9 Hornbills Tented Camp

Booked several months ahead. Communication ok for arrangement of transfers. Boat drops you off at the beach of the hotel. Better be young and fit. For us (70y old) it was "challenging". Tent: getting old and sometimes at places a little dirty. Let's give it the eco-charm advantage. Outside shower and reasonably good bedding. Hard pillows. View: fantastic A buggy drives you up and down to the Koyao beach resort for the beach, the restaurant and the main pool. (Koyao and Hornbills are the same hotel) Nice beach, nice restaurant and service with a smile. Communication problems are easily overcome. Front desk is eager to please. Why 3 stars? This is not a 5star but a 4star hotel, too many luxury elements are missing. But mainly because next to the tents there is a major construction site planting a big concrete hotel into the hill. This construction represents everything that can destroy the authentic and laid-back atmosphere of Koh Yao Noi. This construction works certainly destroyed our peace and enjoyment of the otherwise beautiful setting. The construction is not about to end or finish, so beware of this (particularly if you end up in one of the southernmost tents). The price is steep and even steeper in high season this year. But this is the case all over Thailand. Is this overpricing killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?

Very good hospitality very good service room was good very scenic location would recommend for sure anyone visiting this island very good food really Like the look of the hotel also close to the beach and very fun lots of stuff to do very nice resort

We thoroughly enjoyed our 5 nights at 9 Hornbills: what a great time and what a beautiful place. The room / tent is spacious, beautiful, and had all the facilities and luxury we would need. The outside shower was really nice. The private pool was wonderful and had a proper large size I would say. Breakfast in the pool: can surely recommend to try out too. The plot offers a lot of privacy (almost full/perfect privacy), and a magnificent view over the sea: wow! the sunrise is just amazing from the garden, or from your bed ;) The restaurant down at Yoa Noi beach resort was really nice and the food was high quality: we enjoyed every meal there, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Service is very friendly and helpful. And restaurant prices very affordable. And there's always a buggy with driver available to take you up to your tent/villa, or down to the restaurant, spa or beach. The main pool and beach were enjoyable too. And the spa was very nice also. We loved the friendly, sweet staff that was so nice, helpful and accommodating. We felt like we were in and around nature at all times, with that beautiful view of the islands in the sea, this was just a perfect place to celebrate part of our honeymoon. Highly recommended!

We had 4 nights in the main Koyao Island Resort, then moved up to 9 Hornbills for 3 nights, which worked really well for us. Contact during our booking process was excellent and the front desk were particularly helpful, arranging our transfer to the next hotel with no fuss (when the hotel we were moving to were less than helpful). The views we'd enjoyed down in the resort just got better up the hill at 9 Hornbills and the pool, privacy and sense of space was exceptional. The tent was huge, light and bright and the private pool was bigger than average. There was an outdoor shower and a roll-top bath with shower attachment inside the tent bathroom area. Aircon did the job. It was cool enough in the morning, evening and through the night when you need it. It did get hot in the tent during the day, but this wasn't an issue as we were outside all day and you could just cool off in the pool. You are certainly away from it all up here, but that's literally the whole point. We walked to the main resort for breakkie or when going out for dinner (12 mins easy stroll downhill) and got the golf buggy back up. Jaw-dropping sunrises from our bed or the pool and one evening, we watched the most dramatic storm from our covered deck, seeing the clouds roll in to obscure the karsts completely for a time, before the rain thrashed down around us. We sat out under cover, drinking our Singhas and taking in the thunder and lightning show - it was amazing to watch from up a height. The main resort was peaceful, beautiful and clean, with one restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner and a spa, where I had really excellent oil massages (inc air con and a big comfy bed with a hole for your face to allow the brilliant therapist to work her magic on tight shoulders). The staff were all friendly and helpful, remembering our preferences and talking with us each day. If ever anyone didn't understand a question, they would quickly go and get a staff member who did, always with a smile. We had dinner at the main resort twice, both very good Thai meals and plenty of choice on the menu. The rest of the time, we ate in local places. There's a small bar/bottle shop 5 mins walk if you turn right outside the main resort, serving very cold beer in coolers, where we sat and watched the locals come and go before dinner. It's just before a small supermarket (Chans) which sold all the essentials and ran a very popular scooter hire. P'Chans restaurant wasn't open while we were there (but still shows on google maps). There are more places to eat and drink 10-15 mins walk if you turn left outside the main resort (or you can walk along the beachfront, in which case turn right from the resort). The hotel would happily take you to any of these in the golf buggy, but we prefer a wee walk. We never had a bad meal and enjoyed Parabar (boat shaped place - massive portions, great curries), Chubba cafe (for an arty, hippy lunch or coffee and cake or a shake), By the Sea