Staying at Island Escape by Burasari

I did promise myself that I would still blog every few months. I guess that work and life just get in the way of that and it’s so easy to find other hobbies instead. However, I’m currently on sabbatical and inspiration just hit! So, may as well do some blogging. If you like to travel in Asia, feel free to check out my other blog posts. We decided to go to Thailand and stayed at Island Escape by Burasari for our first week here.

Why did inspiration hit? Daniel and I are staying at a SHA+ Hotel on Coconut Island, Phuket called Island Escape by Burasari. When I tried to look up the hotel online, I couldn’t find any blog posts about the hotel. I love to plan (that’s the understatement of the year), so I thought there must be others like me who love to plan and have tried to google blogs to get more information about the hotel but have failed just as I did. So, here is a blog post to help amend that problem!

Travelling to Thailand during its Reopening

First, how did we get here? There has been essentially no travel due to Covid. We did travel to Canada during the summer to see family and friends, but other than that we paused all of our travel plans as did the rest of the world. Since I am studying by distance this term and Danne can work from abroad, we decided that we would do some travelling as the world seems to be opening back up.

Spending some time in the pool that is closeby to the reception and restaurant

Our original plan was to live in Spain for a few months on a sailboat, but that got quickly crushed due to Covid driving up the prices a lot and not being able to find the boat that we wanted. So, we decided to travel to a country that was open to tourists and relatively easy to get to.

Enjoying the beach

We travelled to Thailand together in 2014, and we have both wanted to go back since. I love Thai food and I find that Thailand is just so easy to travel around. Plus nice people and lots of sunshine. What’s not to love? We found direct flights Stockholm-Phuket for a 3.5-week trip. Thailand is 6 hours ahead of Thailand so our mornings and early afternoons have been for enjoying and our late afternoons and evenings (and sometimes at all hours of the day if you’re Daniel) are for working/studying.

So many picturesque places to take pictures

We booked a week at a SHA+ hotel (basically, a hotel that has good cleaning standards as per Thailand’s reopening plan) since when we booked our tickets, a week was required for vaccinated travellers. However, as it got closer to our date of travel (we didn’t even buy our tickets that far in advance!) the rules for tourism changed and with the new Test and Go plan, we only needed to book one night.

I don’t think we’ve ever stayed in just one place for an entire week and just relaxed.

We decided to not change our booking because we never stay in resorts while travelling (hostels and Airbnbs are our usual methods). We thought that we may as well enjoy a luxurious stay before moving onto our Airbnb in Phuket for the rest of our trip. Now that we are leaving, I’m a bit sad that we won’t be staying in such a beautiful location for a loooong time. As I said, we never stay in resorts.

Views from the main pool that everyone can access regardless of which room you are staying in.

Travelling to Thailand was relatively easy. Since they changed to the Thailand Pass on November 1st, we (cough, cough, I) had some anxiety about whether or not we would receive our Thailand Pass on time. Daniel’s was automatically approved, but mine was not (even though I submitted both applications?). Oh well! It all ended up totally fine and flying over to Thailand was amazing since the plane was nearly empty (made me very worried for the flight company) and arrival at Phuket Airport was extremely organized and efficient.

The Hotel Experience

Arrival

To get to Island Escape by Burasari, we had to arrange a transfer via the hotel since you are technically in quarantine, so you can’t make any stops. We got picked up at the airport and dropped off at Laem Hin Pier. An employee from the hotel missed that we had arrived, so after calling the hotel, we were met very kindly by him and then a private boat transfer grabbed us and took us directly to the Island Escape by Burasari private dock. I loved that Island Escape by Burasari was located on Coconut Island. Such a cute island name! It rained during this entire time, so we were delighted when a little golf cart picked us. We were greeted with delicious private drinks and taken to our Deluxe Access Room.

 

I was definitely impressed with the room. I loved having access to one of the pools straight from our room. The Deluxe Access Room is very “Instagrammable”. When we first arrived, there were very few tourists at the resort. As the week went on, more tourists arrived. However, nothing like how I assume it was before Covid. I’m glad that Thailand has opened up and we can help support tourism here.

The Room and Breakfast

Island Escape by Burasari has other rooms as well, but we chose one for the best value. We like getting a good deal. Our Deluxe Access Room for two people was 650 SEK/92 CAD/73 USD per night.

We loved having direct access to a big pool. Since we were there when Thailand was still reopening, we were often totally alone in the pool. 

That price also included a delicious buffet breakfast offered between 7:30-10:30 every morning. The buffet selection was really good. It had a mix of both Western and Asian dishes. You could also order eggs such as omelettes and poached eggs. Delicious!  Three of the mornings had dragonfruit in their fruit selection and I LOVE DRAGONFRUIT (not to mention they costs an arm and a leg in Sweden), so I probably ate seven full dragonfruits during my stay. Nom nom nom, can’t wait to find more.

We did get upgraded our final night for a one-bedroom villa. It was also really nice in those as well and provided walk-in access to the other side of the pool (where the waterslides are).

This side of the pool is connected to the one- and two-bedroom villas. When we were there, only the one-bedroom villas around this pool were built and ready for guests. This side of the pool is accessible from the other side (where we initially were) by a 1-metre walkway to connect the two pools.

Services and Food

They have golf carts at Island Escape by Burasari that can come and collect you to take you from your room to “it’s everything”. Daniel and I only used them when it was heavily raining, which did happen a couple of times.

Golf cart waiting right in front of reception and the reception area where you wait during check-in and check-out

The hotel is still in its reopening stages, so a lot of the buildings are not complete yet and some services are not fully functional. For example, the children’s spray park, the spa building (they still have spa service), gym, Kid’s Club, and the “lagoon” are not up and running yet.

The unopened spray park for children and a park

There is only one big restaurant called “it’s everything” that is split up into two parts. One part is where the breakfast buffets and other buffets (sometimes they had lunch and dinner buffets) are served. The other part is where the sit-down lunches or dinners are served. I don’t know if we ate late or if the other guests ate elsewhere, but we were almost often completely alone for our meals. You can also order room service, which we had to do while waiting for our Covid test results and we ended up doing it two more times since we were tired.

In terms of service, all the staff members are super nice and accommodating. Everyone was very kind and tried to make us have a good experience. I will say that you sometimes have to ask for things a few times. For example, we wrote an email in advance that we would need a table in the room for Daniel and I reminded them at check-in and voila, no table. However, we called the front desk and we did get one delivered. There are no menus or hotel information in the rooms. When we first arrived jetlagged and hungry, it did take about three hours for us to get menus delivered and then our meals. But you know: TIA. This. Is. Asia. So, you suck it up and wait patiently. As I said, everyone who worked here was so nice.

Signs to help guide you around and a view of the paths between all the accommodations. I loved that there were plants all around. So green!

The food was so good at Island Escape by Burasari! I didn’t take a single picture of the food we ate since it was that good, haha. We mostly just ate Thai dishes (I did cave a few times). We ate one meal at the other big resort on the island. Daniel and I didn’t have any cash on us, so we saw that there was a small little restaurant in town (I’m guessing it was cheap), but we couldn’t try it.

We just relaxed while here, so we didn’t feel like taking the boat back and forth just to take out some cash. Dishes were usually 200-450THB/55-125 SEK/8-17 CAD/6-14 USD. Obviously, we will eat way cheaper once we stay at our next place. We decided to just enjoy staying at a fancy resort and embrace it all.

A lizard friend we found, a nice friendly dog, and the see-through kayak on the beach (available for use, but we like paddleboarding more!)

Activities

Daniel and I didn’t do a lot while we were here. He worked a lot. I studied, read a book, and played on my phone. We spent two to three full days lying out in the sun until Daniel had to start his Swedish work-day. Paddleboards and canoes are free to use. You just fill in your information on a piece of paper and take then out. We paddleboarded to a nearby island and relaxed there.

Spending the day paddleboarding and spending time on a nearby island

I saw that they do have some activities, like stretching on the beach. We didn’t do any of them. We did join in the Loy Krathong dinner that they planned at the hotel. That included a beauty pageant, dancers, a buffet dinner, and we got to float the baskets into the ocean. The hotel made the baskets eco-friendly, so they were made up of food for the fishies. We thought this evening was really fun and it was cool to learn more about this important festival.

With the beauty pageant contestants and floating our baskets into the ocean

Would we go back?

Heck, yes! We would love to go back to Island Escape by Burasari. I’m just worried that when they fully open up again we won’t be able to afford it, haha! It was such a visually appealing resort and very isolated, which is perfect for relaxation. I’m going to miss being able to call room service and just getting to relax for an entire week (outside of our working and studying hours, of course!). Maybe we should stay in resorts more often? 😉

If we weren’t working/studying full time then I wonder if we would have felt bored. I only read one book during the week, so I surely would have needed a few more to pass the time.

Hopefully, one day we will find out!

xx

Jasmine