Koh Chang Kacha mouse sized rooms

You won’t get the true picture from agoda’s or the Koh Chang Kacha 
web site of the Koh Chang Kacha mouse sized rooms.

Click on the picture above to get the video

You expect having to rough it exploring Tikal's pyramids, but when web sites misrepresent the size of their rooms it's time to call foul. 

When I stayed at Koh Chang Kacha, this second time around, I kept thinking about tourist traps.  But what exactly is a tourist trap? I believe its very definition implies that the tourist is being caught unawares, and that he has just been placed in a situation that he did not anticipate due to his being mislead on one level or another. Perhaps it’s his own fault because he failed to adequately research what he’s getting himself into.  Now, I’m not going to call the Koh Chang Kacha Resort a tourist trap. I’m going to let you make this decision yourself from the facts I’m about to give you. First–check out the video. Then decide whether or not this very small room, which is listed at a bare 22 square meters is acceptable or not.  If you wind up determining it’s deplorably small, the next step is to ask yourself whether or not it’s been falsely advertised—that is, based upon two web sites, the first at agoda.com, the second Koh Chang Kacha’s own web site whether or not you feel that you have been duped into thinking you are getting something better than you are actually getting.

One's expectations are different while tromping around in Guatemala's jungles after getting up early to explore the pyramids compared to relaxing on Thailand's White Sands Beach

Background

Four years ago, two of my friends and I booked three rooms at Koh Chang Kacha. The rooms were spacious and they were located just forty meters or so from the beach. I remembered back then that Koh Chang Kacha only offered rooms on the beach side of the main road that traverses the island, which meant that the hotel’s guests had easy access to White Sands beach without having to dodge traffic while crossing the main road.  The price I paid several years ago was roughly the same as I was about to spend in 2012–about 2100 baht. So when I booked the Standard Spa room through the agoda.com’s web site, I expected to get a room that was similar to what I had gotten before. I remembered some of the bungalows were set back further than the ones we had gotten next to the beach and that there were other rooms that were located four or five rows behind ours, which were no doubt lower priced than what we had paid back then. So I expected that the standard spa room I had booked in 2012 might be located a little further from the beach than where we had stayed  back in 2007.

What I did not expect getting was a room that was located on the wrong side of the road from what I had remembered simply because such a room had never existed back in 2007. Moreover, nothing on the Koh Chang Kacha section of the agoda.com web site had prepared me for this. Check this one out for yourselves to see if I’m missing something here.


There’s the descriptions of various pictures such as hill side lobby,  deluxe sea view building or hill side lobby, etc. Perhaps I’m an idiot but the way I see this is one side faces the sea, the other the ocean. There is nothing I can glean there that states there are actually two buildings or three or whatever, or that there is an entirely new large building that was constructed around two years ago. Or that this new building was set off from the rest of the resort by the main road.

Next...check out the Koh Chang Kacha’s rates. On 5/24/2012 I once again checked the rates. The lowest priced rooms are the “Standard Rooms” and the “Standard Spa Rooms”. Both are listed at $46.00. Keep in mind, however, that this was for late May, 2012, and it’s low season now so the prices have dropped significantly from my actual visit in mid April, 2012. Considering the prices are the same wouldn’t you think the actual accommodations are similar to each other? In fact, wouldn’t you think that perhaps the standard spa room setup was superior to the (plain old) Standard room? Doesn’t the word spa imply that there is a spa inside the room or on its balcony? Or at least next door to the room? After all, while staying in Hanoi for a mere $45.00 a night we got a Jacuzzi equipped bathroom as well as an Internet ready computer in our room.

Perhaps I’m crazy, but from what I am reading here, if anything the standard spa room should actually be superior to the standard room.  But it is far worse which you will find out when you  click  on “room info” for the standard room and find  this room measures 38 square meters versus a bare 22 square meters  when you click on the “room info” for the standard spa room.