12 November 2005
The Crowne Plaza Karon Beach was formerly known as the Karon Villas and Karon Royal Wing Resorts. As it happened, the property was closed for extensive remodeling when the December 2004 tsunami struck. The refurbished and new rooms were just opened in September 2005. Since then, it's changed management again and is now known as the Moevenpick Resort & Spa.
The Crowne Plaza consists of a main building housing the lobby and standard hotel rooms, as well as an extensive array of villas and townhouses. A "residence" housing two and three bedroom suites is being built on the beach front, and should be completed in early 2006.
We stayed in a second floor room in one of the townhouses. Just inside the entry door, you're faced with an open courtyard. Sliding doors from the entry hall give access to the courtyard, and the stairs up to the roof deck. A couple of deck chairs and a "plunge pool" are on the roof, which is relatively private, but we could still see a couple of other roof areas from our pool. The ground floor rooms also have a plunge pool, many of which lack any privacy at all. It seems the intention is for plants to provide privacy, but it will take another year or two for these to mature.
At one end of the hall is the bright and airy bedroom, having windows both to the outside and the inner courtyard. The king size bed was comfortable, with lots of pillows. A built-in window seat allows one or two people to sit, or even lie down, next to the window opening on to the courtyard. Other bedroom furnishings included a chair and ottoman, writing desk with chair, television with cable channels and a mini-bar. The desk has a data cable provided high speed internet access, as a cost of about US$15 per day.
At the other end of the entry hall is the large bathroom. Fixtures include a spacious shower enclosure and a huge cast stone bathtub, easily capable of comfortably holding two people (yes, we did personally verify this!) The bathroom also has a wardrobe as well as a sink with generous counter space.
Hotel Facilities
Outside the rooms, the hotel features three swimming pools. The largest of these is adjacent to the main lobby, and features a sunken pool bar, water slide and a sort of "massage shelf", a platform just a few inches below the surface with jets of water that will massage guest who lie on them. The second pool is in the center of a large cluster of villas and townhouses. It has a more natural look with large stones and also has a circular platform of jacuzzi jets in its center.
The third and smallest pool is adjacent to the hotel's "Tea Tree" spa. The spa consists of seven private "villa" treatment rooms. The menu of services includes the full range of massages, scrubs, wraps and facials. Also available is a fitness center, which has minimal equipment, and two tennis courts.
The hotel's coffee shop is in the main building, along with the "Kinnaree" lobby bar. "Wildfire" is a beachfront open-air restaurant combining a pizzeria, bar, deli and Asian/European buffet. The restaurant is housed in a building also containing some shops and art galleries.
The Crowne Plaza attempts to distinguish itself as a place for meetings. Unlike many Phuket hotels, it has a full range of meeting facilities, from boardroom to ballroom. The range of rooms, from standard hotel to a large supply of private villas, should make it an attractive destination for corporate get-togethers.
The hotel also targets families, with a large supervised play area for kids as well as many other kid-friendly features. The availability of villas and rooms with two and three bedrooms is also an attractive feature for families.
Drawbacks
Nobody is perfect. Most of our complaints about the Crowne Plaza are rather minor. As mentioned above, the plunge pools featured in many of the villas and townhouses lack the degree of privacy you may want for such a feature. Also, the roof-top pools are designed in the "infinity" style, where the water flows over the edge to a drainage area just below the edge. The problem is that when you step into the pool, displacing a lot of water, it all splashes over the edge and would appear to potentially drench anyone in the lower unit using their own plunge pool.
Our biggest complaint by far is the hotel's apparent insistence that you use their transportation. On our departure, we asked the bell captain to simply call us a taxi, but he insisted there weren't any taxis on Phuket, even though we had taken one from the airport and had a card to call them to pick us up. Instead, the hotel wanted us to use their own cars, and pay three times the cost of a taxi for the privilege. In the end, we had to haul our bags to the street and get a taxi on our own. This policy may have changed since the hotel has changed management.