Phuket Thailand

There were family holiday for 10 days, 2 adults, 3 kids (4, 9,11y) to Phuket, Thailand.
Long time we checked the opportunity to visit ClubMed based on friend's feedback about the concept.
The biggest expectations were about kids club and related sport activities, so the kids each day would have a lot of summer sport, similar to clubmed winter time, where each day kids have ski classes and upgrade their skills on that.
Pros:

1. Hotel located on the front line of the Kata beach. Even thogh you need to cross the small Road with small traffic, it was very good organize by internal staff to help with it.
2. Food is really good and evyryone would find a lot of different cuisines and dishes variety at own taste. All inclusive concept really matters, you Will not be hungry for sure, all Food are delisious.
3. Team is super friendly and would like to make customer happy 24/7. Its also quite multinational and very approachable, so everyone would like to have small talk but do it gently, not to other you too much.
   Cons:
4. The biggest upset for me personally was overexpectation on kids club. I assumed that if i go to Thailand itself close to sea, there should be many thai boxing and water sport activities everyday. Thai boxing was just once, sea activities was absent at all ( btw few days were high waves and there might be some safety resons, other days weather was quite calm).
   There were also no activities in the pool, there were just a pool time, where kids play by themselves.
   I expect that team may do some swimming classes, snorkelling demos or adventures, water polos, water volleyball etc. Nothing like that.
   However, there was trampoline, trapeze, which i Can find every place but not tropical sea country.
   Territory also have padel, basketball, but kids said they were not offered that activities as well.
5. Beach is quite dirty. Team said that this is because its a public beach and clubmed is not resposible for cleaning it. But i am sure that with so many cleaning team the Can do regular cleaning some part of the beach to make customer satisfied.
   Also clubmed does not have their own sunbeds, also because its business for locals. I am sure clubmed Can negotiate with local authirities to put just few of them.
   In many other countries Even for public beaches Premium hotels have their own beach Zone.
   And the last for the beach is that clubmed has quite big territory, but has only one exit to the beach clise to Main pool and bar. So if you leave in the far area, which is also good in terms of privacy, you need to cross almost whole territory to exit to the beach. Better to have at least 1 more.
   Overall, compare to the other hotels in Phuket i really enjoyed the Experience.
   On the other hand, specifically kids club differentiate the clubmed from other, so this part denibetely migh be improved (my kids never asked my to bring them back or wait New day in the club, so we even skip few days).
   I would like to Experience winter clubmed, so i would have the full understanding whether it fits for my family or not.

The flying trapeze is very fun for first timer like me! Thanks to the team who made it happen for me and my family! Kudos to all of them
Adib
Chloe
Jamal
Kimmy
Alicia
Film
Jeremy

3rd Club Med (CM), & 2nd with family. First up, Phuket already suffers a disadvantage compared with some other CMs cos they don't have their own beach. While Kata beach was just across the street & visible from the pool area, you'll need to deal with the vendors at the beach for any beach activities.

Perhaps being surf season & mid-year holidays, the resort was relatively crowded. There was a lot of 'competition' for ball courts. So if you want to play racquet sports, you will need to be prepared for this. This also meant that there were many kids at the Mini Club, which could mean that there's less tries for activities that have smaller capacity as more kids will be taking turns (eg. trapeze, wall climbing). For those with kids who prefer more personal attention over making friends with other kids, you may wish to take note as more kids also means a bigger GO-to-child ratio.

In previous CMs, we experienced a very friendly & personal service. Sad to say, the GOs here were not as warm. Unlike other CMs, not many GOs really chat with you, & there didn't seem to be a culture of the GOs coming to ask to join you for meals like other CMs. It felt more like a Phuket resort more than a CM resort.

Food was not bad, but couldn't compare with the previous CM we've been to. It's the skill, not the ingredients, because we've had good meals at other food establishments in Phuket. CM in general serves better Western than Asian food, but again, the Western dishes here did not seem as good as I remembered from other CMs. My kid, though, really enjoyed the locally-source fish nuggets.

The 'selling point' of CM Phuket is its Family Oasis water park, which is essentially a water play park with slides & other water features for kids to enjoy. My kids pretty much played this & in the pool. It's also worth noting that CM Phuket is not the only resort in Phuket with its own water park.

Special shoutout to Manow & Edmund for keeping the 'Cherating warmth' alive (meeting Manow was a pleasant surprise given she only transferred over 2 months ago), & also to Alice & Julia whom Manow introduced us to. Also to bartenders Sure & Benz. It's a 5-rating only because of you all, otherwise I would only give 3 (average).