Just got back from K.S. - had wonderfull time.
Stayed at Samui Laguna Resort in Lamai Beach, (see hotel review for details).
Very grateful for infor gained from forum regards getting around etc we get a taxi from airport to Lamai beach (700 bahts, found out it should be around 500) arrived at hotel 12 noon so spent first day relaxing & catching up on sleep. Lamai was lovely during the day, the beach is good although not as much to do on it as Chaweng beach. The night life is more suited to single men I would say with lots of girly bars although we did manage to find a few not so in your face bars in some of the side streets. As there were 4 of us we hired a car for 2 days and went round the island visiting the different coves & towns which was really nice. We done the island in a day! Decided that unless you want isolation would reccomment Chaweng or Lamai as these definetly had the best beaches. We avoided staying in Chaweng as all the postings seemed to describe it a Blackpool in Thailand but I didn't think it was that bad, if you pick the right hotel it could be quite good I would think.
We went on the ferry to Koh Phangan and spent 3 days over there in two different hotels, it was a lot quiter than Koh Samui which was really nice although you really need to have an idea of the hotel you are aiming for before you go as everything is spread around. We chose one very out of the way hotel - completely relaxing. We walked into the next cove one night and sat on the beach which was laid out with candles and mats, heavenly. When we got back to our resort at 11.30pm everything was in complete darkness, everyone had gone to bed!
We then stayed on night in Had Rin, a place I would describe as a typical backpacker resort (where they have the full moon party). It was completely diffeent and full of young people -at 50 we felt like the oldest swingers in town but still enjoyed ourselves.
If anyone wants any up to date info on these resorts then I'll happily oblige cos there's too much to write it all here!