The Waters Khao Lak Hotel: Your Coastal Oasis

My new favourite place to visit in Thailand is Khao Lak. It’s calm, peaceful and full of beautiful high end hotels. Parts of it remind me of the Thailand of old, before islands like Koh Samui and Phuket became super touristy and overrun. But I have to admit, I still like a little bit of luxury. After plenty of pre-holiday research I opted for the Waters Khao Lak hotel. Here’s everything you need to know if you’re thinking of booking.

This post contains affiliate links. This means I receive a small commission if you book through one of them at no extra cost to you. I did not receive a free or discounted stay for the purpose of this review, all opinions are my own.

Hotel Design

What initially attracted me to the Waters hotel was it’s bright and airy design. I’m a sucker for modern minimalist and this is channeled in all public areas of the hotel. It’s all clean white lines with pops of turquoise, presumably mirroring the hotels love affair with water.

Most of the public areas are open plan and from pretty much everywhere you can catch a glimpse of the pools. The reception area is light and welcoming with a modern design and plenty of seating areas. It leads out to the pool bar and main pool with the crisp lines continuing outside.

It has over 100 direct pool access rooms, all others are just a short stroll to the water. The resort is pretty big and we did find getting around a little confusing, all the bridges over the pool lanes and small paths seemed the same at first. You can just ask at reception and they will send a buggy to you.

Book your stay at the Waters Khao Lak on Booking.com

The pools at the Waters Khao Lak

This hotel is ALL about the pools, it’s home to no less than 7 pools, all varying in size and depth. This is an absolute dream if you’re visiting with kids who love to swim, my little mermaid barely left the water the whole time we were at the hotel.

All the pools seem to be named after drinks but there all pretty similar. The Champagne pool is home to the swim up bar and was our favourite place to end our busy days.

Rooms at The Waters Hotel Khao Lak

We opted for a Upper Pool Access Room in the Waters Bay of the hotel. The space was absolutely huge with a massive bed, heaps of storage space and a decently sized balcony.

From the balcony you can walk down your private staircase and step straight into the pool. Such a treat! I loved being on the 1st floor as it gave us a bit of extra privacy from people swimming past our room all day but we could still get straight in the water to start our day.

The room had a reasonably sized separate bathroom with a shower and basic toiletries. There was also a desk area and small sofa.

We also had a safe, tea and coffee facilities, robes and slippers and plenty of soft, fluffy towels.

If you can stretch the budget a bit, I highly recommend a pool access room. It’s not that much more.

Special features for kids at the Waters Khao Lak

This hotel states it is “adult focussed” on its website although we saw plenty of kids during our stay. My twelve year old daughter loved it and felt welcome at all time. They don’t seem to have restrictions on booking with kids.

For this reason there isn’t a specific kids club at the hotel but there is still plenty to keep the kids entertained. Near the main lobby is a great games room with a pool table (although apparently guests under 12 cannot use this), chess and a TV area with some DVDs you can borrow.

And of course there’s the pools. Parts of them are plenty shallow enough for little ones to have a safe splash about. My daughter loved doing pull ups under the bridges. There’s no specific kiddies pool or safety gates so I would probably recommend this hotel for families with teens and tweens, not little ones.

Check out these other hotels in Khao Lak with kids clubs if the Waters doesn’t sound quite right for your family.

There are heaps of things to do with kids in Khao Lak so you wont get too bored not having a kids club.

Other facilities at the Waters Hotel Khao Lak

There’s a small onsite, air-conditioned gym if you feel like keeping up you fitness routine during your stay in Khao Lak. Also an outdoor massage sala where you can grab a quick massage for a relatively good price or at the onsite Sila Spa.

If you’ve forgotten any essentials, the hotel has a minimart although there are a few shops within walking distance which are a lot cheaper. And also a laundry should you want to wash your clothes. Again, we always head out of the hotel to get this done. It’s so cheap, all over Thailand.

Where to eat at the Waters Khao Lak Hotel

Breakfast is served in the Amici Italian Bistro. It was a good spread with a fresh egg station, fruit and sweet treats for the kids. The restaurant isn’t massive so it did feel a bit overwhelmingly busy at times. If I’m honest, it wasn’t up there with the best hotel breakfasts we’ve had in Thailand, but it was nice enough.

The bistro is open throughout the day for lunch and dinner serving pasta dishes, pizzas and Western style meat and seafood.

You can also get food at the bubble bar pool bar between 10am and 5.30pm. They serve sandwiches, great value Thai dishes and salads. They also have a daily happy hour for cheap cocktails. Any excuse!

We ate most of our meals outside of the hotel as we didn’t fancy Italian every night. We tried Bang Niang night market which had some amazing street food stalls which were delicious and incredibly cheap. We also ate at the Kokulo Beach Club at the La Vela hotel which was incredible quality and right on the beach.

For something a bit further away but in an amazing location, try one of the fabulous restaurants on the sand at Coconut Beach. It’s one of my favourite places in the whole of Thailand.

Where is the Waters hotel in Khao Lak

Although the resort is not right on the beach, its only a few minutes walk to the soft sand of Bang Niang Beach. The many pools more than made up for the fact that it’s a short walk to the sea. If you don’t fancy the walk in the heat, the hotel provides a free shuttle on a schedule. It is located in Bang Niang Village in Khao Lak down a few quiet side streets but plenty close to many bars, restaurants, markets and shops. Plus the Khao Lak Tsunami Museum which is well worth a visit.

If you’re staying in Khao Lak, you’re likely to fly into Phuket Airport. The Waters Hotel is around an hours drive from there. We drove to Khao Lak from Krabi which would have taken us about two and a half hours if we had driven straight there. However we stopped for a few hours on the way at Samet Nangshe viewpoint which was fabulous.

The Waters Khao Lak address

67/238, Moo 5, Kukkak, Takua Pa Phang Nga 82200, Thailand

How much are the rooms

We stayed at the Waters for three nights in shoulder season for around £75 per night. That was for the three of us sharing an upper pool access room and included breakfast. I’d say thats great value! It looks like prices have gone up a little for next year but you should still be able to secure a room for less than £100 per night.

Check prices for your dates on Booking.com.

To sum up, we really, really loved our stay at The Waters hotel in Khao Lak. That’s partly down to how hard we fell in love with Khao Lak but also just how great the hotel was. We all adored the many pools and being able to jump in straight from the room was an absolute treat. The hotel enjoys a fantastic location with plenty to do nearby. And more generally I loved the design and cleanliness of the place. If you would like to read more reviews of The Waters Khao Lak head on over to tripadvisor.

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