Golden Beach Resort

Golden Beach is perhaps the most well-known resort on the island next to Okhna Kith Meng's Royal Sands. It certainly is a very nice, well-maintained property, and overall was a good experience, but in the end, I wish I would have just stayed at White Sands Ark Resort the whole time, which I will be comparing it to, (as I stayed at both back to back and they are only 10 meters apart from each other.) Here's why: The bungalow itself was very nice, and had a nice rustic beach theme. Real wooden floors, nice lighting, and the bathroom was perfect, the best I've seen in Koh Rong, with really nice locally-made Kambio soaps. There are two pools, which is nice However, the "beach front" Bungalow was actually in front of a busy road crowded with drunks, tuktuks and motos, which kind of ruined the perception of luxury and exclusivity they tried to conjure (The Beach-facing bungalows at White Sand Ark open directly to the beach front, and are somehow cheaper by 15-20 dollars yet). You can't even open the curtains without exposing your entire room to everyone walking down the road, and that kinda sucked. The food was very British in taste, and thus not that good from my personal perspective. Only improper, ham-like floppy (i.e British style ) bacon, no ketchup (I had to buy a bottle of Vietnamese Heinz in កោះតូច just to eat with my eggs and potatoes), no syrup for the pancakes, bizzare Anglo breakfast items like mushrooms and beans, and the juice was not very good or premium at all (except the lime and mango juices, which were excellent), certainly not for the price this resort charges per night. They had very nice bread and butter though, and the pancakes were good. The Khmer staff were very kind (especially the bartender, whose name I unfortunately didn't get, but he's a heavyset guy with slicked hair), but the barang staff (all from Poland) I found to be rather rude, especially the lady with the glasses. While White Sand Ark Resort let me check out at 2pm ("so you and your wife won't get too much sun"), at Golden Beach I was given a passive-aggressive reminder that checkout was 11, and that I was limited to only two daytime guests to come over and hangout (as I have good Khmer friends in Koh Rong); When I asked for some cash in Riel to pay a local boy for some juice I bought the day prior, the Polish woman with glasses told me "no one does that here" and then implied that Khmer people would want 8% for any riel I ask for (which not only wasn't true--I managed to not only get riel from local Khmer at 100000៛ for only 2000៛, but Anna--I think her name was--at White Sands Ark gave me 50k Riel no problem and with a smile). This really soured my experience, since I know wasn't true. Also, maybe it was busy for Jol Jnam Tmey, but we left our trash outside at front as well as our breakfast plates, and it sat there for almost two days! Trash and tea bottles piled up to the point I had to ask a Polish staff member to do something--only for her to take at least an hour to relegate that duty to a local Khmer worker (was she too good to do such a job?) That shouldn't be acceptable at all, even if shortstaffed for Khmer New Year. I did extend my initial stay, but in retrospect I regret it as I didn't know about the other resorts, and how relatively lacking Golden Beach was, especially in terms of comparative value (as Golden Beach is more expensive than every other Sok San side resort except for Royal Sands). While not horrible, I wouldn't recommend exactly either. There are better places. 5/10.