While a family trip for us, we are all adults and so chose Elephant for proximity to nightlife, the Sat night party & firedancing shows. I was surprised to see some families with little kids here, since the environment isn’t really designed for them- plus, the little kids overtook the hotel pool in the late afternoons, annoying. (Parents, you should do better.) Other reviews I read before booking warned about noise but I don’t think it would have been too loud in the hammock suites; we had booked a bungalow and ours unfortunately was located in the middle section that sits parallel to a bar on the Main Street that did karaoke(?)so it was pretty loud with bad singing). Airplane noise and strange whooping animal noises too. (Thankfully, the hotel provides free earplugs!) The staff was wonderful and went the extra step to make our vacation great after a slight hiccup with our airport pick up. The Sat night party & fire dancing show was FUN! The only downside was that the hotel beach has black stuff on the waterline so we didn’t use it at all- we traveled by cab to Lamai Beach, which was costly. Later on, I surmised that the nightly fire shows are causing this effect to the beach, probably destroying wildlife too making me feel very sad and guilty as a tourist who loves these fireshows. My only suggestion to hotel would be to do them every other night instead of nightly- this would also force people to book at least 2 nights. Otherwise, gorgeous property and very kind staff!!!
