My wife and I really like Phuket. We stayed in the Seaview hotel Patong. It's right at the end of the beach so away from the madness during the day but only a 10 min walk along the seafront to Bangla road for the evening. We both like a lively nightlife so we don't tend to go to deserted places which may be beautiful scenery wise, but you just have the hotel for entertainment. Patong is totally buzzing at night.
A must do trip is James Bond Island. We booked through our rep in the hotel but there are loads of places you can book up for a trip that are cheaper than going through your hotel rep. I think we paid £80 each or something like that but it was well worth it. A mini-bus picked us up at the hotel and drove us to the north of the island. From there you get on a large boat, we had about 20 people on our trip and about 10 'guides'. There was an upper and lower deck so loads of room, sun if you wanted it, shade if you didn't, lunch and cold drinks provided. First stop is James Bond Island where they filmed Man with the Golden Gun, to be honest, that was the worst part of the trip as it's packed with tourists! You get onto a Dragon boat that takes you into shore, you get about 30 mins to walk around, take photos, buy souvenirs etc. There's not much to see at all. Back to the big boat and on to Monkey Island. This is like a hollow island with cliffs all around the edge. You get into Sea Kayaks as couples and a guide gets in with you and does all the paddling! You go in through a small cave and there are thousands of bats in there, the smell of ammonia is incredible.
After a couple of mins slow paddling you come out into the lagoon in the middle of the island. There's a colony of Macaque monkeys live there. It's beautiful, peaceful....despite the tourist kayaks and the monkeys are funny. Once you've had a good look round its back to the boat, lunch and set off to another island that has beautiful beaches and you can go swimming in the warm waters for an hour or so. All in all it's a lovely all day trip.

I think you mean Patpong for BKK? You'll be fine there.....but bear in mind it is the 'entertainment' district so you'll see things associated with that!!

You're right about Koh Samui, there isn't so much to do there but it is a lovely place as well. We stayed on the edge of Chaweng Beach when we went and we had a fantastic time. Actually, that was our first trip to Thailand. Since then we've done Pattaya, Hua Hin and Phuket. The only place I would say is not worth going to is Pattaya. Very very sleazy....even for my incredibly broad mind, and very smelly with quite a few dodgy people down by the beach at night.

Hi Derwentrocker , if you are wanting elephant rides then I would suggest Ko Chang, it is much more beautiful than Samui and Phuket which are extremely touristy, but still offering lots of restaurants, bars etc......there are lots of elephant camps and it is a national park. I would go back there anytime

Agree with ShirleyV! We did fantastic elephant trek - including going along dry river bed which eventually opened out where you could bath elephant. Only us and one other couple, brilliant!

I've stayed at the Courtyard Marriott before. Beautiful hotel but be aware that you will have to take their river boat to get to the other side.

I think you're thinking of the Bangkok Marriott Resort and Spa, Fiona. The Courtyard is a different hotel, we stayed in serviced apartments across the road from the Courtyard. Seemed like a nice hotel but not of same grade as the the Resort and Spa (which is actually no longer a Marriott, its become an Anantara).