Wow. I'm surprised that so many reviews from Tripadvisor seems to give Sita Resort such a high rating. I decided to stay there despite a nagging feeling that it wouldn't b as great as it was published to be, and I was right.
I arrived 14th Feb and stayed there 3 nights. We booked the Deluxe Seaview room, and the pictures seemed to look ok, however, it was worse than ok. The cheap setup in what was an exorbitant amount charged by Agoda ( USD 566 ) for 3X night's stay, welcomed us with broken windows by the bath tub, and the bathroom glass door was also cracked. Their remedy to that was to plaster it up instead of replacing the glass altogether. The ambient lights located at the foot of the bed was detached and loose and this was not fixed either, neither was the curtain rail that was also falling apart. When I called the reception to enquire if this was the Deluxe Double, the first attendant mentioned it was a Superior Room, and when I called again after locating some defects, the 2nd attendant mentioned it was Deluxe Double. Reception greeted us very coldly and was surly towards us after a few complaints about the room as I did request for a different room, but they said it was fully booked, although i had booked this room 3 months ahead ! .One particular ladyboy at the reception area gave alot of attitude, extremely rude facial expressions. Why won't the Management practice a "first come first served" policy or at least ensure safety standards for their guests? There was more than ample time for them to replace the broken glass door and windows way before they even allowed guests to stay. What a horrible welcome, which spoilt the mood for the entire stay, but we decided to put up with it.
Apart from all the cracked glass windows and doors, be prepared to experience a power trip at least 3X a day. The whole room blacks out once twice at night and once in the afternoon. This happened EVERYDAY during our stay, consistently. AND the air-conditioning drips. AND the bathroom smells like sewage every twice a day as well.
How in the world did Sita get such high rating from travelers? My only guess is the local staff paid extra attention to high tippers, and targeted alot of foreigners from European countries, hence the high ratings, or they were lucky to get better rooms ( newer ) during their stay.
The swimming pool was grossly green and changed color from time to time due. Breakfast was OK, but for a 4 star rated hotel, i expected much better. Food was cheaply organized, so don't expect high quality food products. Do expect lots of flies.
I didn't try the food at the restaurant apart from breakfast, so no comments there. There are plenty of eateries nearby ( its just a 5min walk to Walking Street ) which is the town centre for Koh Lipe.
Be prepared to have NO MANAGEMENT ON SITE, as throughout my entire stay, you never see a manager or higher level post of management anywhere to attend to your needs and queries.
Our check out was another nightmare as our boat leaves Koh Lipe at 10:30am local time. The reception told us to check out latest by 9am as we had to report to immigration at least 1 hour prior to departure, however we received a rude call at approximately 7;45am, telling us to hurry and the reception was sending someone over to pick up our bags there and then when we had originally planned to have everything ready and be down by 9am. Imagine if you had a late night and needed extra sleep! What inconsideration on the hotel's part. My partner asked them whats the hurry and the reception lady pretended she didn't understand, and hung up on us, TWICE!
Overall this hotel is really not worth your time if you want to experience the best Koh Lipe has to offer. It really soured our moods, and it was not pleasant staying indoors to enjoy the hotel room either ( as there was nothing to enjoy), even TV in the room was cloudy due to poor reception. This hotel will do very poorly in the future if the management does not step up to provide the facilities and service it so badly needs.
My advise is stay at Idyllic Concept ( i stayed there once in 2011) which offers way more value for money, and the experience of Koh Lipe was wonderful, especially for first timers. Whatever you do just forget about Sita. Expensive and nothing to show for it.
