For the first time ever (except when we go to Las Vegas every year), we stayed in the same hotel as we have stayed before....the Seaview Patong. We stayed here two years ago when we came to Phuket. When talking about going to Thailand just after Christmas this year we decided we wanted to go back to Patong as we love a bustling nightlife and that meant staying at the Seaview again as we liked it first time around..
The Seaview is a very nice place to stay. It's not luxurious by any means but it's clean, in a good position, has two nice pools, and a good breakfast available. The prices appeared to be through the roof for it this year in package deals but we managed to get it for two weeks through Travel Republic for just over £900 which was a superb price compared to everyone else.
The rooms are very basic but comfortable and clean with a separate bathroom, with a shower over the bath. The water is scaldingly hot! So be careful not to run the hot too much. There's a safe in room, a TV and a mini-bar/fridge, handy for keeping your water cool! You get a couple of bottles of free water per day. The air-con is very good...although we couldn't actually turn ours down at all so we either had to have it very cold in the room or turn it off for a while. Some rooms have a sea view and balcony, if you ask, you normally get one. Rooms are cleaned daily, new towels provided every day including a couple of towels you can take to the pool area, even though you get free towels by the pool also!
Breakfast is very nice. Buffet style but with a few different hot items each day. Lots of fruit and breads available as well as bacon, eggs, cheese, ham etc. One small gripe is the people serving at breakfast were often slow and miserable, which is most unlike the Thai people, who are normally the friendliest people anywhere in the world! They walk around with coffee and tea, but this time, on several days we had to go and find them and ask them for some coffee after waiting ages and not getting offered any, we even helped ourselves on a couple of days because the coffee pots were sitting on one of their stands and no-one was even taking it around. A couple of the ladies doing the serving were really miserable and never ever spoke, even to acknowledge our thanks when eventually bringing the coffee over or clearing plates. Other staff in the hotel were extremely helpful and friendly, as good as you could wish for.
The sun loungers.......well, all I'll say is take an alarm clock because the pool guys prepare the sunbeds around 07:05am and by 07:15 at least half of them have usually been 'claimed' by people putting their towels on them! You have to do the same if you want to get around the pool and not go to the beach.
The beach is 10 yards away, just over the road. We used to go for a walk along the whole length of it each day, it's a lovely walk, beautiful warm water. As the hotel is right at the end of the bay, it's very quiet during the day except for a bit of traffic but only a 10 minute walk down to Bangla Road of an evening to be in the middle of the 'madness'. Bangla road is crammed full of bars, restaurants and go go bars. If you like a 'bustling' nightlife like us, its a fun place to go and people watch. There are different streets called Soi's. Soi Eric has some good bars but the best one is Soi Crocodile about halfway down Bangla Road. It's the 'Katoey' Soi (Ladyboy). It's a real mixture of the funny (obvious men) to the amazing (full post Op women) certainly something to see and a great place to 'people watch'.
I have to give a mention to a fantastic little bar just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel. It's called the 'Komma bar' and we went there last time we were in Patong and we had lunch there everyday this time around. The girls who work there are lovely, so friendly and helpful, great service and the food is amazing and the beers are ice cold. Prices are very good too, we often had a green chicken curry with rice and a beer each and the total bill was £10. It really is a great place to eat as all the food we had there is excellent. I highly recommend it and its so handy being so close to the hotel. There is also a family mart shop one side of it and a 7/11 the other so easy to pick up some water or drinks etc if you want them by the pool. The hotel charges 242 baht (about £5, for two small cans of Chang beer) by the pool. If you go to the family mart or 7/11, the same cans of beer are 36 baht (76p) each!!
Overall I would definitely recommend the Seaview Patong. Overall the people are great, location is great and rooms are ok. I'm not convinced you could get much better in Patong, and if you could you'll probably pay a lot more for it.