Sofitel Krabi Phokeethra – Luxury Sofitel Resort‎

The long awaited 5-Star Resort Stay was finally here, on our last day in Krabi.

To be honest, the purpose of this entire trip had been centralized around this hotel. This was the first hotel booking I made and it was strongly recommended by Onew’s SHINee One Fine Day Krabi Adventure. Yes, it was the exact hotel (+ room) which Onew stayed in. Sofitel Krabi also holds the record of having the largest swimming pool in Thailand.

What a perfect chance it was for me to officiate mr Pretzel & ms Donut’s first use in the largest pool in Thailand.

Once we alighted from our vehicle, the bellboy proactively took our luggage away even though we said it was okay. The lobby had a palace-like feel with huge and comfortable looking daybeds.

After sitting down, we were then given welcome drinks (lemon grass flavoured), a cold towel and a bouquet of 5 pandan roses each!

I don’t frequent 5-star resorts thus I wasn’t familiar with the way the front desk functions. After sipping my drink, I walked up to the reservation counter, only to be directed back to the comfortable daybed. I guess their “sofitel experience” was that the guest should remain seated in the comfortable chairs while the staff would walk between the counter and the daybed to assist you with your check-in. To be honest, it felt a little inefficient (they had to walk a few times to and fro, taking my booking vouchers, then collected our passports, returned our passports before passing us the keys) but I guess they wanted to give us a “live-like-a-king” experience =p

It was a great pleasure to see that my special request has been met. Prior to the trip. I contacted someone via their Facebook page to enquire if room 267 was a superior or luxury room. Then, I proceeded to request for this specific room (Luxury) in my booking reservation. Thankfully it was off-peak, we were able to get that requested room.

One of the receptionist would accompany you from the lobby to your room and advise you on the offerings of their hotel. Although I would like to give them 10/10 for the effort, I have to discount a little as she talked as if she was reciting a memorized script. There was almost no personal touch to the entire recitation. I guess we gotta be more understanding as they are still in the process of picking up more English as tourism expands in their country.

Yes the bed is very biggggggggggggggggggggggg. I think it was King Size, or even bigger.

*Rolls on the bed*

Sofitel is one of the luxury hotel brands that provides Loccitane Shower & Soap in their bathroom! I really love the smell of their soap and shampoo! There were orchids randomly around the room too =p

Well, we didn’t have much time to nua (relax and stone) around..

It was time to pump the humongous float I bought and brought all the way to this special hotel with the largest swimming pool in Thailand. Big Pools need Big Floats right?

Thanks to my super supportive friends, a combined effort of 3 people, my amazing pump and binder clip, we managed to pump up both floats in about an hours time (30 minutes per float).

Before & After

 

** Click here if you would like to rent my awesome mr Pretzel & ms Donut pool floats **

Now that the floats were fully inflated, we are ready to play in the pool!

(Reality – the walk from the hotel room to the swimming pool was filled with embarrassment and quicken footsteps)

The Photos below were taken on my iPhone5, using the waterproof casing.
With the casing, I was able to carry my phone throughout my entire swim in the water.

Can you spot the hammock at the coconut trees?

If you were wondering.. Can the Pretzel fit two people? The answer is Yes!

Disclaimer – playing with awesome floats like these may result in you being the center of attraction in the entire pool. It felt a little weird to have children half your age looking and staring at your float in envy..

An idea of how large the pool is.

There was also a jacuzzi area which we didn’t use as we were too distracted with these delicious-looking floats. *YUMS*

(Ignore the dark clouds) There was also a mini slide and some nets for water polo games.

Then.. we discovered something special about this resort.. there were random hammocks hanging from the coconut trees! and yes these hammocks have a special meaning for us =p

You do not always have to sleep on the hammock. You can use it as a swing as well!

Swinging around can be really fun too =p

The hammock was so comfortable that I just laid there and stared at the sky. If I laid on any longer, I would have probably fall asleep.. It could have been a good stargazing location if it didn’t rain that night :/

While we played on the hammocks, I discovered that my floats were being taken away by other kids in the pool. I hope they took awesome photos with it too.

After our floating tea party in the pool and hammock swing, we decided to walk to the beach in an attempt to watch the sunset.

Unlike the other 5-Star resorts in the area, Sofitel Krabi does not own a private beach. You would have to cross a (somewhat busy) road to get to the beach. (The reason behind the busy road with heavy vehicles was due to the mining location towards the right side of the beach.) Please be really careful when crossing the road, especially if you have kids.

There were beach chairs available on the beach for us to lounge, relax, take photos and post them on instagram.

Despite the failed attempt of watching the sunset (Cloudy skies), it was a peaceful evening for pinee (the pineapple bag from H&M), paddington bear and duffy bear.

The Sun, The Sea, The Wind and The Sand made it perfect for an evening of relaxation.

And above all, social media + data trashes everything else.

Our peaceful and calming evening was cut short as it started to drizzle and we had to return to the hotel. (Means quicken steps in the transportation of the gigantic floats from pool to hotel room)

The most important task I had after all that play was to rinse my float thoroughly with clean water. These floats aren’t cheap and of course I would like them to last for a long time..

Well, I never understood the idea of translucent or transparent toilets but it seems like the norm in higher grade resorts. Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad this time round. The window was only translucent (not transparent) though you can still open the window from outside as there were no locks… but thankfully my friends were sane.

True to our predictions (or rather the weather forecast), it started pouring like crazy as the sky darkens. Well, I don’t blame the weather. It was already a blessing that it didn’t rain during the day.

After bathing, we went to the very grand hotel lobby for photo taking and also to return this random Polaroid photo I found on the grass patch at the hammock. I wonder if they have returned the photo though.

And so, my slight displeasure with the hotel begins. At 8PM+, there was no one on standby at the front desk. We had to call for attention before a staff walked out from the room behind the front desk counters. The staff who attended to us couldn’t understand my English and she was confused as to why I passed the polaroid photo to her. I told her that I found it at the grass patch near the swimming pool and perhaps they could return to the owner (in the photo) when he checks out.

Next, we asked for a first aid box or for some help to remove a splinter from my friend’s finger. After a series of miscommunication and then finally giving up, she gave us a plaster form the first-aid room. My friend already had a plaster on, with the splinter still lying inside the skin..

It’s abit upsetting to realise that the english standard was not sufficient in these scenarios. Furthermore, she was the only one at the counter and it didn’t seem like she had anyone else to ask for help or maybe she didn’t make an effort to.

We then proceeded to the bookings counter to ask where were the restaurants that we could dine in (since it was raining). The guy then started reciting his “perfectly memorized” script and shared to us the different cuisines and restaurant locations. We ended up walking to the restaurants, only to realise that there was an external event going on that night. The only restaurant we could enter was the Italian restaurant, and this message had not been conveyed to us at the “bookings” counter.

This was the entrance of one of the restaurants that wasn’t available.

Right, so we ended up at the Italian restaurant whereby the staff informed that the restaurant would be serving both italian and thai menus that night.

I looked at the thai-cuisine menu and it seems like Mango Sticky Rice was the only thing that I wanted to order. However, that dessert was not available and the waitress did not bother to inform us prior to sitting down. Imagine the disappointment on my face when she told me it was not available 🙁 We took forever to choose our dishes :/

AND this restaurant does not serve ice water. Maybe it’s a common trend in thailand and we paid $6-8 SGD for two bottles of distilled water. It wasn’t even mineral water.

The only comfort we had after all the displeasure was the free bread, since it was an Italian Restaurant.

We ordered soft shell crab and pineapple fried rice. Nothing else in the (pricey) menu caught my attention.

After dinner, we went back to our room 267 as we couldn’t find anything else to do and there was no where to walk due to the rain.

The only thing that I had in mind at that moment was… to deflate my floats :/

With the help of my amazing binder clips, the task was completed in 20 minutes or so for both floats!

We ended the night with Beer and chips that I’ve bought from 7-11. There wasn’t any flavour of beer which I particularly liked except for that random sparkling red wine.

Well, we spent the whole night discussing about our old idols *ahem fahrenheit and their IMM autograph sessions. It was followed by watching their (out of tune) live performances on youtube. it was a night filled with laughter and laughter and more laughter until we found ourselves on the quite comfortable bed..

I set an alarm at 5 plus 6am to attempt to catch the sunrise. I walked out of my room to the extremely quiet lobby (I was the only one, together with another cleaner), took a photo, concluded that the sky was cloudy, and went back to sleep.

Buffet Breakfast was pretty decent and there were many counters but I had to restrict myself as I can’t exactly overeat right now.

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel room and pack everything up and took some last photos at the lobby. At that moment, I really wished I could stay for one more night but 300 SGD/night was not very affordable for a budget traveller like me…

With the pandan bouquets in our hands, we took the final photo before leaving this awesome place. mr Driver was early and patiently waiting for us as we took more photos and bid farewell to this lovely place. Thumbs up to the good but expensive taxi service in Krabi.

Check rates and make a booking!

🙂