We spent a week at Patong Merlin in July 2009, and chose Khao Lak Merlin for our second week because we wanted somewhere away from the rat race to chill out and relax. We figured we had done enough shopping in Patong, so we were not concerned that this place was not within walking distance of the village. The standard rooms were great, and only a few steps from one of the swimming pools, which we had to ourselves most days. Plenty of loungers and umbrellas. The beach was a bit choppy when we were there, but a least you could sit on the loungers under a shady tree without getting constantly pestered by hawkers like in Patong.. The buffet breakfasts were great, hardly needed any lunch.
This hotel is brilliant, must be close to 5-star quality, but the prices for food and drinks were cheap, much cheaper than Patong ( eg around 120 baht for Massaman Curry ). The staff at the restaurant were great, very chatty, remembered your names and what you drank. There are a couple of shops, a tour operator, and 5 or 6 small outdoor bars all within walking distance of the hotel, and we tried most of them. You could walk along a beachside path for 10 minutes, then onto a side road back to the main road, and this circuit would take you past all 6 bars / eateries.The Thai Whiskies were only around 40 bahts for what seemed like triple shots, and the Curries were around 80 - 100 bahts, and that included a free soft drink and fruit platter to nibble on while waiting for your meal ! Merlin Khao Lak is also a great base for Elephant Treks in the nearby National Park - much better than the pale imitation treks at Patong. For a nice quiet relaxing stay in beautiful surroundings, this place is hard to beat.

We spent 2 weeks in Merlin Resort in the beginning of January 2012 and we were very satisfied. Many visitors have praised their pool-access or deluxe rooms, but I have to say that we were very satisfied with our standard room, which was situated on the hill near the long swimming pool (best and the most peaceful pool for swimming). This is the most tsunami-safe part of the hotel area and our building was not destroyed in 2004 tsunami. The standard room was very comfortable although were two adults and one angry teenager sharing one room. In Thailand, we use our room mostly for sleeping and I don’t understand why one should pay extra cost for any direct pool access or larger room. I can walk to the swimming pool as well. It is a matter of opinion, of course.
The beach garden, which is the most beautiful among Khao Lak beach hotels, is very spacious and peaceful. Despite many German tourists in the hotel, you don´t have to wake up and reserve your chair at 5 a.m. as in Greece or Spain. The hotel´s beach bar and it´s fruit platter is ok, but you also can enjoy your lunch in nicer beach bars, in “My friend” or “Komol´s corner”, both locating a short distance toward Poseidon beach.
Merlin Resort has only one major disadvantage: in the evenings it is a silent place like a cemetery. Only few visitors are eating in the hotel restaurants (Tropical garden, Veranda) simply because they are overpriced. We had one dinner in Veranda (other guests in 1-2 tables) and we found the food was very average – and overpriced. There are a lot of cheap but excellent restaurants in the area (our favorite was Ruan Thai) or you can easily take a taxi to Khao Lak center.
The hotel staff was very friendly but their English speaking skills are not always very good. If you ask something and speak too fast, they may only smile or laugh simply because they don´t understand you. It may feel weird, but such behavior is their culture and you have to live with that.

My eldest daughter picked this hotel based on the pictures on the web page – ”so many plants, flowers and waterfalls”. We agreed after doing some more serious research, worrying mainly that the location would be too isolated. However, the local little “village” was quuite sufficient except for shopping, which was taken care of at the nearby market and shops in the center. Most of the things we did were nature related, requiring some travelling anyway, and we did have a pretty waterfall within walking distance and a very short taxi ride to a bamboo rafting location.

I love the light jungle design and the impression of a luxurious jungle camp even though the hotel is actually quite large; the way the old trees have been left standing and integrated and roofs of walkways made of palm leaves the traditional way. The many pools are beautiful and creatively designed, although relatively small.

Perhaps rooms have different sizes – we had two connecting ones that were larger than any hotel rooms that we have stayed in (excluding those called “junior suites”). They were also extremely quite (even though this was Christmas vacation and hence high season) as well as perfectly clean. The atmosphere was very relaxing, calm, quite and friendly while still not empty and boring. (Actually the hotel cannot be doing very well given how few guests there were)

The beach was only OK but there were so few people around that we still liked it. The Khao Lak beaches cannot compete with the blindingly white, soft island beaches with clear tuqoise water of Krabi or Trang. White Sand beach was by far the prettiest one around. Anyway, we were more interested in jungle adventures than beach time. Walking past the corner south on the beach, we bumped into two elephants walking around right there, almost playing (do adult elephants play??), leaving dinner plate sized deep footprints in the sand as well as very sizable piles of dung (hmmpf). Two young boys appeared to be responsible for them, although it didn’t really look like they would be able to stop the animals from doing whatever they felt like doing.

We only spent one of our three Thailand weeks here, fearing we might get bored, but could easily have stayed two (skipping Phuket) since this really was an extremely pleasant place to be.

Just got back from a fantastic holiday at the merlin koh lak ,we miss it already .We stayed in a pool side room near the pool bar accomidation very clean lovely room ,daily clean towels and beach towels .We found the staff so friendly ,fun and helpful going out of there way to do things for you .We enjoyed our last drink of the evening at the vendor bar near the beach ,my partner enjoyed talking about sports with the staff .as previously stated there are some nice restarents at the bottom of the hill ,we enjoyed several good meals at mai good indian and thia food . We enjoyed good cocktails and drinks at the elephant bar .A must is the elephant treking we went with eco trip the elephants seemed well cared for ,eco trip only take small groups which was great we finished off the day on bamboo rafts which was a lot of fun .This hotel and area is a must ,thank you to all the staff and management for a lovely holiday .