Although down south from May to October is monsoon/rainy season there are some incredible deals about locally ( if you are happy with an umbrella or a good book ) the Chedi on Phuket is promoting lots of free night deals, you can stay for 14 nights and only pay for 7! also something like pay for 5 and get some estra night free,Normally such deals have a 'catch' like charging a lot for compulsory breakfast but certainly with the Chedi the breakfast is 'free' for the free nights so doesn't seem any catch to it. Heavily promoted in local press, So as long as you don't mind relaxing with a spa or massage or reading a good novel, or do as I do and find a roofed open air verandah and simply enjoy the rain (most think I'm nuts) when it rains there are some really amazing deals on offer at good places.

James we had already decided on the Katathani, but still have to book, so we're still in time to change our minds. The Katathani aren't doing any particular offers whereas the Chedi seem to be going all out to get people there. What would you advise the Chedi or the Katathani? We don't want to be too isolated & would prefer some beach bars or restaurants to be near where we can have a light lunch or drink.
Thanks

It is often difficult to describe places, if you can say where you are from or beach places that you are familiar with maybe we could say that Kata is like .... whereas where the Chdi is is like....
The Chedi is much quieter area, you can find restaurants around the area and a few shops but probably less than 10% of restaurants available in the Kata/Karon area. The Kata Thani also attracts a lot of local business, perhaps more than the Chedi does, hence perhaps their need/desire not to drop rates. If you wanted the occassional meal out and didn't mind a 30 minute taxi trip to Patong then maybe the Chedi area would suffice, however if you want ro rest afteer the beach and perhaps head out most nights for a meal, do some street stall shopping, stop somewhere for a cocktail and be in an area with other people and an overall more active atmosphere i think Kata would still suite you better.

Thanks James, I think we'll stick to the Katathani.
We're also going to be spending a few days in Chiang Mai & on another post I saw your recommendation for the Empress hotel, so I think that's where we'll stay. We will be hiring a hire car & be driving it ourselves, we can have the car delivered to the hotel,but if the traffic is too hectic around that area I was thinking maybe it would be better for us to go out to the airport & pick it up there, we would then be heading up to the Golden Triangle.
What do you think?

I used the stay a lot at the Empress, the Novotel at the moment is very good value at about $45 or Tydges Hotel has been offering a stay 3 nights pay for 2 nights deal which works out something like $30-35 a night, these are decent 3 star places, at the moment the Rydges deal and the Novotel price are very good value. You can get the Rydges deal on www.chiang-mai-hotels.itgo.com plus pics of all the hotels. You might also want to look at Baan Orapin which is a guesthouse but has some recent good reviews though I haven't stayed there myself.

I honestly would not rent a car in Chiang Mai, pretty pointless, tuk tuks everywhere and I honestly don't think you would get any fun out of it at all. To make the journey to the Golden Trinagle that is different, remember Chiang Mai is the 2nd largest city and it is just so much easier to hail a tuk tuk (and a lot cheaper ) that the hassles of driving, parking etc. It's a big bustling city, stick with tuk tuks.

For 'tydges' read Rydges, Australian operated, quite good. Novotel is part of the French Group, a little out the way but nice hotel. Empress is good value, if you want to be bang in the middle of things the Suriwongse offers 2 star a/c level, around the $30 mark.

Thanks for your help James. We definitely don't want to use the car to drive in chiang Mai itself, but our problem is that we want to start off for the Golden Triangle early in the morning & the rental companies don't open until 9 am so they offered to drop the car off at the hotel the night before. Our problem is getting out of the centre of town & onto the road for the Golden Triangle, how busy are the roads at 7am? & is it easy to get out of town? Our other option would be to head out to the airport the evening before, fill in all the rental forms & leave the car at the airport that night & get a taxi from the centre of chiang Mai the next morning to take us back to the airport to pick the car up. That would be a bit of a hassle but maybe the better idea.
BTW How far is the airport from the centre of town?

can't help you with CM and driving, but i thought i would reassure you about driving around CR and north....it is very easy and there is very little traffic if any at all...we were so glad that we had our car in and around chiang saen area....make sure you visit the opium museum across the street from the anantara hotel and also the princess mother's estate....

Just curious about the rainy season in Phuket in June. Does it tend to rain every day, all day? Some rainy seasons in other asian countries like Bali or the Philipines or Japan can be quite variable in my experience. Some times you could have days of rain all day and other times you might not get any rain for many many days. You might also get a hour or three of rain every day than clear weather.
Was considering Thailand in November but if the deals are good I could go to Thailand in June and go elsewhere in November.

Well it really is the luck of the draw, you could have 7 or 10 days of solid sunshine and clear blue skies and wonder what all the fuss about rainy season was, or you could get solid rain for days, or, you could get sunshine in the day and maybe a short heavy burst of rain late afternoon or not until evening. It is not that there is rain all day every day, it really is luck. If you can plan to enjoy your trip regardless of the rain then certainly you can find some real bargain accommodation, but if it does rain then enjoy a spa treatment or massage, relax with a good book on a covered verandah or put up your umbrella and go shopping or whatever, it really is an individual choice, I guess it benefits those whao can have 2 vacations or more because you can say to yourself ok, if it doesn't rain we are lucky but even if it does we won't let it spoil our vacation and not to worry because we got an amazing deal and we still have our other vacation to look forward to.

Another idea is that you could say book a few days in the Gulf of Thailand which should be dry, once there check the local press for weather, if Phuket looks wet then stay where you are but if the weather forecast looks good then just head down to Phuket.

we were in thaland for the first 19 days of june last year and had two one hour rain bursts only.....our experience was so good that we are returning again this year....one note...we tried to do our pool time in the morning as it usually clouded up by noon---no rain just cloudiness....kept the heat down a bit as well...
we are even trying phuket in june this year so i will have a report on it...