Baan Kinaree

We had a nice family reunion at this house (2 grand-parents, 2 mothers, 5 children), but we had a mixed experience with Thailand Holiday Homes. The online booking and payment were easy and Paul was very helpful answering my questions. However, I was told this would be a 5-star accommodation, which I would personally have rated 3-stars. The house is in a walled compound, without much charm, but which provides good security. The house is not really at walking distance from the sea. The sea is not very far but the road is a pit and there is no pavement, so one needs to drive. Pick up from BKK was well-organised which made it easy to find the property, but when we arrived at the house, we waited 30mn on the steps of the house for a lady to turn up. She then told us that the house was already rented to someone else and that we couldn't stay. After a moment of shock and a couple of phone calls, we were told that everything was fine and that we could move in. A large chunk of the rental payment / deposit was due in cash on the spot, which meant that I had to travel with loads of cash stuck in a money belt under my shirt for a couple of days. It felt rather dodgy, and unsafe ! The car was not delivered until 2 hours after our arrival, and without a drop of petrol. Since I didn't know where to get petrol I asked if the tank could be filled, and that I would return the car with a full tank at the end of the week instead. The driver then left with the car and didn't return for a day and a half !! The tour of the house was well organised, but there was no inventory. The house has a nice layout, pleasant living-room and a good-size swimming pool. Inside, it was clean, but a TV screen was missing from one of the bedroom walls. There were only 4 plates in the kitchen. Several days after we complained, we got another 5 plates. So we had 1 plate each ! The plates were too big to fit in the dishwasher, so we had to hand-wash them. There were no dessert plates. The dining room chairs were very heavy and they made an awful screeching noise when pulled. Please stick felt pads under the legs for future renters, it will be nicer for their ears, and for the floor ! The bathrooms were a problem. Bathroom pipes were noisy at night and were a problem for a couple of bedrooms (no restful sleep). Also, two of the loos didn't flush properly. One was totally unusable for most of our stay. Then we were told that we had to put toilet paper in the bin instead of the loos. I understand that this is common practice in Thailand, but a bit of warning would have been useful. An additional child bed was put in my bedroom as requested which was nice. However, the red bedroom only had a red light in it and looked straight out of the red-light district. It made us laugh but surely the agency knew we were the wrong customers ? It took several days to get a light with a white lightbulb, so no reading in bed until then. The pool was very pleasant and we liked the clothes drying string at the back of the house for wet towels. Gardeners though would come in and out of the garden totally unannounced and with no uniform, which was a bit unnerving. I always made sure all the windows at the back of the house were properly locked, just in case. Overall we had a good time because we were together as a family but I wouldn't come back. Jomtien and Pattaya have absolutely no charm, and the beaches are covered in plastic bottles, plastic bags and other rubbish. The sight of greasy old men with young thai girls is also not to everyone's taste, but this is another topic.