I can't rate this place highly enough. The grounds are fantastic, the villas are amazing and the spa is divine.

We stayed here for a week as part of our honeymoon and the service we received was outstanding. Basically, we had a phone in the room which you could use to call up for anything you wanted. Need a buggy to take you to reception? One is there in 5 minutes. Need more towels? The same. The restaurants there were varied and all food in each was delicious. I'd highly recommend the restaurant (although I can't remember its name) where they serve local cuisine. Creole food is yummy!

I have had to put in that I travelled in Feb 2011 as that was the earliest option on the drop down list,. I actually stayed in October 2009.

Enjoy!

Arrived 21/12/2011 for 5 day stay on half board, after disembarking from a superlative Silversea cruise. The cost of staying at the Banyan Tree was marginally more expensive than our stays at The Oberoi (Nile) and Mandarin Oriental ( Chiang Mai), 'similar' 5* hotels, but the similarity ended at Reception. The service was poor, food mediocre, facilities non-existent on the beach (permanent Red Flag) and a small local beer cost (in the empty bar) the equivalent of US$10.50 and US$6.00 for a bottle of local water.

To be specific:a prawn risotto consisted of a porridge-like substance with two prawns, in-their-shells, perched on top; the fish menu had three fish choices, but two were unavailable; the resort was like a morgue by 9.30pm (maybe it's exclusively a honeymoon resort); on the beach there were no facilties (sun-loungers, etc.) readily available; and taxis had to be ordered, if one wished to escape for a meal out ( the resort is in a beautiful, but isolated location). Also, we spent one night without air conditioning - broken down.

To be fair to the hotel, it is extremely clean with good accommodation, in an idyllic location and with a beautiful beach.

My husband I just recently got back from Banyan Tree and all I can say is WOW! Truly a unique and unbelievable experience! Everything from the rooms to the food and especially the service was impeccable! To say it was a trip of a lifetime is an understatement! There is no question we will be back! Thank you again to the staff at the Banyan Tree.

When we arrived at this hotel, was amazed how we were welcomed, was like living a dream! We stayed in the Hilside Pool Villa, it all seemed so perfect but we were wrong!

Then everything started to get worse, the maintenance in the room seems to be really poor, a light fell on my head while relaxing on the sofa by the pool, the TV had a problem and took them one hour to fix it... Also around 5pm the water in the pool villa turned with a very strange colour, the technician that fixed it put some chlorine to clean it and told us to wait until the next morning to use it, was a shame as we couldnt even enjoy our private pool and we only stayed one night!

We had an "In villa BBQ" everything was going well, very nice set up etc... They have a big choice of main course on their menu, but we ordered lobster and prawn skewer and it turned out to be two tiny prawns on the side of the plate, but its not only the first disappointment, when we tried the food me and my girlfriend thought the same thing, it had a very strange taste, either was uncooked or not fresh, good thing we ordered steak afterwards, but we paid a lot for this dinner and turned out to be the worst i have had during y holidays, even the local restaurants are nicer! It was my girlfriend birthday and a cake was ordered, but we never got ths cake, got a phone call around 10.30 pm so 2 hours after dinner and they asked us if we wanted the cake now???!!! They were supposed to give it to us upon check out but never saw this cake!

The next day as we were going to check out, we called the "Buggy service" and the person said the buggy should be here soon, how soon is 20 minutes for them without anyone showing up? So we decided to walk with our bags ourself to the reception, and as we got there 3 luggage porter were chatting with each other in front the hotel with a buggy parked in front, they didnt seem to be busy at all!!! No one helped us to take our bags up the stairs, is that a 5 stars service from the leading hotel of the world?

I let the receptionist know about all these issues and he said he would look into it, but i guess no one has done anything for it, didnt even get a single apology from the hotel! Even after filling out the survey!

The disapointment with this place is very bad that i would never go back to this hotel and wouldn't advise anyone to stay there! When you pay the price you expect a high quality of service and products, but this is not the case!

We left this hotel with a bad impression of it... Which is a shame...