Friends and I are planning on staying for several days at Anantara and wanted to hear of others experiences at this resort specifically in regard to the Elephant experience and their various day trips. We were going to budget 3 days here - too short, too long? What do you think?

There have been a number of very detailed reports on the Anantara, including reviews of teh time with teh elephants. Look for crosscheck's "Boy falls off Elephant, Man buys toilet" report.

Use the search box on this page to help you find more reports.

Three days, IMO, is a minimum. We spent 6 days, I believe, right after it opened.

As Kathie said, take a look at the Anantara section of my report and then I'll be happy to answer questions. We spent four nights/3.5 days there and had a great elephant experience as well as a day trip to Burma, Mehkong boat ride, Opium Museum, cooking school and Chiang Rai night market. Would have loved more time, but three full days was enough to settle in, get to know the area and also have time to relax.

Here's the link to my trip report:

http://tinyurl.com/32jm4q

My daughter (9) and I have 5 nights booked there in August. We are doing the 3 day mahout training (2nd time for us, but first time at the Anantara, first mahout training was at the TECC www.changthai.com), and are planning on making some midday excursions on those 3 days, and a full day somewhere after the elephant days. We're tossing around the idea of staying another night there right now, as we've found a lot that we want to do in the area.