We came to stay at the Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort and Spa 8 years ago and had a wonderful time, and thought it would be lovely to go back.
The resort itself is beautiful, and felt like you needed a golf buggy to go around the place. So much greenery, and staff were nice.
However having experienced other 5-star hotels throughout my years now, when we went back this time, we noticed how dated Hilton was, and it didn't look like it had been renovated, well maintained or anything.
We stayed in the Junior Suite, and everything was old. Bathroom looked very dated, could smell mold from the shower drainage, amenities they gave were very minimal for daily use, room wasn't fitted with USB charging plugs (usually an older hotel would even get a digital clock that has some USB ports to combat this!), there was no clock, all the room lights had to be turned on manually... AND, I noticed all the towels were DATED, and we received some towels that were dated back to 2016! surely they needed to be changed and removed from the batch you'd think?? The towels from the pools had holes in them, older ones became super thin..... it was just a really disappointing experience to end the trip, particularly since we stayed 2 weeks prior at 2 different 5-star resorts.
Overall we managed to still enjoy our time at in Karon, but it definitely wasn't the Hilton resort that made the experience, it was the surrounding areas that saved us in the last week.
