Our review of Ban Sainai Resort hotel in Krabi, Thailand, close to the town and beach area of Ao Nang.
We stayed at Ban Sainai in Krabi for four nights on our travels around Thailand and thoroughly enjoyed absolutely everything about the resort – it’s a superb, beautiful hotel and one we would very highly recommend for a family stay in Krabi.
It’s one of those hotels that has the immediate wow factor upon arrival that makes you know instantly that you picked a great place to stay.
It’s not because it’s a highly extravagant, luxurious place – it’s not that, although it is very comfortable with very good facilities and immaculately maintained.
It’s more the general feel of the place and its location within a beautiful natural setting, surrounded by picturesque high cliffs and situated within what almost feels like a natural jungle setting – yet just a few minutes away from all the amenities and life of the nearby beach town of Ao Nang.
Being such a natural resort, you’re surrounded by wildlife – whether it’s the sound of crickets chirping loudly in the hot sun, exotic birds calling from in the trees and even huge monitor lizards that crawl around in and out of the resort’s natural lake (they look pretty intimidating if you’re not used to them, but they cause no trouble and are fun to watch).
All the rooms are individually detached ‘bungalows’, spread around the resort and hidden away amongst palm trees and and greenery.
The design of the layout of the resort is so good that even as you walk around the footpaths that take you past the pool, the restaurant, the lake and in amongst the bungalow rooms, you barely even really notice the buildings at all, thanks to the way the trees and the natural features have been allowed to grow all around them, hiding them from view.
You can sit on the balcony of your own bungalow and be almost unable to see any of the other bungalows – even those directly next door to you – giving you a real feel of privacy.
It’s an extremely peaceful, serene, relaxing environment that puts you right in amongst nature – but with very high quality facilities for an extremely relaxing and comfortable stay.
We had two bungalow rooms between the family, both of which were very spacious with a large double bed (plus a sofa bed), excellent air conditioning, a large bathroom with excellent shower and a huge double jacuzzi bath.
Large sliding doors open out onto a private balcony with seating – all shielded from view from any of the neighbouring bungalows by palm trees and bushes.
The centrepiece of the resort is the enormous outdoor pool, perfectly positioned with a view across to the neighbouring cliffs through the palm trees.
There are two restaurants serving very good quality food at extremely reasonable prices.
Breakfast is included and is an all-you-can eat buffet with a perfect mixture of Thai breakfast food and traditional English breakfast too.
All the staff are friendly, helpful – and everything you can possibly need to have a relaxing, convenient stay in Krabi is all available to you within the resort.
There’s a frequent free shuttle tuk-tuk taking you into the nearby Ao Nang beach resort, which is lined with shops, restaurants and stands selling boat tours to all the famous nearby islands (like Phi Phi / Maya Bay, etc).
You can get traditional Thai massages within the hotel salon and they even provide an airport / bus station transfer service if you need it.
One thing worth noting is that Krabi is a predominantly Muslim area and the hotel has Muslim owners which means alcohol isn’t available to purchase within the resort.
As someone who loves sitting around a pool with a cold beer, I thought I might miss that – but they make up for it with such a large range of other non-alcoholic drinks, smoothies, mocktails, etc that it was no problem at all.
I didn’t find myself missing my pool beer at all – and, even if so, there are plenty of bars serving drinks within a very short shuttle-bus / taxi drive (or walk) from the resort.
Ban Sainai is definitely one of our favourite hotels we’ve ever stayed in, mainly because of the natural beauty of the resort combined with the serene, relaxed feel to the place, which fits perfectly into the vibe of the whole Krabi region.
It’s pristine clean everywhere, spacious, quiet and relaxing with only a limited number of other guests.
The other hotels we stayed at on our Thailand trip were pretty average and not places we’d like to spend more than a few nights in – but we would have been happy staying for two weeks or more at Ban Sainai resort – we were sad to leave and wished we’d booked it for longer. We had a perfect experience here and it was a place we felt very at home at.
If you’re considering booking Ban Sainai hotel in Krabi – don’t hesitate, there is nothing about the place not to love!