RAT WARNING!! DONT STAY HERE!
There were rats in our room (see picture).
Once we told them that we didn’t want to sleep there during the night, they simply told us ”get some sleep,” and closed the reception.
Not until the next day did we get a new room.
Very unpleasent stay.
Staff were very rude, rooms dirty, aircondition cost 45 dollar for one night.
DO NOT STAY HERE. Air conditioning is an additional $30 a night, we found mould on the bedsheets and on the ceiling, no toilet paper or hot water, the power in our room was cutting out every 5/10 minutes. We bought food from the shop downstairs which we later found out was 6 months out of date. Staff were largely unhelpful. In the end, we didn’t even stay a night because it was so hot and the with no power, our fans didn’t even work. Very disappointing.
Very poor and old rooms, they need maintenance soon! The position is great. Make sure you have cash with you, because if you want to pay by card they will add 8% on the total
Firstly, the guesthouse ‘cancels’ your booking on booking.com when you leave, so you can’t review it there after you stay. The reviews on that site are all old. Have seen this in other reviews on TripAdvisor. So beware!!||The room was not secure. The door didn’t shut AND the lock didn’t work so we had to sleep with an open door with our bags in the bed with us. They give you padlocks for when you go out but they only work on the outside of the door. So you can’t lock yourself inside. ||Bedsheets stained and filthy, and the staff were really rude. From the moment of arrival. No towels in the rooms. ||Next - the window issue. We stayed upstairs and had a huge window from our room which opened directly onto the upstairs terrace. This window didn’t close or lock, and the curtains didn’t cover it. Everyone could see into our room and we could see everyone on the terrace outside. So we had to sleep with an uncovered window which was open, and an open bedroom door - which is just appalling for $22/night. ||The bathroom door also didn’t shut or lock. And it’s opposite the bedroom door which doesn’t shut or lock. So you’re showering/using the toilet in full view of anyone walking past the room unless someone holds one of the doors closed for you. And it was absolutely filthy, doesn’t drain, plus sink water sprays onto your feet. ||There was a hole cut out of the ceiling above the toilet/shower and we heard rustling up there, as a woman I would especially not recommend. Anyone up there can see directly down into the bathroom when you’re in there. ||Groups of people were coming back from parties and sitting on the terrace outside our room shouting all night. So we got no sleep. ||AC was included in the booking but on arrival we were “shown” we hadn’t paid for it.. and told it would be $34/night EXTRA! Obviously we didn’t pay this. But it became yet another issue. ||The staff turn the power off in your room (at the mains) when you leave. We couldn’t turn it on again, so asked a man working there for help. During this interaction he was in the middle of killing a mouse which wasn’t the nicest thing to watch. Anyway, there’s 3 power switches and in his moment of mouse-killing he just told me to “flip the switches” - I flipped them all, including the red one (the red one turns on AC which we hadn’t previously known). About 2 hours later the same man burst into the room and screamed at me, demanding I give him the AC remote and insisting we pay for AC. We hadn’t ever been given a remote, of course, but he thought we were lying. We didn’t flip the red switch after that, but it was a genuine misunderstanding and he was just so rude. ||They then overcharged us for motorbikes (initially $10, then changed their minds and decided $15… then argued amongst themselves about the price and eventually settled on charging $30). We got $10 bikes down the road from nicer people. ||Worst bit. On our second-to-last day, a group of around ten people were told by the hostel staff to leave their bags on the terrace. They all came back and had everything stolen (phones, kindles/ipads, money, jewellery, sentimental items, clothing, headphones, even entire bags). I’m sure one of them will review this place at some point too. But they were crying and so upset, it was awful for them, and the staff had no empathy. ||The woman who works there initially blamed them too which was shocking. But she had told them the bags would be safe upstairs. Then when everyone asked about the CCTV which is advertised on the booking website.. “no, it doesn’t cover the terrace”. No accommodations made for the victims and no apology, just blame. ||After they left the island nothing was done, no police came, but the staff were suddenly nice to us which they hadn’t been at all the entire time. ||To sum it up, if you want to stay in the least safe and dirtiest place on the island, book Elephant Guesthouse!
We stayed for 3 nights but wouldn’t recommend this hostel. There’s mold on the walls and ceiling. Before we booked we asked to see the room and could see an A/C but after we had paid and checked in they wanted 10 USD extra per night for the A/C remote. They could have said something before we booked that the AC in the room actually costs extra but they told us after when already checked in.
The window doesn’t fit properly in the frame so be ready for mosquitoes and there’s no mosquito net. It will also get very sandy inside the room since there is no proper way for guests to clean off the sand before entering the rooms.
See pictures of mold and broken sink.
Guesthouse:
The room was not cleaned, the floor and bed linens full of sand.
We found out the toiletry soap was already open and one bottle of water already used.
The crane in the sink was not working and we found a small (real) rotten mushroom in the toilet floor.
Do not stay in this awful excuse for a "guesthouse". |Staff are unfriendly to put it mildly, they barely had a civil word for us on check-in. Had no change for us when we paid and asked us to pay in smaller notes, then had the audacity to try and refuse one of our $10 notes because it had a brown mark on it. Told us nothing about the "guesthouse" or its' facilities (which makes sense now cos there were none). |The bedroom was tiny we barely had room for our bags on the floor. The door didn't close properly. No air con just a fan. I will attach photos of the awful bathroom to give people an idea of what that was like. |In addition the pillow cases were not washed, the blanket was a child's fleece blanket which we also suspected hadn't been washed. The room was a nest of mosquitoes and I was covered in bites after the 1st night. |We booked this place after seeing it had decent reviews on booking.com, we never checked TripAdvisor, and we regret it so so much. It ruined our trip to Koh Rong, please do not make the same mistake we did. |We have stayed in many budget accommodations throughout Europe and SE Asia and have had great experiences, but this was by far the worst place we have EVER stayed.
Really the only good thing about this guesthouse is the location: it's not right in the center of the party, but still very much there in the village.||||As with many others who left their reviews, it started with the receptionist. She didn't say hi or thanks or even smile when we checked it. Not a great first impression.||||The room seemed all right at the first glance: two huge beds. However, as the pictures show, it wasn't. There was a fan and an AC in the room. The receptionist went to pick a remote control for the AC, came back and pressed a button to turn it on, but nothing happened, so she just left without saying a word. We were sort of waiting for her to return with a fix or something, but she didn't. The useless AC was just sitting there collecting dust and dirt, and clearly no one had wiped it clean in a long time: the dirt had fallen onto the bedsheets underneath. ||||The next unexpected surprise was that there was BLOOD on the towels. So we went back to the reception, where she tried to explain it was from the sea or that they wash their laundry in the sea and that's why they're not clean (??) but eventually we got new towels. Later we found blood and other stains in the sheets as well. ||||The shower head was broken, as was the holder for the shower head. There was a garbage bag in the bathroom which they picked up on our request, without a word of apology. The entirety of the bathroom just didn't look like anything had been done to it in decades.||||This was the first place we stayed at Koh Rong, and while we later found out the cleanness and comfort level on the island is quite poor overall, the Elephant Guesthouse still takes the cake as the nastiest one on Koh Toch beach. Do not stay here.
Paid for 5 nights on arrival and left the guesthouse and island after one. The site I booked on’s policy says that is only pay for the one night...I’m still waiting for the rest of the refund after they agreed to give me $100 back. Interestingly, they cancelled the whole booking which meant I couldn’t leave a review. This might explain why reviews on here and reviews on the site do not match at all. |Lock on door was insecure-we fixed it. Sheets and towels dirty with blood on. Hole in the wall. Hole in the door of the bathroom which didn’t close. Bathroom filthy and toilet didn’t flush properly - had some weird home made chain thing attached. No pipe from the plug hole to the floor on the sink so you might as well spit on your feet when cleaning your teeth. Window didn’t shut properly so mosquitoes got in. One mosquito net over one bed. None over another. Just absolutely awful.|Went to discuss leaving the next day. The lady in charge didn’t seem to speak much English at this point so I waited until a young man came out. He wasn’t interested so went back to bed. A long while later, a young lady came out and eventually it was agreed that I could have $100 . The whole experience was just dreadful and I would sooner sleep at the bottom of the sea than stay here.
Man on reception was very friendly, same cannot be said of the lady(until we checked out, cue absolute delight). Checked in to find out that AC is 10$ a night extra. The room without is like a sauna so you have to spend the money. No toilet paper in the bathroom, however previous guests before us seemed to have wrangled around this issue by using the pillowcases, which were filthy. Sheets and pillows had blood/urine stains on them, a lovely touch. After paying (!!!) for aircon, we returned from food to find out the staff turn off the electricity to the room when you go out. What. Is. The. Point. Return to a sauna once again. Wifi worked one night out of 4. One plus is the mosquito net, which saved us from certain bites, as the place was full of them.||The wake up call @ 5am from the roosters outside was a complimentary addition.||Avoid!
