In-room safe, individually decorated, free WiFi, bed sheets

Reviews of Ban's Diving Resort

3 out of 5
Ban's Diving Resort
3/1 Moo 1, Haad Sairee, Koh Tao, Surat Thani

Reviews

7.8

Good

Rating 10 - Excellent. 80 out of 309 reviews" "
Rating 8 - Good. 136 out of 309 reviews" "
Rating 6 - Okay. 57 out of 309 reviews" "
Rating 4 - Poor. 24 out of 309 reviews" "
Rating 2 - Terrible. 12 out of 309 reviews" "

8.0/10

Cleanliness

7.4/10

Staff & service

8.8/10

Amenities

7.8/10

Property conditions & facilities

9.0/10

Eco-friendliness

Reviews

10/10 Excellent

Matthew

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
I went for a long weekend and ended up staying a month.

10/10 Excellent

Jameel

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Amazing room and staff. Throughly enjoyed my stay and would highly recommended to anyone looking to stay in koh Tao
Stayed 1 night in Feb 2024

8/10 Good

Matthew

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities
Excellent value. Centrally located on the main area of the island, Sairee Beach
Stayed 5 nights in Feb 2024

10/10 Excellent

Tyrone

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Lovely place and a lovely team of people looking after the place. Thoroughly enjoyed breakfasts and it being right next to fishbowl was highly convenient
Stayed 6 nights in Feb 2024

8/10 Good

Keith

Stayed 7 nights in Feb 2024

10/10 Excellent

Marie

Travelled with family
Lovely place, great diving team, restaurant is good, bar/beach on site
Stayed 2 nights in Jan 2024

8/10 Good

Amy

Stayed 3 nights in Jan 2024

2/10 Terrible

Michael

Stayed 4 nights in Dec 2023

10/10 Excellent

Brent

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Stayed 4 nights in Dec 2023

10/10 Excellent

Sjoerd

Stayed 7 nights in Dec 2023

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
My experience with Ban's diving resort was great. I lived in the jungle house so it was a bit of a walk to get out of the hotel but everything was great.
Stayed 4 nights in Dec 2023

10/10 Excellent

karen

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Band diving resort is an amazing property with great service and facilities and awesome dive shop. The resort is enormous and some areas are so far away you need to get golf carts to get around. They basically have people driving these carts back and forth picking up and dropping off people. Like I had booked the jungle house room.. one cannot just walk there you need to request transport. I stayed in the building overlooking pool 3 right under where the gym is. These rooms can be a bit noisy with the meatheads dropping weights. It was very quiet and pleasant once the gym closed. I really enjoyed my stay there. AmazIng property
Stayed 7 nights in Sep 2023

8/10 Good

Shona

Travelled with family
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Really Nice hotel, clean rooms with fabulous rooms and decent breakfast. Only downside was bad smell from showers after use. Very steep walk to some of the rooms and the resort is huge and not very well labeled with directions to rooms!
Stayed 3 nights in Aug 2023

10/10 Excellent

Kyle

Travelled with group
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Couldn’t be more impressed. Clean property with fantastic, friendly staff. Also has a beachside restaurant which serves awesome food and turns into a great beach club at night. 10/10 would recommend. We stayed for the open water scuba diving course which was world class.
Stayed 4 nights in Jan 2023

10/10 Excellent

Jodi

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Stayed 3 nights in Jun 2022

8/10 Good

Amy, UK

Travelled with partner
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Me and my boyfriend stayed here for 3 nights. We had a fabulous time. The pools are gorgeous. We stayed in the jungle house so was quite far from the main hotel. However, the staff were very accommodating. They gave us a number to text through WhatsApp anytime we wanted to go to the main hotel or to the beach and someone would come and pick us up by golf buggy. I thought this was a fabulous touch. Staff can’t do enough for you. However the rooms are a little dated but the stunning infinity pools made up for it.
Stayed 3 nights in Feb 2020

8/10 Good

Beatrice, San Francisco California USA

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
View was great. Except the roof in front of me blocked a good portion of the view. But was lovely. A lot of stairs to climb. No warning of this, and no lifts. I injured my leg on this trip and it was difficult to get up and down to my room on crutches. The instructor and dive master were great pat and peter. They were awesome. at was able to get me crutches and I really appreciated that. Overall a great time and stay
Stayed 7 nights in Feb 2020

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Travelled with family, Travelled with partner, Travelled with group
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Best diving resort on the island HANDS DOWN. They also have five pools that you and your family can hang around. Their restaurant also serves up great food. 10/10 experience for me. No complaints at all!
Stayed 4 nights in Nov 2019
Response from Sao on 4 Dec 2019
Thank you for choosing Ban’s Diving Resort for your stay on Koh Tao. We appreciate your feedback and review. We look forward to again showing you our hospitality again should you you return to Thailand.

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Liked: Staff & service
Disliked: Room comfort
Good Location, but wouldn’t book again.
Good location, interesting layout though pools are quite a hike if you aren’t by the main road. Felt a little like a machine in terms of how it was run, not so personalized compared to other stays here in koh Tao. Not happy with room left early. Felt like a dark dorm room. A/C wasn’t great and WiFi kept quitting on me for my work. Accommodating to cancel my second night which I am thankful for.
Stayed 1 night in Nov 2019
Response from Sao on 4 Dec 2019
. We appreciate your feedback and review. Sorry that (insert problem) but we are delighted that you gave us the opportunity to remedy the situation by (insert solution here).

10/10 Excellent

Carolyn

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Ban's is great
Very happy with my stay at Ban's. The room was very nice and clean. A/C works great and shower temp/pressure was always good. Staff is helpful and friendly organizing excursions and transportation. Grant and Claudia were very nice! We ate almost every meal at the resort which has a great menu and the food is fresh. I also apppreciate their attempts to be eco-friendly (reusable straws, minimize plastic use). The only small complaint I have is the bed was too hard and I often woke up sore. But that seems to be the norm around Thailand.
Stayed 3 nights in Jun 2019

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Stayed 3 nights in Feb 2019

2/10 Terrible

Verified traveller

Disliked: Staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Deception
Very deceptively advertised. It only has a restaurant on the beach area and the hotel itself has no beach and no chairs and nothing by the beach. If you book the regular rooms, you are about 20 mins walking to the reception area and it is a completely different hotel. Pools are always occupied with diving instructions. I wouldn't recommend staying here for the hotel and it's awful amenities.
Stayed 1 night in Feb 2019
Response from S on 3 May 2019
Hello, sorry to see you trolling us here too. No deception at all is there? We're where we say we are; on the beach and extending back from the beach - just like every other resort. Just as you can view on any map. We have a restaurant, Diveshop, and bar on the beach, together with seating and tables when the tide allows. There's no part of the resort which is 20 minutes from the reception. There is only 1 hotel. No idea what you're talking about, or where you actually stayed, as it doesn't seem to be with us. Any readers, please disregard this review - this person has been trolling us on a number of sites - and check out where we are etc. for yourself. Thank you.

4/10 Poor

Verified traveller

Liked: Property conditions & facilities
Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, room comfort
looks good but services BAD
The correspondence of the hotel staff was bad from the time of check-in. The room given at the time of check-in was mountain side but the air conditioner seems to be broken and it was not cool at all. When asking for correspondence, there is no correspondence for more than 1H The worst was the breakfast restaurant. Not only do not only come to listen to orders at all, or touch it from time to time to respond to it. Sometimes I have forgotten to clean the room, and I had to call from here to come to the cleaning.
Stayed 4 nights in Dec 2018

4/10 Poor

Verified traveller

Stayed 5 nights in Dec 2018

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
AMAZING RESORT! You HAVE to stay here if you are in Koh Tao. Our favourite resort in all of Thailand!
Stayed 4 nights in Nov 2018

6/10 Okay

Miguel, Chile

Liked: Cleanliness
Very far away of the beach over a hill forced to walk up and down more than 50 meters three times per day and with the lugagges is creasy.
Stayed 3 nights in Oct 2018

4/10 Poor

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities
Disliked: Staff & service, room comfort
Too big to care
The overall feeling is that they control the island (diving, shops, bars, supermarket etc..) and they just don't care about you anymore since they don't need you. The manager has a grampy face and even when I came to recommend on a diving instructor that we dove with, she didn't care. This is also the FIRST PLACE IN THE WORLD I got refused to know where I'm going to dive. No one was willing to tell me where it's planned to go, and what happened is that they toke us to a place that only after 18m you can see something, and I can dive only up to 18m!!! In the reception they told us "on the boat they decide, talk to them", on the boat they said "the reception decides don't blame us talk to them". Very bad experience! The diving instructors are great, but they are contractors and not related to the hotel. Last thing, I made sure 3 months ahead that the room is NOT uphill (since I read reviews), and I booked the garden view for that. Upon arrival it seems that on the bottom there is only 2 beds and not single bed. EVEN THAT I CHECKED BEFORE! We spent the entire time climbing the hill to our room.
Stayed 5 nights in Sep 2018

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 18 nights in Jul 2018

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Learning to dive
Great place to stay and learn to dive.

4/10 Poor

LUZ

I booked a room with a specificcprice. When we were at the hotel they gave is a room in a far away building To stay close to the beach ee had to pay 15 dollars more a day.

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Decent hotel, very busy, great location
Great location, decent accommodations, free breakfast. Bed was super hard! We asked for more pillows, which helped, but still could be more comfy. Beach very close. Lots of shops and restaurants. Showers were a bit strange to us as there is no separation from the toilet. Not a deal breaker, just different. There are 3 pools. One was said to be set aside for scuba classes. However, when we went to use the other pools, there were scuba classes going on in those as well. It was a little awkward and we ended up just wading in the hot tub. Overall a great stay, but it is a 3 Star hotel. Don't expect it to be fancy.
Stayed 4 nights in Feb 2018

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Depending which room you booked, you might be staying at the top of the mountain, they have golf cart to bring you there. Usually it's always available, but sometimes around 9 pm, the service stops, and i had to walk back but the place is a maze, it was a mission to get back after dinner to our room. Some of the staffs are not very friendly when you ask them if you can get a golf cart ride.
Stayed 3 nights in Feb 2018

6/10 Okay

SY, Malaysia

Disliked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities
Room is not the same as shown in Photos
Bit disappointed as the room given is not what have been shown in the [photos. The room is bit run down and need renovation.
Stayed 2 nights in Dec 2017

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, room comfort
Stayed a week.
Loud music from the bar/dining area blared until 2;00 am. It’s located in a very congested part of town. Hotel is all about their diving program and offers little else. Would not go back.
Stayed 6 nights in Dec 2017

8/10 Good

sam, Singapore

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
pleasant stay
stayed here 3 nights in Hill view room. a strenoous climb to the room but golf cart made it comfortable. fishbowl bar was the best place in the evening. spent all tree evenings listening to the live band and lovely music.

8/10 Good

Steven

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
The bungalow was very nice and a good value. Nice view and patio. Very private. However it was a long walk up the hill. This might be ok for some or if you have a motor bike. I moved to a different place at the bottom of the hill after 3 days. No traffic noise at all, no dogs barking or chickens crowing.
Stayed 3 nights in Oct 2017

8/10 Good

Tish, New Zealand

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Great stay, perfect for diving, affordable, helpful staff, great location
Stayed 2 nights in Sep 2017

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 4 nights in Aug 2017

10/10 Excellent

IVAN

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 4 nights in Jul 2017

10/10 Excellent

Jonny

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Must visit!
We had The best time here with great service from the boat to the boat. When we arrived we got picked up, and great service everyone we met. A little struggle with English some of them but they smile so it's okay! They Are happy so we are happy! Great help with diving her at Bans resort, so Nice people that works here, and you get some discount for staying at the resort. Beautiful place, the best food on the strip and a must visit place!
Stayed 3 nights in Jul 2017

6/10 Okay

Agnes, Toronto, Canada

Liked: Cleanliness
Disliked: Staff & service, room comfort
Terrible sleeping conditions, amazing instructors
Stayed with my 13 year old in the second building away from the restaurant, in room 72 for 5 nights. We got almost no sleep due to the nightly live entertainment and parting that takes place every evening from 10pm to 2am. Even with the earplugs in we still heared the music! Additionally, the windows in the bedrooms are not soundproof and the washroom window is made of wood and always stays open. Wanted to change the room 4 days in the row, however I was told there was no room available in my price range (?) only one room available on the top of the hill. Went to check the room and found that was located in a very far distance from the main complex and all the way up the hill. By choice we did not take it. Diving with Andrew and Patrick was exceptional!!! Andrew is a very knowledgeable and fun fella. There were 6 people in our group and as such we received enough attention. When I come back next year to continue my diving courses, I will definately request Andrew, however I will look for accomodations someplace else. Furthermore, the restaurant's staff is very rude and uninterested in serving clients i.e. when you make an eye contact with them in order to get their attention they look away and way away . So, go only if you REALLY have to. In summary, as many reviewers have already pointed out this place is excellent for learning to divie only and nothing else. The course we took was called Open Water Diver and it took 4 days to complete. The meet times are at 7am.
Stayed 6 nights in Jul 2017

8/10 Good

Gerhard

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Great stay at Ban's
Ban's Dive resort is a central location at Sairee beach, however depending where the room is it might be long hill climb around 600m. Service was ok and the food quality is good. We had some good few days spend in the resort. They have large dive operation, which is good and bad. It feels like a dive factory, however service, rental material is good. As well as the service from the dive masters provide. Overall we had a great experience in the resort, however next time I would go for a smaller resort and smaller diver center.,
Stayed 5 nights in Jun 2017

10/10 Excellent

Dominic

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
nice and friendly
We had a nice place in the jungle (in the backpart of the resort). little bungalo with shower/parkinglots for rental bikes and a big livingroom with 2 beds. Very fast and friendly checkin. we had a great stay!
Stayed 2 nights in May 2017

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
The room was far from the bans resort-location but the staff wasn't helpful with helping me getting to the room and back. The staff was really rude when I told them about the problem. If they were more helpfull and ready to explain me the way, this problem was really minor.
Stayed 3 nights in May 2017

8/10 Good

Michael

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Great place
Amazing. For this price you will not be disappointed. Great location, big clean rooms and a nice pool. If there was anything to critique it would be the distance to the Jungle House rooms. They have a golf cart to take people to and from but there is often nobody there to drive it. It's about a 5-10 minute walk to the beach from the Jungle House rooms.

10/10 Excellent

Dvir

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
The staff were exceptionally friendly and helpful. On arrival because we couldn't book what we wanted they upgraded us. Would recommend to anybody.

2/10 Terrible

amy

Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities
Disliked: Staff & service, room comfort
DO NOT BOOK JUNGLE HOUSE
Got a free shuttle from the port which was very handy and saved a 25 minute walk in the heat and 300 baht taxi fair (ripoffs on the island this journey is 4 mins by car) Checking in is chaotic it seems there are a very busy hotel that do bit of everything and we was not told anything about where the pool was or anything like that, we booked the jungle house which in brackets said (furthest from the beach) by this we assume it was the when at the top or the end of the resort, but it was actually infact across the road then a 15 minute walk past other hotels and a village of sorts, which was also had hills, there was a cart that would take you there in the day, but not walking back down to the beach nor past dark so you have to walk in the dark and it was hard to find where to go and we got lost, also on checkout we was waiting downstairs with our luggage because there was noway we was going to be walking down the hill and the 15 minute walk with luggage and bags, I had to ring them and someone came up and got us, there was no phone in the room I would only reccomend this is you don't mind being near anything, (have scooter for a few day but even then for the money there is places on the beach) no communication or help atall the room was okay nothing to complain about it was fairly new I assume

2/10 Terrible

Verified traveller

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Wouldnt recommend to anyone!!!!!
The hotel staff are extremely rude. When confronting them about the fact they stuffed up our island transfer they just laughed at us. Didnt compensate us for the next transfer (which was cheaper) until we asked for it (basically was going to pocket our money). When we advised them we had just lost money from not getting to our next island on time due to there stuff up they had no remorse and did not compensate us in anyway. Didnt even offer for us to stay in our room as we had to wait another 14 hours for our next transfer and it was basically a storm on the island that day. Our room wasnt serviced for over 2 days therefore dirty towels and sheets for majority of the stay. No handsoap was supplied in the bathroom. No complimentary water for 2 days. No telephone in the room to be able to contact reception when we had a giant spider the size of my hand in our room - had to walk to 1.5km to reception to ask them to have someone remove it. All in all the worst hotel experience i had whilst i was in Thailand for 2.5 weeks. Wouldnt recommend this hotel to anyone!!!

2/10 Terrible

Verified traveller

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Worst hotel staff
Room was not serviced daily, no fresh towels or water. Door could not completly close so had every bug and spider in our room. Had arranged for transfer to Phi Phi island with reception staff who forgot to organise our 5.20am pick up which resulted in us missing our ferry and accommodation in Phi Phi, when confronting the staff about this they just laughed at us. I would not recommend this hotel to anyone and I would like a full refund for this hotel!