vacances_hulot
A very well run place - but stop the MICE business
4/5 • 14/4/2025This Club Med is extremely well run. The whole team has a spirit of doing their best and all hands on deck attitude. You will even see the chef de village taking part in evening shows and the restaurant managers carry away used dishes when it's busy. The waiters are the most attentive ones we've ever witnessed in any Club Med.
Yes, as many others have stated, the rooms and accomodation buildings are old. The maintenance manager must have one hell of a job. But: everything works perfectly fine and the whole site and all facilities are very clean. Also, the age of the club is much less noticeable in and around restaurants, bars, pools, etc. and that is where you spend most of your time.
Cherating is not the place to go when you want to see something from Malaysia and have a cultural experience. There's not much places to go and see around the Club and thus there's not the huge excursion program we were used to from other clubs (and there doesn't seem to be much demand for that either). We liked the trips we did though and they were not expensive, although we missed more competent guides.
But actually you don't need to go much places because the Club premises are so huge. You can take long walks along the beaches and in the jungle and observe many exotic birds and animals even close up if you are quiet and patient. So you can spend your time just having a good time and some exercise (or not), enjoying yourself, nature, a great variety of very good food and artistic and funny shows in the evening.
One severe criticism - which is not specific to Cherating, but sadly to ther Club Meds as well - are the big groups with which the Clubs are being filled up. They often do not represent the usual clientele that frequents Club Med. In our case we had what we would call a 'bus tour' of dozens of people for several days who flocked together all day, so wherever they went they just took over the place and brought the place and the staff to its sheer limits. The peace at the Zen pool is gone when all sunbeds are occupied, thirty or forty people are chattering and taking selfies, the bar is running out of glasses and you have to queue for drinks in a paper cup. When we left, they even accomodated a bunch of teenage sports teams who grabbed food from the buffet with bare hands. We're glad that this was the night we left because it's just not what you expect or want when you spent a month's net income per person and fly around the globe to treat yourself. We're not blaming the Cherating management for this because they are not responsible for the booking policy and they handled this the best they could. But it has to stop. We've experienced this MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) business now in three different four and five trident clubs in France, Italy and Malysia, and it can really spoil your stay or at least parts of it.
