leonidz390
Google
I stayed in this place minimum 5 times, starting even before it became a part of Tolani chain. No, I never liked it as much and I am not a masochist. But for me its location was crucial, because it is located about 20 minutes from my fishing guide’s secret fishing spot. And, OK, it was “stayable”, even though their “villas” are the size of a standard room in many hotels. But it is clean, it has gorgeous swimming pool and they did some renovations after the pandemics ended, like putting in new faux-wood panels and installing sensor light mirrors and new wall A/C control units. It was always possible to get reasonably decent food as well after sooner or later I was managing to convey to the kitchen what kind of food I would like to get. And – after figuring out that I am a regular customer – they were always willing to cook for me upon order and to be buying fish, prawns and lobsters at a market for my meals. But main problem of this resort is that it was always unknown what level of service you are going to get every time. Majority of the staff had always been new from one year to the other. Strange - looked with my eyes- because working in this kind of place should be a golden opportunity for local people that they should be clinging to. And for a (normal) hotel it should be good to maintain the staff after making some selection, just training them gradually raising and raising level of service. Here there are couple of faces that keep being around, like House Manager Boyd, but they cannot maintain general level of service. Numerous new reception people year after year look like they left secondary school only yesterday and they are absolutely clueless. One year they had a restaurant manager, which was quite handy in communication with the kitchen. This year they were leaving a young waiter with a minimal English, who was definitely trying his outmost, but number of misunderstandings was up to the ceiling. And, worst of all, the chef in the kitchen every year was new too. And this time the food was very so-so (OK, tastes differ), but there were only 2 options: either everything was pre-cooked well beforehand with chef happily leaving home. So that I had to eat cold food with nobody to ask to reheat it or, for example, to make some fresh and warm sauce. Or – after I complained – the food was cooked on the spot after I arrived for lunch or dinner already, but then I had to wait for hours and hours to get something. So, one evening after “enjoying” 3 hours long dinner consisting of 1 (one) starter and 1 (one) main course I came back to my room, no - excuse me - “villa” I found the blinds being closed (there is no turn-down service, so I was always closing the blinds before going to bed), while room safe-box being open. And quite big part of the money that I kept in this safe-box missing. Whoever did it was actually very cool, they didn’t take all the money, just about 60%, so if they also closed the safe before leaving it is very possible that I wouldn’t even notice the theft. Did they get a signal from the restaurant that I am on the way back to the room finally, so they left without closing it back? Or does the master key every hotel has allows only to open in case safe’s battery is down or guest forgot the password? I will never know. Also, the reaction of the hotel’s management after I informed them right away was very interesting. It was very emotion-free, like I am informing/asking them something very regular: someone stole something from your rooms’ safe? Yeah, OK, we will inform the police, they will look into it. Of course, I am very well aware (and in many hotels there is a note about it in the safe itself): safe-boxes in the rooms are for guests’ “convenience” and whatever they put inside they put on their own risk. But normally it is formulated like this to make sure the guests don’t forget to close a safe-box (I didn’t forget) but not interpreted like invitation to hotel’s personnel to “check” a safe-box in any room and steal whatever valuable they find there. In more than quarter of century of traveling the world I had been in many countries that are notoriously considered to be not safe, I always used safe-boxes in the rooms and nothing bad ever happened anywhere. Not until my stay in Tolani Kui Buri in year 2025. Interesting thing: the hotel hires staff that steals, they give them access to instruments giving them possibility to open a safe-box in any room (obviously, whoever did it didn’t lucky-guessed my password, they just used hotel’s master-key or its copy) and what is the responsibility of the hotel? Their responsibility is zero. They will call the police and “will follow-up” and they “already informed their general manager” who is (always) away. They are busy “following-up” till now I guess. Nobody even bothered to apologize. Sounds like a fair game?
