close to me and couldn’t hear me speaking. Believe me, he has good hearing and often hears things I don’t want him to. Also, on one evening, our villa was actually vibrating from the loud music being played across the lagoon. My husband contacted guest services, and they arranged to move us to a Spa Pool Villa (a higher room category) without the inclusions. On the surface, this sounds wonderful, but this involved us packing everything up during our last week and let’s just say that I don’t pack lightly so it was a very stressful move. I truly wish that management had seen that we were staying three plus weeks and realized from all my emails that my husband and I were really wanting a tranquil environment and situated us in a villa further from the noise and commotion thus avoiding us relocating at the last minute. In addition, there were some lapses in communication from the concierge department. On one occasion, they were supposed to make reservations for afternoon tea at Saisons, but when we arrived it became apparent that those reservations had not been made given the confusion we were greeted with. On another occasion, special dietary considerations were supposed to be communicated for our dinner at Saffron, but when we went to order they had absolutely no idea about that situation, but did there very best to accommodate me. Another situation that upset me was that I was looking forward to some real beach time, toes in the sand and lounging on a sun lounger actually located on the beach. This was not to be the case because it is my understanding that according to Thai law “private businesses are prohibited from placing permanent or semi-permanent commercial furniture—such as hotel sun loungers, daybeds, cabanas, or heavy structures—directly on public sand “. Unfortunately, I did not know this prior to traveling to Thailand. Yes, we did go to Rava Beach Club, but there did not seem much point since we had a private pool at our villa and weren’t able to lounge directly on the beach. Unfortunately, these situations did somewhat diminish our pleasure in our vacation, but I am still happy that we gave Banyan Tree Phuket a try!

Wonderful place and great trip. Especially thankful to Mrs. Lucky from the concierge service who help me organize a delivery of a box of Chalong bay rum. Also great ice box service for in the room.

The Banyan Tree is a wonderful peaceful location for a massage, totally relaxing and still one of the best spa experiences I have ever known. The atmosphere is perfect, rooms are delightful, the staff are all lovely and my masseuse Venice was excellent. A marvellous experience, thoroughly recommended!

I went to the Spa and had the best massage I’ve ever had, given to me by Khun Ant. She was excellent! Lovely girl, wonderful technique to leave my body and I totally relaxed. I shall request Khun Ant the next time I visit the Phuket Banyan Tree Spa which thanks to its beautiful environment is my favourite spa of the many I have visited.