Last November, I received a message on Viber from my brother: “Agoda is offering a pool villa in Angsana Laguna Phuket for only $10 more than the apartment, so I went ahead and booked it. Do you want to join us in June?”
If you’ve been reading my blog long enough, you know that I travel for lesser reasons than that. In the next seat sale (which was about a week after our conversation), I booked my flights.
The Angsana Hotel is located in the Laguna Complex, an area in Bang Tao, along with other resorts like the Banyan Tree, Dusit Thani, and the Outrigger Resorts. It is also the venue for the annual Phuket International Marathon.
If you are staying at a resort in Laguna Phuket, and have arranged for an airport shuttle, you can wait at their lounge located right outside the international arrivals gate.
Laguna Phuket is huge. Regular shuttles between the resorts are available, both on land and in the lagoon. Shuttles are also required to get to the Laguna gate, and to get to our villa.
Our villa is located in Laguna Fairways. This is about a 5-minute drive from the resort lobby, and is about 2 kilometers away. You’ll have to get through the guard at the gate to enter the small community of villas.
As the name suggests, the villas are practically in the golf course. The villa’s backyard only has a small picket fence that separates it from the green. Not once during our five-days stay at Angsana did we get any golf balls in our patio or in the pool.
The villa is huge. It is listed as good for 6 people, but you can actually host a party for 20 people, and it would still feel comfortable. There’s a garage, which is great if you rented a car (public transport in Phuket is practically non-existent). There are bikes, however, which you can use to get around Laguna, if you’re so inclined.
Upon entry, the door to the kitchen is immediately to your right, followed by the door to the downstairs toilet.
The living area has a huge flat screen TV with digital cable signal, and some comfy sofas. There’s a huge open area behind it, which only has a working desk and a day bed on the opposite side of the room. Right after the desk is the dining table, which can fit 6 people.
The dining area opens out to the patio, which also has a table that can accommodate 6, a gazebo with a fan and some cushions, the pool, and four lounge chairs.
The villa has three rooms on the second floor: the master’s suite, a bedroom with a queen bed, and a bedroom with twin beds. All rooms have their own balconies, but only the master’s bedroom has patio furniture for watching the golfers or the sunset.
All the rooms have its own closet, personal safe, TVs, vanity, and side tables. The master suite, however, has a huge walk-in closet, and an ensuite toilet and bath. There are two sinks, and a separate shower stall and bath tub.
The beds are heavenly, and with the window shades down, it’s all too easy to oversleep and miss your alarm in the morning.
The second toilet that is shared by the two rooms only has a shower, toilet, and one sink. Bottles of water are available and restocked daily. There are mounds of towels available in all the bathrooms (the downstair toilets has the huge beach towels for swimming), along with toiletries. Instead of using small bottles, Angsana Laguna Phuket uses custom-made ceramic containers for their shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body lotion, and hand wash.
The kitchen is fully equipped and spacious enough that even if there are three of you inside, you are not intruding in each other’s space. There is an induction stove, a microwave, and even an oven. There is also a toaster and a coffee maker.
Crockery and cutleries are also on hand, as well as cooking utensils. Even the dishwashing soap is provided. There are two complimentary 2-liter bottles of water, along with other items for the mini bar.
The resort proper itself is huge. Just walking to the breakfast restaurant every morning seems like a warm up. The highlight of the resort is its huge pool. In one area, it has a “beach” area, with sand if you don’t feel like taking a dip in the sea. There is also a net for those who want to play volleyball while in the water. The pool winds through the resort, so you can pretty much go from one end to the other without having to get out of the water.
If you love swimming, the resort also have rooms that is right by the pool, so you can just slip out to the water as soon as you wake up.
Angsana Laguna Phuket Resort is right at Bang Tao beach, which is a pretty quiet beach on the western side of Phuket island. Several lounge chairs are available right on the shore for the guests of the resort.
There is also a gym, a gift shop, children’s playground, a spa, and non-motorized water sport equipment.
Breakfast for all the guests is at the Market Place. It baffles me though, that for such a a huge resort, the breakfast place is so small. On our first morning there, we were very early, so there’s only a handful of people inside the restaurant. On our second morning, however, we were there about an hour later, and just as we were tucking in, the line outside has started to form.
The selection is all right — a good mix of local dishes and international breakfast fare. They do have an impressive selection of fruits.
Guests staying in the apartments and villas has the option to have their breakfast at the Bodega & Grill. The Bodega & Grill offers plated entrees, and a small buffet selection. There’s not as much variety, but they do have smoked salmon, sushi rolls, and a variety of cheeses.
There are seven restaurants and cafes inside Angsana Phuket, but we were only able to eat at Bodega & Grill. After a morning of swimming in the pool beside the restaurant, we decided to just stay there for lunch. They offer Western fare, we were quite happy with the pizza, pasta, and deserts we ordered.
If you want to try out the restaurants in the other Laguna resorts, you can take the free shuttle, dine there, and charge it to your room or villa in Angsana.
Staying at the Angsana Laguna Phuket Resort was a great introduction to Phuket. I’m beginning to develop an aversion to crowds, and I prefer my beaches to be quiet, so staying at Bang Tao was a good choice. It’s a lot pricier than Patong, but if you’re looking to indulge yourself with a relaxing holiday, you can’t go wrong with Angsana Laguna Phuket Hotel.
If you’re traveling as a group, look into staying in the villa, as it gives you privacy and your own space for better bonding. Angsana is also near the starting and finish line of the Laguna Phuket Marathon, so if you’re running, this is a good place to stay, if you want to mix some holiday with your run.
This post was last modified on Tuesday, 3 November 2015 21:40
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