Thailand help pls! Koh Samui or Phuket/Krabi with 6 and 8 yr olds? Any hotel reccs?

[kasbah72]

I would love a bit of help on this one!

We are planning a big holiday to Thailand next Easter, and we are struggling to finalise the itinerary.

DH and I went travelling about 17 years ago and spent several weeks in Thailand and totally fell in love the place. We have always wanted to go back and think the kids are now of an age where they will get some great memories and adventures out of it.

This is probably the most expensive holiday we have ever planned so getting it right feels almost overwhelming!

Our current thinking is that we will have 2 days/3 nights in Bangkok, 7/8 days on an island and then 2/3 days on an adventure trek. The order depends on where we go for each bit.

We would love Bangkok hotel recommendations and any river market tours. Apart from that, we pretty much know what we want to do.

We are pretty much set on a private 2 or 3 day trek that includes elephants, tigers, burmese border, local village trek, waterfalls, floating bungalows etc. Sounds incredible but is also geared to families. We get there from Bangkok so this will probably be towards the end of the holiday.

Our favourite island was Koh Tao but it looks like the journey time is still ridiculous for a 2 week holiday. Being realistic, it looks like Koh Samui (with a day trip to Koh Tao for snorkelling) or Kata Beach on Phuket (with day trips to Krabi and Phi Phi) are our best bet for the time of year, ages of the kids and travel times. Weirdly, internal flights seem to be cheaper than going by train so that will also save us time.

What do you think? Any preferences either way? Any hotel recommendations?

Neither of these were on our must-do list as backpackers but we need to be realistic about getting a holiday out of this trip. We want amazing beaches, beautiful weather, a few things to visit, snorkelling and nice hotels. Bangkok will give us crazy city time with amazing temples and the trek will give us jungle, animals and adventure. The beach bit is the rest bit!

This holiday is also hanging a little bit on celebrating a big birthday, so we are open to staying in reasonable accommodation for most of it with maybe a couple of nights somewhere amazing.

Help please!!

Hi, we went to Thailand at Easter.

We did 2 nights in Bangkok and just got a taxi to the Grand Palace and then after looking around there went on one of the many available trips on the river. There are touts all around the main tourist sites.

We then flew down to Koh Samui and stayed in the Mai Samui resort which was lovely. We had a pool access villa which we think was pretty good value. The beach wasn't the best on the island but they do a shuttle bus to others. Through the hotel we booked a one day Island tour and went and saw the main sights, the big buddah, waterfalls and did an elephant ride through the jungle there. You can also book snorkelling trips to other beaches.

Although the hotel was lovely, we were disappointed by the beach so I'd recommend looking carefully at various resorts and have a look in tripadvisor. People we met there said they'd looked at trip advisor after they'd booked and wished they'd checked properly first.

We booked all ours via Travelbag.

Thanks MOS, I will check out that resort and see what the beach reports say.
Thank you!

Koh Tao is amazing, It's definitely the best of the islands. We stayed at a villa on the other side of the island which has hardly any people and the most beautiful beaches, brilliant for snorkeling too and when you need to go into town the villa staff will drive you in.

I know, we absolutely loved koh Tao! My worry is that it will just take too long to get there for the time we actually have.
What was the name of the villa if you don't mind me asking?
Thanks

We did Thailand last summer with my 9 and 11 year old. We had a fab time. We went with Exodus holidays (Jungle and beaches family adventure) who arranged the lot and made the holiday so relaxed yet packed with experiences. We honeymooned in Thailand 19 years ago so wanted to return as we fell in love with the place. The children loved the Erawan waterfalls (check out some videos on you tube) and also the overnight train to Chiang Mai and Hilltribe Trek. Waking up in a long house in the middle of a rainforest was magical.

The island we stayed on was Koh Samet. It was only 8 Km long. Great for cycling round, excellent snorkelling and very family friendly. The children loved eating at beach restaurants, which are literally rugs on the beach with short tables, and watching the fire jugglers perform. It was our best holiday by a mile... beating Bali, Mexico, Oz, Hong Kong, Malaysia etc.

I'm sure you'll have a great time. We had the holiday to celebrate big birthdays too!