Racha Island Resort (Rayaburi)

5 star location, 2star hotel? Toilets by reception and swimming pool very dirty, no soap and no hand drying facilities. No hot water in the room except for electric shower. Shower drain backed up. No phone, writing paper or pen in the room. Toilet paper in bathroom not replaced. Restaurant menu limited if you’re staying for more than a couple of days. Won’t be staying again.

Perfect set for a restful and beautiful place, the beach is a wow and the environment cosy and charming. Not over tourist gadget stuff just perfect.

This is a long review. TLDR - awesome staff, 10/10 view, but maybe don’t book our room (villa), or book a room here during travel peak seasons so there may be more staff and better maintained facilities. We stayed overnight for 1 day at Racha Island. Our itinerary: 1. Join half a day tour (Phuket ＞ Racha) 2. Arrive Racha and stayed behind 3. The next morning, left the island and joined the rest of the tour. We were lucky the tour guides were willing to accommodate our overnight schedule. Racha Island Resort itself had amazing staff, 10/10. However, the amenities are quite run-down, perhaps because the room we stayed at were not frequently booked and hence not well maintained. During our stay, the following happened: - Our room hairdryer broke and started smelling burnt - Our toilet flush malfunctioned and water kept overflowing out till the toilet floor - The shower head broke - There was no hot water until the staff arrived and fixed it - Our room minipool water seemed a bit dirty and green, we requested for cleansing but unfortunately that did not happen. We ended up not using our pool at all - We were supposed to have the entire villa area to ourselves, but the gates could not be locked and did not have enough gates. People kept ignoring the “private area” signage, opening the gates themselves, and walking in and out our area, and stared at us while literally walking past the outside of our villa, so we had to keep our curtains closed all day as it felt a bit unsafe. Can’t exactly blame their lack of respect since the surrounds did not have a clear indication / proper gates that showed they were not supposed to trespass. - We ordered a taxi to the pier but it never arrived (but thanks to the staff’s quick thinking, we had a motorcycle ride instead which was fun!) The view was amazing though, perhaps our stay would be been more pleasant if we had a more realistic expectations. However, the staff deserved all the respect for always making things work and for fixing all of the above issues fairly quick.