i would second the 2 reviews below us in most points, except that we didnot had any negative experience with the service/staff there.

the best of the Panviman is certainly the location and the great oceanviews. its built on the rocky hill seperating the northern and southern parts of the Thong Nai Pan.
its a very short walk down the hill to the village behind the beach, where you find highly recomandable options for food and massage.
Our rooms oceanview was amazing, being maybe at 10 meters distance from the shore
its built in the midst of a tropical jungle-like garden, so its lush and green everywhere - i loved it.
with that comes of course that you will share the resort with some animals.
there were indeed some tiny ants in our room as well, as observed in other reviews, but they didnot bother anybody, so tiny you could barely see them.
a bit more trouble we had with the mosquitos there. Our room had a potentially very nice outdoor-area with loungers, outdoor-bathtub and the above mentioned amazing seaview, except we couldnot use it for very long time as we were permenantly bitten by a legion of mosquitos - in the room it was fine though, as well as the pool-area and the restaurant we had no problems with the mosquitos at all.

be very aware of the room-category you book - while some have great seaview and are spacious with a nice private outdoor-area, others are rather smaller tucked away in the garden without any view.
the room we had was made up of dark teak, had a comfy feel to it - cleanlyness was very good.
i cant help but to mention that the Panviman and Santhiya (we stayed a few days in each) are looking exactly the same in terms of room-interior and overall design - seems like the same person was in charge or one had copied the other).

the poolarea is very nice - the pool is big and has a nice seaview infinity-edge - there are sufficient loungers there for the number of rooms in the hotel, and some of the loungers even will have shadow from the trees in the garden. nice garden-setting around the pool-area.

the beach of the Panviman proper is not very big, we didnot use it at all - you can walk over to the main thong nai pan noi beach - its a very short walk.

breakfast-restaurant - again stunning seaview - the breakfast itself was very very average, could be done much better.

as mentioned above - we were happy with the service, be aware though that they will charge for things that other hotels offer complimentary (pick-up from the pier, etc. / if you need a car to the village, etc) - it will charge you no small amount for the Wifi-internet - however the WIFI there was really good - fast and reliable, worked also in the outdoor-areas, so its worth it.

overall a good experience - the Thong Nai Pan beach-area is really great if you want it rather a bit more secluded and dislike the mass-tourism on Chaweng or Lamai beach in Samui !

We stayed here for five days, after five days in Koh Phi Phi and 5 on Railay Beach. Really loved it, and really loved the town.

I'm not sure if TripAdvisor will let me write the review I want to write, because my main statement about the hotel on this page is "the reviews here are not all to be trusted". I can understand if someone has a one-off bad experience, but some of the criticisms being levelled here have no basis in reality. Two big ones:
1) There are a lot of reviews saying "service is unfriendly". Could not be further from the truth. We were bracing ourselves, since the reviews seemed so unified on this - but in the probably 20 interactions we had with the hotel staff over 5 days, we never had a single bad one. They were helpful in telling us how to get into town, helpful in recommending restaurants (i.e. didn't try to tell us there was no place good in town so we should eat in the hotel). They left the room in great shape - just no complaints at all on this aspect.
2) The resort feels like it is new and in great shape. In fact it seems pretty clear it was only constructed in the past several years; Thong Nat Pan Noi has now got 3-4 of these big resorts. Ours did not feel like a major complex because none of the buildings were too massive; we were also worried about this, but it was fine. But for people to say "this is an 80s 3-star in need of a revamp" - it's just not credible; they have never been there. Especially if at the end of the review they say "I am staying at this other wonderful hotel, here's the name."

The rooms were very spacious and the view out the balcony was lovely. (The pics on the hotel website of the room are accurate - I think the room we stayed in was called Deluxe Superior, which is their second-from-the-bottom I think - i.e. we did not stay in a standalone villa.) I liked that the balcony was big enough to have both space in the sun and space with a little roof, so we could sit out there even if there was a quick rainstorm. Air conditioning worked great, bathroom and shower are big and spacious. We didn't use room service - only ate one meal at the hotel actually, dinner the first night - it was perfectly good but there are many great small places in town so we ate there.

Finally the kicker for us was we got something like 50% off via Agoda - all in all, a no-brainer. I'm not well-versed enough to say whether this is a 4-star or a 5-star place in technical hotel grading, but it's definitely one of those, and not a 3-star. The rate plus the room itself plus the town at the base of the hill made this a great place to stay.

If you go: eat dinner at Luna, have cocktails and get a foot massage at Jip Cafe, get a real massage at Tamaporn, have breakfast and use the wifi at Star Huts. Wander over to the south beach for food at Dolphin and a pint and pool to Flip Flop Pharmacy, and go up the hill to the waterfall if you're feeling marginally intrepid, but besides that one wander, the Noi town and the beach is the main draw here.

We have just left Panviman 3 days ago and stayed there from 28th Dec until 2nd Jan.
I must say that I fully agree on the person's last review below. He said it all. Our villa was beautiful though, but we had issues with ants while staying there.
I even had booked for Pedicure at this resort. The ladies were not quite experienced and I couldn't get a word out of them, Thai only. Don't bother for pedicure, it wasn't worth it.
I also noticed whow lucky the manager of the resort was to have breakfast at the same time than the guests were. Instead of checking on his own staff if they were doing their jobs properly.
New years eve, we were there for dinner, my husband and I couldn't talk to each other so loud the music was. Before we left, this lovely waitress made us to sign the bill so we can book it into our room. We left walking back up the stairs and this strong man's voice yelled at us from below saying "you didnt sign your bill". I turned around and was shocked with the rudness. I yelled back and said "we did sign the bill". He was the ladyboy of the resort. This was rude of him! At least approach the person nicely and talk in a nice way, certainly not the way he has.
Well to finish off, I also think it desperatly needs uplifting with a highly qualified manager for this resort, then perhaps it will deserve its 4 stars, but not at the moment. Thats for sure.
We will not come back.

We stayed at the Panviman for 4 nights for our honeymoon.

We had a good stay , but would like to highlight the following concerns we had, which may help new guests make up their mind whether they should stay here.

1. It is certainly not a 4 or 5 star resort as per the website and brochure. More a 3 star , but a dated one. I must admit we had a great stay but the value proposition is WAY out here.

2. The resort is over 25 years old and im unsure whether much has been changed since it was developed! maybe here and there.

3. Location and views are very good. Pool great , even a little dated.

4. Service and overall welcome feeling was terrible. We felt that we were doing them a favour by staying there. I think this stems from the " old school" management style or lack of management. I got the feeling they used the glitzy brochures to lure in guests , then Overcharge them on every thing they possibly could ( one has to pay for wifi!!) The GM I spotted spending more time dining in the restaurants than managing his staff! Seemed like he was not too bothered.

5. Resort cleaning staff were friendly and helpful.

6. Front desk operators were rude at times.

7. rooms clean, excellent view of the ocean, but very dated. Smelt a bit damp, masked by incense.

8. Breakfasts were good , but could be better for the 4 star prices I was paying.

All in all if I was paying a third of what I did I would say It was worth it. Resort needs a change of managent and a total revamp and then I would say it has something going for it.

I am staying my last night in the "Bangkok loft inn" in Bangkok 1/6 of the price and Panviman could learn something from this hotel!