Gay Hotel in Koh Samui

Who know the gay hotel LITTLE PALACE in Koh Samui or have had holidays there and let me know more about this hotel

[jinks]

I stayed there in 2004 and 05. It is a private resedence with guest rooms.
The owner also lets out his own room at busy times.

It is quite far out from Chewang beach.

Minimal breakfast supplied, small swimming pool.

No problem with guests, you get your own keys. No reception staff or security.

http://www.jinkscorp.com/holidays/thai/samui/samui04/images/littlePalace02_jpg.jpg
.
http://www.jinkscorp.com/holidays/thai/samui/samui04/images/littlePalace03_jpg.jpg

[TrongpaiExpat]

I last dropped by the Little Palace about 6 months ago and there was a for sale sign on the door with a phone number, no one was home. The owner, Wolf, was quite old must be about 80 now and I asked around about him but no one knew anything. I would be curious if he is still the owner? The place was well kept and offered first class rooms but a lot of the space seemed wasted. It used to be a restaurant I understand before Wolf bought it.

I like the concept of a nude swimming pool if nude farangs did not parade around. Good luck getting a Thai boy to warm up to the concept if nude swimming.
http://www.littlepalace.org/gallery

Last time we stayed at AKWA Guest house. Really funky rooms, very unique.

AKWA Guesthouse (http://akwaguesthouse.com/htmlversion/index.html)

[lonelywombat]

My favourite site for info about Koh Samui was updated in December. It is frustrating until you get the hang of it.
It is an interesting site to explore.

http://www.gaykohsamui.net

On the first page click on skip intro, on the second page go down to bottom and click on gaykohsamui

Then at the bottom of the next page down in bottom left corner, where it says click here and the full page opens.

There are coloured buttons at the top, click on gay for the accommadations.

there is also a gaykohsamui yahoogroup where you can ask questions and get civilized answers. Send blank email to
gaykohsamui-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

[tobias-old]

I stayed at AKWA for part of my first visit to samu last yeari, it was ok overall, but no water of and on for two days, they wanted me to pay in full on arrival which i finally did then when checking out asked me too pay for the room again WTF?.
They say they are 45 seconds form the beach, they put me in the second place they have(which they didnt say they have or or the rooms were split across to buildings on their website then) and i would like to know how they get through the locked gates and bushes across the road from it in 45 seconds. I think they were over priced and was able to get a cheaper place on the beach just down the road from them when i extend my stay in samui, I checked their website again and their prices seem to have dropped a little.

[TrongpaiExpat]

You must have booked a "Standard" room. There are three categories and it's pretty well spelled out on their web site: http://akwaguesthouse.com/htmlversion/index.html and when you tick on reservations it gets even more detailed at http://www.akwabooklivenow.com/

there is also a gaykohsamui yahoogroup where you can ask questions and get civilized answers.

Wow! Wouldn't it be nice if SGT was always that way.

[tobias-old]

You must have booked a "Standard" room. There are three categories and it's pretty well spelled out on their web site: http://akwaguesthouse.com/htmlversion/index.html and when you tick on reservations it gets even more detailed at http://www.akwabooklivenow.com/

So only the standard rooms dont have water all time?

What are you talking about?

They didnt have the live booking site when I booked. I was in a deluxe room when I was there. Their old site said nothing about two seperate buildings, the new one still does not say it directly and is worded in a confusing way, the booking one does. say they have 3 buildings.

[lonelywombat]

there is also a gaykohsamui yahoogroup where you can ask questions and get civilized answers.

Wow! Wouldn't it be nice if SGT was always that way.

Hopefully we have bottomed out [ did I say that] for a while and there will be less negatives and more positive comments.

If you like to stay in a nice place on Koh Samui, i recommend you wonderwolrdsamui Gay Bed and Breakfast. The owner is also german, but he is nice and friendly guy. he is the best host i ever had. He giv you so much information about the island and the gay scene as well.I stayed there 2008 and 2009 and will stay there again next year. beautiful place with nice garden, unfortunately he has only 3 rooms for rent. You should book early.
www.wonderworldsamui.com (http://www.wonderworldsamui.com)
www.gaysamui.de (http://www.gaysamui.de)

If you like to stay in a nice place on Koh Samui, i recommend you wonderwolrdsamui Gay Bed and Breakfast. The owner is also german, but he is nice and friendly guy. he is the best host i ever had. He giv you so much information about the island and the gay scene as well.I stayed there 2008 and 2009 and will stay there again next year. beautiful place with nice garden, unfortunately he has only 3 rooms for rent. You should book early.
http://www.wonderworldsamui.com
http://www.gaysamui.de

but unfortunately they do not have a swimmingpool

[lonelywombat]

I am not sure that a swimming pool is available close to Chaweng Beach. Maybe you can bluff your way into a hotels pool if that is important.
This new map I think is up to date.It does not include Akwa which is at the far end of the beach.
http://www.spice-magazine.com/common/at ... pice&a=273 (http://www.spice-magazine.com/common/attachment.php?d=spice&a=273)

This other map shows the location of both Akwa and Wonderland.The taxis are very expensive on KS and you might find Wonderland a bit remote
http://www.gaykohsamui.net/maps.html

scroll down both maps for more info

If you are looking for a retreat rather than a "gay holiday" this gay friendly on the north coast has a swimming pool.
http://www.sawadee.com/hotel/samui/shadis/

[blueboy]

AKWA is fine if you stay in the main building. Location is 10 mins walk from all the gay bars and across the road and another large hotel to get to the beach. The gay owner has incredible mood swings, so catch him at a good time.

[colmx]

I would completely avoid Akwa... Certainly not suitable for anybody other than a backpacker...
BF and i were booked in there in April and had to check out on the first night and into new accomodation (at our own expense)
Below is extract from my complaint e-mail to the owner..


Myself and my travelling companion arrived on the afternoon of April 11th and were assigned room no 201 above the main reception

On arrival first impressions were very good. The room was well decorated, clean neat and well appointed. However the Air conditioning did not seem to be working all that well. We left our room for an hour of exploring before returning later that evening.

We noticed that the Aircon unit was still not cooling the room - or in fact providing any coolant and went to speak with Mr. Jimmy in the main reception.

When we poointed out that the air con was not working we were basically told that Samnui was an island and the room faces the sun so we can not expect cooling like in our home countries.

We were also informed that the the last tenants had no complaints with regard to the room and that you were fully booked out so we could not change our room.
Nor were there any fans available.

At no point did any staff member even go to the room to check the air con unit, this is very telling and clearly shows that this was a known and pre-existing condition in room 201
.
When i asked to speak to yourself i was told you were unavailable.

I should point out that my travelling companion was Thai - so there was nothing "lost in translation" and even he could not put up with the temperature in the room despite living in Issan in a non-airconditioned house!

We were told we could detach the keycard from our key in order to run the aircon unit 24 hours in an attempt to cool the room. We took up this offer and stepped out for 2 hours in the hope that the unit would cool the room somewhat.

On our return at 20.00 the room was even warmer than before

At this point we checked out and moved to alternative accomodation north of your location at our own expense. Incidentally the Aircon in this guesthouse worked perfectly.

It was later pointed out to us by the girls in a nearby business that guests checking out because of the Air con like this is a regular occurance in Akwa Guesthouse.
It seems to me to be a false economy for you to keep renting out this room withour replacing the air con.

A small capital investment woudl lead to far greater customer satisfaction, retention and renewal base

[quiet1]

colmx: Good on you. Did you receive a reply?

[colmx]

Hi Quiet1
I received a reply - which i guess i shouldn't repeat without permission of the owner...

But it basically said that
-He was away (in Issan) at the time
-It was the hottest time of the year at the time (true - but doesn't explain why new hotel's aircon was fine)
-That they regularly check their aircon units and the unit in the room i had was working fine.
-They would try better in the future.
-That he was surprised that girls in a girly bar knew what was going on in his hotel (I didn't mention that i was with my BF so its interesting that he should presume that it was girls in a girly bar that made the comments about his business and not from a respectable business near by. In fact one of the girls very kindly drove us around on her bike to find a new room)

Fair enough reply i suppose - but it still means we were 4000B down on the trip to Samui before the 1st night even got started.

Of the island itself... we won't be back... regardless of the Akwa experience... Its like majorca and Ibiza combined into one big island of trash!

[Beachlover]

Damn, that sucks hopeless. If it was that obvious the air conditioning wasn't cooling the room, I would have requested a refund or transfer to another accommodation.

I hope you didn't have a sunk cost of more than one night.

I did look at that place... think I'll avoid it now.

You should post a review on TripAdvisor. They seem to get A LOT of reviews there and are pretty pro-active point "management responses" there.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review ... ml#REVIEWS (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g293918-d620300-Reviews-or10-AKWA_Guesthouse-Koh_Samui.html#REVIEWS)

[quiet1]

colmx: Thanks for the info. It appears the owner is part of the problem and not part of the solution. Too bad. It would have been nice if he replied that after you left they checked and found your air con was inoperative and they apologized profusely for the mixup. How hard would that have been for him?

I've been in customer service jobs for 35 years, and one thing I learned, is an apology goes a long way toward appeasing a customer. Even when the apology is for something we are not responsible for -- which I feel does *not* apply in your situation, I'm just saying that apologies are effective and can be used in almost any case.

[colmx]

You should post a review on TripAdvisor. They seem to get A LOT of reviews there and are pretty pro-active point "management responses" there.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review ... ml#REVIEWS (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g293918-d620300-Reviews-or10-AKWA_Guesthouse-Koh_Samui.html#REVIEWS)

I was going to post on tripadvisor - however i felt that the "management responses" were more of a personal attack on the people that complained about the accomodation than anything to address the issues, so little point in posting.

I also noticed that all the majority of people that post the 5* reviews have only ever made 1 contribution to Tripadvisor.... Funny how all those people feel compelled to register and post on TA after staying there... Seems to me like they are all being written by the one person!

Its not like BF and I have high standards... have stayed in 300B rooms all over Thailand... but this was definately the one with the worst Air con and staff that didn't give a shit about myself or BFs complaints. In fact teh Thai manager got quite obstinate with us when we had the temerity to complain!

[Beachlover]

I was going to post on tripadvisor - however i felt that the "management responses" were more of a personal attack on the people that complained about the accomodation than anything to address the issues, so little point in posting.
I really think you should post it anyway. Having a review page with SO MANY management responses to complaints will ring alarm bells for anyone checking out the place anyway.

I've seen the odd review page where there has been one or two management responses and thought, fair enough, it might really have been an idiot customer so I'll give the place the benefit of the doubt. But when it looks like every second review on this page has a complaint along with a management response, you can definitely see there's a pattern there.


I also noticed that all the majority of people that post the 5* reviews have only ever made 1 contribution to Tripadvisor.... Funny how all those people feel compelled to register and post on TA after staying there... Seems to me like they are all being written by the one person!
Yep! Dodgy as! The place does look nice as a mid-tier hotel but no way I'll be staying there now.


Its not like BF and I have high standards... have stayed in 300B rooms all over Thailand... but this was definately the one with the worst Air con and staff that didn't give a shit about myself or BFs complaints. In fact teh Thai manager got quite obstinate with us when we had the temerity to complain!
Broken shit is always understandable. It's the way they deal with it, which counts.

I vary my expectations to how much I'm paying... For 800 baht a night, I'm not expecting things to be perfect. But for more expensive places, if stuff isn't working I get pissed off if it's not fixed. But broken air conditioning on a tropical place is a big no no. There are places you can stay without air con, which are much cheaper, so you are actually paying a decent premium for it.

I've often tried to think of appropriate wording to describe Samui. Colmx is spot on: Its like majorca and Ibiza combined into one big island of trash!