We've been at Apsaras this January for a few nights and really enjoyed the stay!
The pool-area is great and the rooms are nice and big! Thats all we wanted!
However if you want a resort hotel with holiday atmosphere and sparkle this is not really it! It felt more like a nice summer residence at the beach of some French uncle (maybe bec 90% of the guests were French)!
Here in bullets our evaluation:
+Pool
+Room
+Snackbar
+Friendliness
+Seaview
+Free Wici @ Reception
+Free DVDs

-Room never made before 3pm
-lots of insects in our room
-Umbrellas at the pool are very small and crappy
-Tour service not so good (however we were only told by other customers)
-Taxi to Khao Lak =300Baht (I can go to Bangkok from Chiang Mai for that money)

We only stayed here for one night, in transit between other locations, but as soon as we saw our room we wished we'd booked in for longer.

The room was very spacious and comfortable, and spotlessly clean, with plenty of storage space and a great shower room. Toiletries were provided, as were slippers, a hairdryer, free digital safe, and tea and coffee making facilities. Even the use of a good-sized beach bag.

The swimming pool was lovely, and had "infinity" views over the sea.

The beach in this area is fantastic - a very wide expanse of lovely soft sand. We later stayed in Koh Samui, where the beach was nowhere near as nice.

We had a lovely Thai meal in the beachfront bar in the evening. It was one of the tastiest we had during our holiday, although the quantity wasn't over-generous. Our breakfast in the main restaurant was also very nice.

My only negative about the place is that it is quite far from anywhere - too far to walk into the main area of Khao Lak. We noticed that the hotel does put on a bus service for 100 Bahts per person, but this only runs a couple of times during the day, not in the evening. I'd had concerns, because when the rep picked us up from Phuket airport, he couldn't understand why we would want to go to Khao Lak rather than Phuket. Not a good sign!

I would say the Peace Resort is an ideal location if you don't want to wander out and about at night, but not if you do like to venture out. And Khao Lak is probably a nice place to stay for a few days, but any longer I'd probably be a bit bored as there didn't appear to be an awful lot to do, even in the main area.

We recently stayed at Apsaras over the holidays. I have to say it's a great resort. Like most visitors have said the food could be better, especially when ordering meat and wine. In any case the food is not very important as there are plenty of restaurants in town, which is only a short cab ride away. The resort itself is beautiful and very clean. The staff are very friendly and overall it's easy to relax there. The beach is amazing. We travelled all around Khao Lak which has never ending beaches but we were really happy with the hotel beach. Even though we were there during the high season and over New Years it didn't feel crowded. There are always enough sun beds and despite lots of families being there it's still nice and quiet. On the last day we checked out the spa to escape the heat and I was so disappointed that we hadn't gone sooner. It was really professional and extremely relaxing, I would highly recommend checking out the spa early on in your holiday to judge for yourself. During our time in Khao Lak we also took a look at other nearby hotels for our next trip but we ended up being so happy at Apsaras that we can't imagine staying anywhere else.

Great hotel placed in the most beautiful beach I've ever been. Hotel is clean and comfortable, food could be more sophisticated. Special greetings to Mrs. Nura and Mai- very beautiful girls, helpfull and with the best english (which is not so obvious in Thailand).
Happy New Year from Poland :-)))