As of April 2024, we’ve just returned from our first, fantastic family holiday in glorious Thailand! We flew direct with Tui from London Gatwick to Phuket, before being transferred 90 minutes away to the Tui Blue Mai Khao Lak Resort and Spa, Khao Lak, which was to be our base for 2 weeks, interspersed with a 4 night stay over in Krabi (something that we arranged separately to our package, and more of that in another post).
Set against the backdrop of the Andaman Sea, Tui Blue Mai Khao Lak is blessed to be built within breathtaking natural beauty, with the whole area making a welcome comeback after the devastating tsunami of 2004. The hotel is located on Pakweep Beach in Khao Lak, which stretches along the resort’s frontage, providing a wonderful setting, as we discovered, for leisurely strolls, sun-soaked afternoons, and incredible sunset views.
We chose this hotel based on its previously positive TripAdvisor reviews, and because it looked family-friendly, whilst being not too ‘kiddy-focused’. We wanted to ensure that there was plenty to do for our 3 children (aged 13, 11 and 6), whilst still having a teeny bit of ‘grown up glam’ (is that a thing?!).
We arrived at the Tui Blue Mai Khao Lak at about 10am Thai time after a very smooth arrival through Phuket airport, and subsequent transfer via the Tui team, who I have to say were extremely organised and made things much easier for our very tired family (by the time we arrived at the hotel it was about 4am UK time, and no one had slept bar our 6 year old on the coach en-route to the hotel). The hotel reception staff were lovely, but be warned – your room won’t be ready until the afternoon, and after no sleep all we wanted to do was head to our room and get a couple of hours kip. Luckily they offered us a dark meeting room with beds and air con to rest in, so Adam and two of the children went and slept for a bit, but myself and our eldest decided to power on through, grab a sun bed and some swim stuff from our suitcases, and hit the pool for a bit. Come 2pm, our room was finally ready, and we could go and unpack and chill out for a while. If I knew what I knew now, I would definitely pack everyone’s swimwear, sun cream and sliders in hand luggage, as rooting around each suitcase in reception trying to find everything, whilst dressed in leggings in 35 degree heat, was a sweaty experience to say the least!
Like other holiday reviews that I’ve carried out, I thought I would split it into ‘categories’ and give our opinion on different areas/factors of the Tui Blue Mai Khao Lak, kicking off with our hotel room…
Hotel room
I’ll do a more detailed blog post about the room, which I’ll link to here once it’s finished, but here is an overview.
We had originally booked a 2 bedroom balcony room, but a several months before our trip, I decided to upgrade to a family Deluxe Suite with Pool Access (AKA a swim up room), and honestly, it was the best decision EVER for our family! It meant that the kids could get in and swim whenever they felt like it, but if anyone wanted to chill out in the room then that was fine too. Otherwise, we’d be up and down from a balcony room like a yo-yo, as we’d have to go everywhere with our 6 year old. The deck area had a huge double seating ‘bed’, so we happily relaxed on this whilst being able to keep an eye on the children, wherever they were. The upgrade was about £225 from memory, and worth every single penny.
The room itself was much bigger than shown in the Tui website pictures, much to my relief as a family of 5. On entry you have the bathroom and dressing area (plenty of wardrobe space btw), that leads through to living area/ second bedroom, home to a TV, HUGE sofa bed and fridge/ coffee machine/ microwave. This was separated by wooden blinds and also curtains that you could draw across, leading to the main bedroom area, with a whopping extra kingsize bed, dressing table and another TV, with doors from this leading onto the swim up deck area.
One thing I was concerned about was sleeping 5 people. On booking, the rooms states it sleeps 5, but whilst there was the main bed, and sofa bed, I couldn’t see signs of a 3rd bed for the 5th person, as has been the case in other Tui hotels we’ve slept in. I queried this on a Facebook group, with many people saying that all 3 children shared the sofa bed. Now, I don’t know about you, but I do know that making all 3 of our kids share a bed for that long would mean no survivors by the end of the holiday (eek). Thankfully, reception were amazing, and a full size bed was brought in for our youngest, and put at the end of our bed (still lots of room), which made for a much happier sleep time all round.
Throughout the week, housekeeping came every day to make the beds, top up tea and coffee supplies (although this was a little sporadic), and replace towels should you need new ones. We were pleased with the service, and certainly had no complaints when it came to this.
In terms of our room and where it was located within the hotel, we realised that we were in the ‘older’ part of the hotel in terms of swim up rooms (there is a newer, swish-looking part of the hotel), but actually we loved our room and the more central location (closer to the beach, Green and Grill restaurant and other facilities). The newer hotel area is quite a yomp away, and many people had to be golf buggyed about and to the beach in the evening as it’s really a bit too hot to trek there on foot.
If you have a swim up room booked, my tip is to email and request the following room numbers if you have kids that can swim confidently (115-119, or 122-126), as these are close enough to wade to the swim up bar to get a drink easily, but not too close to it so it’s too noisy! If you have a toddler or young child, rooms 101 to about 105 are ideal, as that part of the pool is very shallow and they can potter and play. We were in 118 and it was perfect for our family.
Pools and Beach
One of the reasons that I had originally booked this particular hotel in Khao Lak was the fact that it was one of the few ones in the area to have water slides, and my kids love a water slide! However… one thing I will say in this review is please, please don’t book it because of the water slides. We rocked up to the main water slides/ play pool on day 2, and the place was pretty much empty and we soon realised why. The play pool has weird sand/shingle on the bottom of it, making it quite scratchy under foot, but what was disappointing was that out of the 2 main bigger blue slides, one was out of action and shut completely for our entire holiday, and the other was working but highly dangerous. Put it this way… any waterslide where you’re expected to wear a helmet to go down isn’t a good thing! I don’t know exactly what the issue is, but the slide sends bigger kids/ adults absolutely flying and you land awkwardly/ can see how you might hit your head. In my opinion these slides should be removed and replaced with safer ones, and Tui shouldn’t be advertising them on their sites. We took a video of Adam going down one, helmet and all, and it made for quite scary viewing.
However, that was the only negative re the pools, disappointing as the slide situation was, because the rest of the swim options were fantastic and everywhere very clean and well maintained. The smaller slides/ play equipment would be great for very little children, and tbh the pool right outside our room was perfect, and had some inflatables that our 3 were more than happy to play on, so slides really weren’t missed that much on this particular holiday.
When it came to the beach, you couldn’t ask for a more stunning one right outside the hotel! Clean and never rammed full of people, there are sun beds you can use and you’re not fighting for space anywhere. The picture below was taken at about 4pm one afternoon and it was just so lovely and chilled. The children loved going down at sunset and also collecting unusual shells. We also saw hermit crabs which was a big novelty for us Brits!
Dining
Whilst on several holidays previously we’ve chosen to book all-inclusive, after reading various reviews and opinions on a Facebook group about Khao Lak, we decided to go for just bed and breakfast, as we decided that we would likely want to eat out more than we would eat ‘in’, as the beautiful setting of various well-priced restaurants along the beach would tempt us out. So whilst we genuinely can’t give a review on the main restaurant within the hotel (located within the newer section, so not that close to us anyway), we did order room service lunches approx 3 times during our stay when the kids wanted to relax close to the pool, as well as one lunch and one dinner at ‘Green and Grill’, one of their restaurants closer to the entrance to the beach strip. You can read an overview of the Tui Blue Mai Khao Lak hotel’s dining offering here.
Starting with breakfast at the The Mangrove Restaurant, a typical buffet, showcasing almost everything you could think of, including both western and eastern inspired finds (the pork porridge was deemed fascinating by all of us!). Whilst busy each morning, we could always find somewhere for our family of 5 to sit, and the staff never let you run out of anything. Coffee from the machines is fairly decent (crucial!), and Adam and I personally really enjoyed their scrambled eggs (delicious!), grilled tomatoes, plus a huge array of fruit (trust me, make the most of the endless passion fruit on offer, as the only place you get to have them in the UK without having to remortgage is your Friday night cocktail!). The children predictably liked the daily waffle and pancake selection, so everyone was a winner before the day had even begun.
Green and Grill had delicious food, although for our family, it was definitely more expensive than eating out on the beach (almost double the cost), confirming our correct decision to go B&B, so we made this a bit of a treat. We ate lunch here one day, and then decided to have dinner here on our second-to-last night. Whilst the food was incredible, we were disappointed that after sitting down at 7.15 and our meals taking a long time to arrive (not a huge deal), that by the time we wanted to order dessert at 8.45 (our plates still hadn’t been cleared at this point, we had to go and get someone as we were sat upstairs), we were told that the kitchen was ‘closed’, despite the place supposedly not closing until 9pm (still crazy-early for a hotel!). A shame as it spoilt our meal a bit, and the children were disappointed. I did follow up with a rep the next day, but nothing really happened to make up for it. So definitely go ahead and eat here, but eat early. You have been warned!
If you want something easy when it comes to eating, then I can definitely recommend the hotel’s room service. I’m always a bit wary of the quality of ‘fast food’ in hotels, but again, it was delicious. I didn’t have high hopes for our pizza orders, but each one was superb, putting to shame many of the pizza delivery places in the UK, and again, SO cheap! We also had a few orders of chicken goujons and fries, and these were also great.
General ambience, entertainment and beach strip
In my opinion the hotel has a great balance of feeling very chilled, but with still enough going on so that there is a good atmosphere. I really like that fact that whilst there were other British families, here, it certainly wasn’t ‘Brits abroad’ (the horror!), but a lovely mix of Aussie, Japanese, German, Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian families. As lots of people around our pool area had a swim up room, there wasn’t a fight for sun beds, with plenty remaining free throughout the course of the afternoon (this pic below is from about 3pm on a typical day!)
There is a gym, covered yoga area, spa facility (although I can definitely recommend a 500 Thai Baht massage at ‘Be Friend’, which is the first place when you turn right out onto the beach strip! Adam, myself and our daughter all had 3 each over the course of our stay!), playground and entertainment stage.
When it comes to the entertainment, this was more low-key than at other European hotels that we’ve stayed at before, with a smaller, dedicated audience, but some lovely singing nonetheless. I just think a lot of people headed out to the beach strips on an evening, as opposed to just staying in the hotel. It definitely had some fans though, and there was always something going on when we headed back to our room after a night out!
The actual location of Tui Blue Mai Khao Lak, and set up of Khao Lak is a bit of a funny one. Khao Lak itself, whilst it does have a smallish main ‘centre’, is actually spread out along one road several kms long, so you can’t actually walk out the front of this hotel near the road and ‘go’ anywhere without having to get a taxi or tuktuk. Which tbh isn’t an issue as the hotel runs many, many free shuttles to and from the centre each day, and there is a very cheap taxi service down at the beach. There is enough going on at the beach with the restaurants and shops so you don’t feel hemmed in, and we had arranged our own trips and tours anyway, satisfying the need to get out and about. It’s a lovely, chilled vibe, but if you want something more bustling, then somewhere like Ao Nang in Krabi (where we spent our 4 nights), might suit you better.
We arranged our own various trips from here, including a Thai family cooking course at Riverside Cookery School with Apple (amazing!), elephant sanctuary visit, turtle sanctuary trip, Tsunami museum visit and shopping at Bang Niang market, so there is plenty to do – it’s just up to you to arrange and make the most of your time here.
Would we go back to Mai Khao Lak?
100%!
I really, really loved the Tui Blue Mai Khao Lak Resort, the staff, our swim up room (forever spoilt having had this now!), the beach, the food… it’s not without a few minor niggles, but I thought it was perfect for our family, and would definitely recommend it to anyone who wanted somewhere in Thailand that is family friendly yet feels a bit luxurious.
Pros
- Food is incredible
- Swim up room is a must if you can!
- Free/Cheap transport to and from the hotel
- Friendly staff
- Beautiful, quiet beach, with lovely restaurants and massages
- Everywhere is so, so clean and well-maintained
Cons
- Water slides dangerous and children’s pool not all it’s cracked up to be
- Green and Grill restaurant disappointment with early close time
- Not for you if you want to walk out of the front directly into a town
Tips
- Get a swim up room and ask for one of the numbers I’ve suggested above
- Go bed and breakfast as no need for all-inclusive here – charge any food and drinks to your room and pay at the end. STILL cheaper than AI
- Pack swim clothes, flip flops and sun cream in hand luggage, so when you arrive and your room isn’t ready, you grab a sun lounger and sleep, or hit the pool!
- Bring plenty of sun cream – buying at the local beach shop (we ran out after a week) is daylight robbery and the only thing here more expensive than in the UK
So that’s my review of the Tui Blue Khao Lak Resort and Spa – if you have any questions regarding anything to do with my stay, please do comment and I’ll do my best to answer you!
Read some more of my travel posts here