Renaissance- Koh Samui

During one of my pandemic travels I took advantage of visiting the usually tourist infested island of Koh Samui. I want to travel to places that I would not normally go because of the crowds which I avoid. Also, the extremely high rates that normally are in place were greatly discounted during the pandemic. Even though I use points for my stays, they are still a form of currency which I wish to be prudent with.

I will share with you my trip to the island and the first hotel I stayed, the Renaissance resort by Marriott. This was the first of three hotels I stayed around Koh Samui, the next two were Cape Fahn by Hyatt, and then the Conrad by Hilton resort.

Koh Samui is an island accessible by only boat or plane. Since flights to the island are so expensive, I chose to fly into nearby Surat Thani and then take a local boat to the island at less than 1/2 the cost. I had plenty of time so why not? Also it just adds a little more adventure navigating the local transportation routes.

The boat ride lasted just under 2 hrs. I know many are eager to get to the island but why give up a boat tour of the area? At the same time also save a few hundred dollar? Makes sense to me, but then I've got lots of time.

Once on the island I rented a car and drove to the opposite side where my hotel was located. This is a resort hotel located on the ocean. As there is plenty of ocean here, all resorts are Oceanside.

Here is a picture show of my room:

I even had my own private plunge pool, as it's called:

And a large private patio:

As nice as this room and resort was, it was actually the least of my three hotel stays....wait I forgot! Four hotel stays. I forgot I stayed at the Intercontinental by IHG on the other side of the island for one night. I actually stayed on all 4 sides of the island.

I stayed here for 3 nights and, being one of only a handful of guests, was treated like a king! You see the hotel was still near fully staffed during the pandemic because they didn't want to lose their employees. They anticipated a short period of time the quarantine would be in effect and knew if they had a massive layoff the workers would leave and likely not return. So, they kept them on. But boy were they wrong as the quarantine remained in effect for two years!

My view of the ocean from my private area:

I will share with you now some rare photos. Pictures you'll not see on the internet from other travel sites:

That's right, nothing! Pictures with nobody around at this normally high occupancy resort. Only during a once in a lifetime pandemic can you come to this place and see so few people. As I was one of the few to travel and put myself through the quarantine, I was rewarded for it.

I know I only have a handful of readers here, but you get to see some rare, yet uninteresting pictures!

Join me for a walk through the hotel property grounds:

Yeah, the place was well landscaped and immaculately kept. I guess it's easy to do with such a high ratio of workers to customers. I expect there were 5 workers per customer ratio during my stay. Maybe higher as I couldn't see all the workers behind the scene,

In the evening I treated myself to seaside dining as I watched the sunset. Even though no one was around, I still had to wear a mask for the protection of the workers.

This was a very nice stay, but I actually had better on the island which I'll post soon.