To be honest I was a little hesitant about staying here after reading previous reviews on here about MBR - as we had no choice to stay here as we were attending a family wedding being held at the resort. I'm not usually a fan of staying at the larger resorts as is the MBR. However, as luck would have it - the Australian school holidays had finished the week before we arrived - thereby depleting the number of guests that would normally be there by a considerable amount so I believe. So, first bit of advice would be to avoid staying here during peak season/school holiday periods as I can imagine the place would be absolutely packed. Having said that, as a family resort we were more than happy. With three large swimming pools to choose from & numerous locations in which to sit poolside all day. There are two restaurants to choose from for the full buffet breakfast - the beachfront choice the far better of the two. The standard western style fare is available with egg station. But there is also always available asian cuisine which was far more delicious (dim sum, noodles, broths, rice etc). The standard poolside menu is pretty average - once again catering to the western tastes - but usually once or twice a week special lunches are available beside the main pool for a more authentic styled lunch. The Thai restaurant (the name escapes me) have absolutely delicious Thai meals - and very good value for money. Enough about food. As far as the rooms are concerned we stayed on the third level of one particular wing which looked out onto one of the pools and had views of the beach in front of the resort. Our rooms were extremely large and very nicely decorated and well appointed. They were certainly lacking nothing. Having said that, some of the "internal" facing rooms are much smaller and not quite so nice - but you get what you pay for. The staff overall were quite helpful and mostly friendly but some of the poolside & restaurant staff were a little slow in their service and certainly not the most friendly we've come across. Patong township is approx a 10min drive away. On the beach are two places offering Thai massages (not part of the resort) and very cheap. I pretty much had one every day. There is also available a laundry service which is also extremely cheap. Overall, we enjoyed our stay here for 8 days. The kids had a great time and all in all it was great value for money. However, if you are looking for a quiet romantic getaway - I would avoid it like the plague during peak season. 7 out of 10

At $250 per night, I thought I was getting a luxurious stay at an elite resort at a bargain price... well, it looked luxurious from the pics anyway, even from other users. Wasn't I the fool!! (those snazzy hotels don't go for less than $700 in this part of the world afterall - lesson learnt). In any case, it was a SOLID hotel for the most part.

The positives: good food (breakfast buffet), good location (5 mins drive from Patong), good amenities (Pool and such), decent ambience

The negatives: small private beach (size of a soccer field lodged between two cliffs.. but kinda quiet and peaceful, if you like that sorta thing), less than ideal service (Staff refused me late check out until I almost had to throw a fit when they resentfully relented for a measly additional hour from noon to 1pm check out).

Definitely more of a family vacation place than a romantic getaway. I guess I set my expectations too high, but I got EXACTLY what I paid for.

Just back from a 2-week stay at MBR with my 9-year old son (my wife coulnd’t make it at the very last minute), overall impression is great. Hotel was in good condition, pools are nice and offer a wide range of options. We didn’t go for special room arrangements, yet everything was fine, and there was nothing to complain about in terms of cleanliness.
Breakfast is great, and there are a lot of choices for the other meals within the hotel. We’re not particularly hot on local food, so we had all our meals at the hotel, which roughly cuts even in terms of expenses compared to eating at restaurants nearby, since you get a food stamp voucher with progressive discount up to 30% from the eleventh meal onward.
The resort is almost hundred percent family with kids oriented. There’s pretty good children entertainment throughout the day and in the evening, and a reasonably diverse range of shows every night. My son was very enthusiastic about the Sugar Daddy Band, who were very friendly and played American goldies, and a bit of Beatles and Abba. Christmas and New Year’s parties worked out just fine.
Massages are a must, and they can be taken at the huts just out of the property and on the beach.
We booked through our Jet Air representative the trip to Phang Nga islands (the James Bond movie scenery) and the Elephant trekking, and have been quite pleased with the value for money. I can only assume the Phi Phi islands tour is equally worth taking, primarily for swimming and snorkeling fans.
Patong is very accessible, and has amazing shopping opportunities. We never felt unsafe anywhere in Phuket.
There’s only 2 things on the downside about the stay at MBR: staff was surprisingly slow on English, you need to be patient and use sign language a lot; most of the children activities are carried out in Finnish, in keeping with the overwhelming proportion of tourists at the resort.
All in all, MBR was a very pleasant and enriching experience and we plan to come back

We spent 9 nights at the Merlin Beach from 14th Jan 2012. The first night was spent in room 4323, overlooking the carpark & road on one side and the pool on the other. A large development is currently under construction on the next block so I was very unimpressed when woken by the traffic & building noise. The staff were very helpful in allocating & moving us to 2 new rooms when they became available late the following day. The rooms are comfortable and bathrooms large and modern. The pool areas are very nice and we always managed to find sun lounges without difficulty. The Hotel beach is very rocky and access for swimming difficult but it is only a short walk (200m) across the road to Tri Trang Beach (not so many rocks) for swimming. The Beach Hut is on the sand @ Tri Trang is worth a visit for lunch or dinner. The Merlin is a 5-10 minute TukTuk ride from Patong, so perfectly placed to join the rat race or hang by the pool and relax. All up, we had a great stay at the Merlin!