I have visited Pai on my personal trip during X'mas in December 2011. I got my booking confirmed by reservations team in Bangkok and fully paid before I left Australia. I know that from X'mas to New Year is the peak season, especially for the Northern part of Thailand as Pai is one of the tourist destinations for Thais. It won't be easy to find hotel on the spot.
On that day we got to Pai about 9.30pm, had dinner in the town city and by the time we got to the resort (4km out of the city centre) was 10.30pm. We were extremely tried from a long drive and looked forward to straight off to bed. Got to the resort, gave front desk staff a hotel voucher, he replied "we don't have your booking and all rooms are fully booked!!". Very unprofessional manner, imagine about 7 staff were staring at you and didn't know what to do. One of them made a phone call to their manager who was currently not in duty. She advised them to ask me to come to check out a room at her place (yes, her personal place) which located at the far end of this property, about 3 minutes drive away from the main part of the resort in the middle of nowhere. She offered us to stay at one of the room upstairs, otherwise she will make a booking at Krating-Pai resort for us instead. Krating-Pai resort is much closer to the town centre but it will be another 10-15minutes drive. Considering it was nearly 11pm and we were extremely tried. We decided have a night in that room and left early in the morning. Honestly, the room was nice and the house is next to Pai river; however, it is a personal room (not a spare room with someone else stuffs in bathroom and wardrobe). In the morning, we drove back to the resort area and had a quick breakfast (very basic selections). I had another chat with the hotel staff before we left and she advised that they had received a request from my reservations team but were waiting for reconfirmation (which is very weird). Anyway, I informed my Bangkok team, sent through a complaint and they finally offered a full refund for my booking (accepted it was their mistake).
Sadly, I am unable to say good thing about this property because I had no chance of using other services except their basic breakfast.
Make sure you reconfirm your booking beforehand!!
