The hotel grounds, facilities and rooms are all superb, with the best pool I've ever had the pleasure of using in a hotel. Rooms are also excellent, spacious, very tastefully designed and full of nice touches like classy dressing gowns, sarongs and a beach kit-bag, and very comfortable beds. The expansive and well tended hotel grounds included some small rice paddies and other crops and livestock which are fun to explore, especially with small children.
Service was also excellent, with every member of staff we dealt with friendly, polite and very helpful. I got the sense that they were perhaps a bit understaffed, but not ridiculously so.
The island of Koh Yao Yai is large but very undeveloped, and we had a fascinating tour around the island arranged by the hotel which included a delicious local lunch, a demonstration of how one of the island's main crops - rubber - is farmed and processed, a small jungle trek, a visit to a lobster and fish farm and plenty more exploration of the island and its various villages and industries.
The beach in front of the hotel is pretty far from the best Thailand has to offer though. The view from the hotel and the pool is absolutely stunning - but get down to beach level and it's pretty messy, muddy and rocky. This didn't bother us too much as we were happy to use the hotel's pool and sun-loungers - but those who like to sunbathe on a pristine tropical beach will be sorely disappointed.
The biggest letdown with the hotel was the food though. We looked at the menu on the first evening and saw a list of all the usual Thai fair: phad Thai, chicken green curry, etc. - but hardly any seafood, which was slightly odd given our position on a tropical Thai island! We explained our disappointment at the lack of seafood to the waitress, and arranged for the staff to go to the local pier to get fresh seafood from the fishing boats for us each day, which was excellent, beautifully fresh and cooked very well. But if we hadn't made this special arrangement we would never have known about this option and would have been stuck with chicken, beef, etc. every day - which is, presumably, what most of the other guests would have had. So why not advertise this 'catch of the day' thing to all customers? I can't imagine we were the only people who had longings for freshly caught seafood as we arrived on our beach holiday in Thailand.
Another example, breakfast was pretty good, but only had instant coffee, not really acceptable in a 4 star resort in my opinion. I think the worst thing of all was "fresh fruit shakes" being served with cartoned fruit juice! There were coconuts growing of dozens of trees throughout the resort, yet a coconut shake we ordered (which cost 120 Baht, by the way, about £2.40 and 50% more than the price of a small beer in the hotel) used canned coconut milk! Mango shakes used cartoned mango juice - we were right in mango season, fresh mangoes were served at breakfast, so this was also pretty poor form in a hotel of this standard.
So, food was a bit hit and miss but had touches of class here and there, such as the excellent seafood we arranged for.
Overall, the pool, hotel grounds, rooms and charming staff made this an enjoyable stay. We had some good meals - albeit with some effort needed, but things like the "fresh" fruit shakes and instant coffee do grate a bit. If they take a serious look at their restaurant and the food and drink which is served, this would become a great hotel.