Our recent holiday getaway to Phuket was a bit different from our usual. It was planned to be largely a stay-in at a resort that’s designed for kids/family. We stayed at two resorts, so that we can have different experiences. The first stay was at the Novotel Phuket Surin Beach Resort.
Staying at two different resorts allowed us to go to two different beaches, first at Surin beach where it’s quiet, and then later at the bustling Patong beach where we could shop and dine around the area. At Patong beach, we stayed at the very nice Holiday Inn Resort Phuket which I just posted about. The kids were thrilled with their own bunk beds and Xbox 360 console in the room.
Novotel Phuket Surin Beach Resort was also a really nice place. There were no Xbox consoles inside the room, but the Kids World (i.e. Kids Club) was a really fun place for them.
We booked into the Family Suite. The large 56 square metre suite has a living area and a separate bedroom for the adults. Kids sleep in the living area on two single beds (one roll-away). They have some soft toys (looks clean!) and a play tent.
There’s a balcony that looks out into swimming pool, which is the centre of the resort. All the accommodation blocks surround the pool, and all rooms at the resort look into the pool area.
The living area has has space for a small work desk. There aren’t many chairs, but the beds can serve the purpose if everyone wants to lounge around in the living area.
The bedroom is spacious. The windows have the same view as from the balcony, though the window view is rather restricted. Perhaps larger windows might have been nicer.
There’s a king-sized bed, separate TV, and generously long desk/shelf .
There’s a wardrobe in the bedroom, and the in-room safe is inside it. It was nice to find chocolate coins in gold foil put into a treasure box inside the safe!
The suite has a largish (though not full-sized) refrigerator, and tea and coffee-making facilities. There’s no microwave, unfortunately.
The bathroom is pretty standard. The shower area has no door, but it is large enough that you wouldn’t get too much water splashing outside and wetting the whole bathroom. There’s no bathtub, in case you or your kids are longing for one.
Apart from the larger space and kiddy beds, there isn’t really much inside the room for kids to play. Kids activities are outside the room!
There’s a small meandering pool for adults. Kids will find something more exciting for them. Their pool has got two slides that start from the rooftop of the Kids World building in the centre of the resort!
The slides are quite shallow, so younger kids (and parents) should not need to worry. There’s a pool side bar in this kids pool, with sunken seats in the water on on side.
The kids can order food at this bar too! I’ll come back to food and drinks later, because there’s something far more important to the kids: Kids World!
Kids World is a building in the centre of the resort. It’s not a large building, but it has adequate facilities for the kids The slide sort of wraps around the side of this building.
There are two floors in Kids World, and there are a few areas. One room has a TV and some gaming consoles (Xbox 360 and PS4). Upstairs, there is a ball pit and play area for younger children.
There’s also a common area with a couple of computer setup with a variety of games. My kids spent a lot of time here.
There are other things in the Kids World, but I just want to show one more, the activity area where the staff conduct various programmes. There are different activities on different days, so you’ll have to look up the schedule.
Some activities are conducted outside the Kids World, like pizza decoration is done int he hotel’s restaurant, where they also have a kids seating area.
The restaurant is large. It’s the low season while we where staying at the resort, so there were never many diners around. In fact, we don’t see many people around the resort. It’s nice not to have to compete with others for anything (e.g. seats at pool bar).
I bought a Kids Club voucher at 299 baht per kid per day, which includes all food and drinks from the kid’s menu at any F&B outlet in the resort (but excludes room service), for the whole day. It’s quite a good deal considering an a la carte kids meal could already cost nearly 200 baht.
The Kids Club voucher also covers paid activities at the Kids World. The pizza decorating activity, for example, would ordinarily cost 100 baht, which is itself reasonably priced considering you get a personal-sized pizza at the end of the session.
The restaurant serves a variety of cuisines, including specifically a Japanese section. Food is pretty good, like this item from their special Fire & Ice promotion menu.
I had that at the Sports Bar. The kids can get their food served anywhere, including in the Sports Bar. The ambience in the resort is very relaxed and informal, so you pretty much can just walk anywhere and have your food or drinks from anywhere served any place.
The board games in the Sports Bar can also be brought out to play somewhere else. Sadly the games weren’t well maintained, as we found many items/pieces missing.
Surin beach is just across the road from the hotel. It being the low season now, there weren’t many people around. There are no water activities either, though you can still swim in a marked out section.
The Surin beach area is quiet, quite different from many years ago, from what I understand, when it was much more crowded. There are a couple of restaurants along the road leading to the Novotel resort, and a small shopping mall about 15 to 20 minutes walk away (maybe 30 minutes if you need to lug kids along). There’s not much else to do. This is the sort of place where you probably just stay in the resort itself, with the option to enjoy the beach as well.
It’s a good thing that Novotel Phuket Surin Beach Resort is quite self-sufficient, having all the entertainment the kids will likely need. There’s also a movie screening room for kids, with three sessions every day, each time a different movie. I think they could have packed more sessions though.
Service at the resort was excellent, with staff remembering us as we went about the Kids World and the restaurants. I suppose it helped a lot that the resort was quiet with not many other guests around.
Our stay at the Novotel Phuket Surin Beach Resort was very nice, and really fun for the kids. It’s a nice resort for a family getaway if you have just want a quiet place to relax, and has enough activities to keep the kids occupied and happy.
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