Ban's Diving Resort

I have never felt more unsafe in a hotel. We booked this hotel for 1 night(thank god) and when we arrived they told us we have booked a jungle resort room which is furthest away from the beach which was fine as they ran a shuttle which was apparently 24 hours. However every time we wanted to get the shuttle we had to ring reception and they acted annoyed like it was an inconvenience to them. We then got in the shuttle which took us over 1km away from the beach and all the facilities in the jungle section were above all the workers/cleaners houses. We constantly smelt cooking etc. and there was bags of rubbish just on the paths all over the resort. The bit behind the entrance to our room also had loads of piles of rubbish everywhere. The room was extremely dated and wasn't clean, the shower had stains all over it and there was a drying rack box that was all dirty with random plates and cutlery that has been washed and forgotten to put away. We messaged Expedia to complain about the dirt of the resort and the 1km distance to the beach that we weren't informed of when booking and they phoned the hotel to ask them to sort it. A women arrived at our door banging it down shouting "it's me". When we opened the door she was angry and shouted "what's the problem" we explained about the dirt etc, and she rolled her eyes and said well if you want near the beach then you can go to reception and pay £60-80 to upgrade. Then started shouting at us saying what do you want us to do? We said it's fine then as it's only 1 night and we are not willing to pay. After about 20 minutes after this we heard more banging on our door and shouting and opened it and it was 3 young children and an adult who didn't say anything but just walked into the room, took away all the drying rack box with all the plates and dusted the sink with a dry cloth without a word of explanation. When going to lock the door there is a weird method of doing this which we were not told about and when ringing reception yet again, they snapped at us, told us the method and put the phone down. The customer service here was upsetting. We went to the pool and the sunloungers are all extremely dirty.(photos attached). When we went to bed, we were woken up at 4am terrified as someone was scuttling around outside the door and banging. It sounded like it was in our room as you can hear everything that is going on outside the room. We heard the guest next door opening the door and shouting "what are you doing". I have never felt more unsafe and wanted to contact reception but I was hesitant to do so after the response we had received after our earlier complaint. I wouldn't like to think what would have happen if that woman didn't come out her room. We were doing a boat trip the day of check out and were planning on leaving our bags at the resort but we didn't feel safe as they leave them in a central corridor next to the main road all day so had to get up at 6:30am to check out early and get a taxi to the next resort to leave our bags there instead. We were so happy to leave.

Fantastic experience with Dutch diving instructor Lex van Helden! Energetic and enthusiastic but at the same time knowledgeable, responsible and attention to detail. The resort is beautiful and you can get on your boat from the beach to dive. The beds in the dorm are quite hard, but the private rooms are lovely.

Ban’s Diving is great organization. It was truly fantastic experience.IDA is the best teacher! RENS also helped a lot during my advanced course. They took safety very seriously but were also fun and cheerful and helped us see lots of cool stuff. I would heartedly recommend to anyone coming for training, or just for a recreational dive.

Taking my AOW with Ida, it was mega cool, she is really skilled and we saw a whale shark at the first dive on the course. 10/10- stayed also at the resort and it has super location and a restaurant you can hang out in no matter whether you buy food / beverage or not (if you dive with or live at the resort self). I also took Nitrox ifb. with AOW and it was also really nice:))!

Great diving school. I took the Openwater course here. The instructors were very nice and well positioned. A special thank you to Nicki! She was a lot of fun and you always felt safe with her. I can recommend it.