Irene Pool Villa Resort, Koh Lipe

The location of this hotel is amazing! Its on the best section of beach on the island. The staff are lovely and friendly and the rooms are beautiful. They also provide a few extras in the rooms which are a nice touch (portable speaker, beach bag, sun hats and cocktail making equipment). In terms of the rooms, the architecture really is stunning! The gym used in the photos is actually one from their sister hotel (Idyllic Concert Resort) at the other end of the island. Guests can use the gym there at no extra cost and the Irene staff can take you down and pick you back up. The gym is big and well equipped.

We did have quite a few issues with the hotel. The biggest let down for us was the service overall. Everything just seemed very unorganised. We ate lunch at the main restaurant on the first day and the service was so slow that we didnt bother eating lunch or dinner there again. The breakfast is average. You tick your breakfast options from a sheet of paper when you sit down, but when we received the meal there were numerous things missing. My honest opinion would be waiting until the resident chef arrives in mid Februaryhopefully he can resolve these food and service issues. The whole reception / restaurant area is quite confusing. First of all there isnt a reception just a waiting area to the side. Its very unclear who is supposed to be working on reception, the management team, the restaurant, the bar, shuttle service etc. So its a bit confusing when you have a query that youd like someone to help with. We did also feel it was a bit strange for a luxury hotel to allow their staff to eat breakfast/lunch in the same area that the paying customers were eating. Beware of the mosquitos! I know its island living but the rooms are designed to be outside/inside living. There is no door to close off the bathroom. Even if they provided customers with some bug spray would be a nice gesture. There were a few things that we felt should have been a feature of the rooms. Theres no foot wash before entering the rooms, and considering that you enter the bedroom straight from the beach, the room gets very sandy! You have to rinse your feet off in the overflow of the pool before going back into the rooms. We would have also liked fresh beach towels to be provided when the rooms were cleaned. We got to day three and had to ring down to reception to ask for some, which they seemed to forget about as we had to call twice to ask. I understand that cleaning staff might only replenish beach towels if the used ones are put in the wash basket.