Cruiser Island Resort Phuket Reviews & Ratings

I would never recommend this resort. It has been a horror from the beginning to the end. For 4,600 baht per night, you would expect competent service. I've stayed in backpackers paying 300 Baht per night which have provided better experiences.

The positives - the bungalows are air conditioned, clean and in decent shape, however half of them back the staff quarters. The staff are quite noisy in the morning so you would not have much of a chance to sleep in past 7am.

All of the bungalows have a pool view. The pool is extremely small around 8 by 4 metres hence there is no possibility to have a swim.

The negatives - quite a lot. The people at this resort have a very relaxed attitude to time. We have arranged with the resort to pick us up at Phuket airport at 7.10am for 900 Baht. No one was there to meet us. After 2 phone calls to the resort, a driver made an appearance at around 8.10am. He was expecting to pick up another guest. We asked him when this other guest would arrive as we had already waited at the airport for 1 and a half hours. Apparently he was coming in on the 8.40am flight. Fuming, tired and worn down from sitting in noisy smoky Phuket airport, we waited, and waited and waited. By around 9.30am it was pretty clear he was not arriving, we had made numerous phone calls to the resort requesting to be driven there to no avail. Eventually this driver asked us to pay the airport limo 500baht to drive us to the pier while he waited for the other guest, which we refused since we were already paying him. Finally at 10.10am an alternative vehicle was procured. We eventually got to our rooms around 11.30am 4 and a half hours after arrival!!

We got a welcome drink which we consumed and housekeeping omitted to clean up. The dirty glasses were still sitting on our balcony when we left 4 days later.

The food in the restaurant is overpriced but we were expecting that given we were on an island. However the competence of the staff was extraordinarily bad. We cope with missing dishes, getting meals which are completely different from what we ordered and extremely long wait times.
For example, I ordered breakfast, and judging that they might get it wrong, I specifically pointed to the item on the menu and repeated it twice for the waitress. She proceeded to serve me a completely different meal. I judged it better to consume than to argue.

There are only 2 scheduled boat rides to Phuket per day at 10am and 5.30pm. If you wanted to leave the island on an unscheduled time, you would have to pay 300 Baht. I would have been happy to spend most of my time on the island, however they did not offer much facilities the pool being tiny, the beach unswimmable during low tide and no other amusements on offer, and the restaurant too frustrating to eat in.

When we were settling our bill, we found that they tried to charge us for our boat rides to Phuket during the agreed scheduled hour.

On leaving, we arranged for their boat to take us to the mainland. We were assured that there were no other people to wait for hence there would be no problems getting to our flight on time. We did get picked up at the agreed time, however the boatman ran out of petrol and we had to return to the island for more petrol before actually leaving for Phuket 45mins late and nearly missing our flight.

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This place is a nightmare and we left after 2 nights. It was swarming during the day with boat loads of `day trippers` and was absolutely deserted early evening. Prices were outrageous but the only restaurant on the island was from the resort so we had no choice but to eat there. Talk about good chefs! They didn`t even know how to fry an egg and breakfast was inedible!

The beach was dirty and the sea had debris floating around in it. All in all it was a wasted 2 days of our precious holiday.

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Having never been to Thailand, what a better way to experience it than for a friends Birthday, on an island only inhabited by friends and family for 3days (thats right, just us)

Upon arrival, I was captured by the breath taking views. Was something out of the TV programe Shipwrecked. We were ready to have fun.

The first night in the room was an experience to say the least. We had frogs, lizards and all manner of wildlife inhabiting it. Only discovered this when woken up in the middle of the night by unusual animal sounds. Too uneasy to get out of bed, when we awoke the next morning, we found our complimentary fruits had been well tucked in to.

Breakfast the next morning was stress free and the day was spent occupied doing other things. Upon arrival back to our rooms (early evening) we found it to be left just as we had left it. House Keeping? Non existent.

Dinner that evening was a shamble.
Catering for 40 in all, some of us had to wait (and this is no over exaggeration) over 4 hours for our meals to be served. When food came out, because we were so hungry, people were just claiming the first dish that came out of the kitchens. You would have been a fool to wait for the dish you ordered. Clearly your order meant nothing. It became a game of "claim what you're offered or starve". Whilst some had finished deserts, others were still waiting on just a simple pizza. It was something straight out of the frozen foods section, a defrost and oven bake job.

What really cheesed us off was the owner (forgotten his name but what a joke) was sat talking, drinking a beer and socializing instead of running his poorly managed business and staff. Luckily for him it was a friends special day and the 40 strong team saw the funny side of things. (what CAN you do besides laugh). Had it not been, all hell would have broken out as you don't expect to pay the overpriced charges and get such a poor service.

Came back to our room to find animal droppings everywhere. Time to change rooms.

We were moved to one with a broken window that wouldn't shut which meant mosquito bites all night. It was Drama after Drama.

All in all, if you're going away for a "get away" and don't mind poor slow service or being overcharged for everything, with mediocre rooms, this is the place for you.

5* prices for 2-3* (me being generous) living.

PS.

If you make the mistake like most and take out a room tab, be sure to check what you've been charged for. Many found they were charged for meals and drinks, they had never consumed or ordered. Pay as you go to avoid check-out arguments.

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Oh boy where do I start - what a nightmare. As most of Phuket was fully booked, we went to Cruiser. We checked out the website and the pictures looked ok - after all how bad can it get ? , well we found out.

Housekeeping pretty much did not exist. Any food you order will be left there till you leave with flies buzzing all around. The swimming pool was just large enough for you to dip your toes in - the kiddies wading pool at our local gym is bigger. Don't even consider swimming or relaxing and lounging by the poolside. Its not that pleasant. The beach is muddy at best and rocky during low tide.

All this pales in comparison to the service at the restaurant. Being on an island, you pretty much have no choice but to eat with them. Its sorta like roulette. You order something and it has no correlation with what they eventually bring out 2 hours later. By that time, you're so hungry you eat it anyway. Quite a good sales technique actually. They will also charge you to send you back to the mainland to , so you ARE stuck on the island with their restaurant.

Watch your bill when you check out because they will try to pull a fast one and slip a couple of non existent extras in it. Horrible time - I would have had a better holiday at home. At least it would have been cleaner and I wouldn't have to wait 2 hours for every meal.

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