tl;dr Huge kids club with supervision. Wonderful pools and small water Park. Good service. Long version: We enjoyed our stay at the Sands with a baby and a toddler on the "splash" and noisy side of the hotel. That side includes the small water Park, the big kids club, a restaurant with Pad Thai, pizza and stuff the kids can eat, with fairly reasonable prices but it closes at 18. The quiet side has a more prestigious restaurant, beach access and two pools: one for adults only and one for all. It has a lake with big fish with twice a day feeding time so little ones can help feed. The beach is about 5-10 minutes walking from the "splash" side. Breakfast buffet is also separated for families and adults by 2 different restaurants. We used the babysitting service for our baby. Someone from housekeeping came to the kids club (as per our request) and wonderfully played with our baby, while our toddler was fascinated by the vast variety of toys and entertained himself. The kids club staff is not interactive with the children (other than planned creative activities) and mostly watches the safety of the children. Parental presence is welcome. The hotel provides free water bottles and beach towels to your room. The baby got a wooden baby bed and our toddler used the extra bed/sofa which could be conveniently turned around so the back of the sofa became bed safety rails.

tl;dr Pristine beach is not private and without security control. Better priced restaurants and massages on the main road. Long version: For breakfast all are seated outside, no air conditioning. The hotel has a mobile app where you can order room service and receive warnings of jellyfish but unfortunately it didn't have the weekly evening magic show for kids and the advertisement appeared on the quiet side of the hotel, which we didn't attend regularly. The bathtub wasn't clean when we first entered the room but the room service came in briefly and cleaned. Outside the hotel, on the main road, a good selection of cheaper restaurants and massages.

It was spotlessly clean, staff were exceptionally helpful and the breakfast was excellent! Massages were very very good!

There wasn’t anything to dislike

The property is large spacious and the location is unbeatable. Short walks to dozens of wonderful and cheap restaurants, cafes, 7/11, shopping and massages. The amount of towels provided in the room each day. The pool access rooms. The food drinks and views. I love the Roti van that appears every afternoon. And I love talay rest by the beach for beautiful views.

I didn’t like the people who would bag all the sun loungers before breakfast and not appear for hours. This isn’t policed. The crowds at breakfast were too busy after 8am so go early and it’s a dream! The earlier the better! The coffee on offer is probably the worst thing about this 10/10 place. Only machine quality on offer no barista made coffee. And only Instant and powdered crema in room with kettle.

The size and scale is great. The location was very pretty too with lots of shops and restaurants within walking distance. The variety of pools means you can move around and have different types of experiences. The breakfast buffet was fresh and tasty and we enjoyed a couple of evening buffets too. The housekeeping staff are friendly and helpful. We also enjoyed watching the monitor lizards walk and swim around the lake.

Having been here 6 years ago, nothing much has changed. The vast menu of drinks rely heavily on sugar syrup and the lunch menus are uninspiring and ALL served with fries. The AC in the gym was not working for 80% of our visit and the equipment was as out dated. The humidity in the pool access was uncomfortable and could be easily helped with the installation of dehumidifiers. I’m also sorry to say that some staff we encountered were rude and unsmiling. There is a lack of drinking water fountains around the location (this is standard all around the world nowadays).

The Sands is a beautiful resort in a wonderful setting. It offers great facilities with several lovely pools and a waterpark for the kids. There is a gym, daily activities, a tennis court and a spa ( with great massages near the beach at a reasonable cost). There are several bars, (some swim up) and three great restaurants. The food was great, abundant and varied - wonderful breakfast. The rooms were spacious and well-appointed, clean with good amenities. The resort is located close to the local town with varied shops and restaurants and nearby markets. Convenient location for participating in in tours of locak surrounds.

Please provide a few more indoor games for wet days.

Nice facilities, good for kids. Counter and travel desk staff friendly and helpful. Good food quality and dining room service through the app.

Despite being a kids friendly place, extremely restrictive times for slides and water park, allowing their use only few hours a day, lifeguards they don’t understand kids with special needs, I believe they need to be trained to be more patient and friendly. (Specifically the one with the brown mask, extremely rude even with parents who at the end we are the customers), this really made me discard this place for future family visits. Another down point because of the pool bars, who serve really low quality cocktails and mocktails in a place full of fresh new flavors.

This was a perfect stay for our young family of 4. The check in process was smooth and easy, bags carted to our rooms and the app on the phone gives you all the details about the property including room service. We loved the buffet breakfasts, the waterslides, the aqua zone, the beach and all the restaurants. I loved that the in house room service dishes and prices are similar to dining out in one of the resort’s many restaurants. Pool towels were constantly replaced without needing to call for more and there’s complimentary water that is constantly replenished by calling for more water. The resort has a laundry room operated by coins which made it easy to wash and there’s a mini mart on site with access to beer, water, snacks etc. We had a pool access family room which had two TVs, a separate sleeping area for the kids and direct access to the pool which was so handy. The staff were super friendly and everything was easy and relaxed. The walk to the main road is easy and there are plenty of restaurants and bars if you need a change of scenery. I preferred the beach massage to the spa massage (and it was a lot cheaper too). Kids club is okay but the kids would much prefer the waterslides. Great great family resort!

Nothing. It was perfect.

As a family with 2 young children, 3 and 4 year old The Sands was perfect and couldn’t have been better. We booked a family swim up/pool room which was a very generous size and had a beautiful bathroom including free standing bath. The resorts staff were excellent and very accomodating and the kids club was a hit with our little ones. As one of our girls is under the age of 4 we had to stay, however we still had some much needed hands free time with so many activities to keep them occupied. The pool and options of pools AMAZING. There is also beach access and the buffet breakfast great with so many choices. There were 2 separate locations for breakfast: 1 smaller quieter one which my niece’s preferred, and one larger busier (The Floating Market) which we preferred.. There were always plenty of staff on for breakfast and service was well run by I’m assuming the floor manager and plates cleared as well as high chairs offered as soon as seated. Small float vests for little ones was also available for the pool and slides. The Main Street is also in walking distance and a very short tuk tuk trip to close by Bang Niang night markets. We stayed for 9 nights and this was perfect! We thoroughly enjoyed our stay! Thank you

There wasn’t necessarily anything we didn’t enjoy. A couple of points in regards to the rooms for family swim up would be a plus to have for parents peace of mind: a deadlock on the main door as my little ones were able to open this easily as the existing lock slides open as soon as you turn the handle. Also a small lock on the top of the sliding door to the pool (unreachable to little ones) would be also amazing. I If you are hoping to change your country currency, make sure your notes are clean and unmarked.

The hotel is a large resort but still there was plenty of space around to not feel too crowded. The fact that the kids pool area was a separate pool area made a huge (positive) impact. And having a pool area for adults only was great. The beach is only a few steps away and the shops and restaurants a short walk from the hotel. One could also use the hotel's own taxi service to get into town for a small expense. The rooms were large and nicely decorated. The bed was supercomfy.

It was peak season so during meals (breakfast & lunch) the restaurants were pretty crowded but we managed to find a spot every day.

We had a great stay with our daughter (2y) in this family friendly hotel and would recommend it to everyone travelling with young children. - Friendly staff - Multiple swimming pools (1 adult only, 1 with a lot of waterfun, 1 close to the beach) - Well-equipped gym (don't expect high-end materials, but there is enough for a proper workout) - Great kids club (also possibility to request babysitting services at a reasonable price) - Large breakfast buffet that offered a wide variety of foods (Thai, Western, children's buffet, ...). They have enough high chairs and plastic tableware for the little ones. - Direct access to the beach - Close to the main street where you can find diverse restaurants, bars, massage salons, etc. Note that the Bang Niang night market is located 5 minutes (by car) from the hotel. The Bang Niang area is also busier. Nang Thong area felt more child-proof (except for the streets, strolling with a buggy can be challenging - but that seems to be the situation in more Thai locations) - Lunch at Talay restaurant was good.

- Food in the restaurants is more expensive compared to local restaurants around the corner - The room was sometimes a bit humid and tv had some issues (we did not really need it so not a real problem for us) - They play quite loud music at the children's/family pool, which is not needed (in my opinion) as there are a lot of children and water activities that make noise already. Or play some chilled music instead