Kenting Hotels

Can some one suggest a nice hotel in kenting which is both good …preferably a beach kind of resort …i would like to do some water sports and enjoy the beach as well and i m not sure how can i manage that without staying in a 5 star hotel and pay 150 US dollars a night . Is Staying in 5 star the only way to enjoy the beach or water sports!!..can some one suggest…? a nice hotel which is not too expensive but is still good

Stay away from the Toong Mao hotel (it’s right across the street from the entrance to the national park). I’ve heard that the Chateau is nice, but I think a bit expensive. You can stay at a smaller, cheaper hotel, and then rent a scooter to drive out to the beach and you can still do all of the water sports.

We always stay at “The Duck”, right next to the KFC. Nice rooms, swimming pool, reasonably priced.

we generally prefer to stay at nixon’s head – a little town about 5 minutes drive outside of kenting heading south. (there is a pretty big rock there that has a vague resemblance to a former us president’s head. it’s sticking up in the water - you really can’t miss it.) there were a few hotels there years ago, and there are a couple more now, and pretty nice from the pics in the ping gwo daily (prob setting myself up for some trouble saying that). a full page of advertisements with prices was listed - within the last two weeks. of course, it’s a chinese language “newspaper”. this place is a little quieter, and a little cheaper, but you gotta get there. we were always treated very well in that area. rent a scooter to get around, even to get there in the first place…

you can swim and snorkle there, and there was cliff-jumping off of nixon’s “nose”, but check on the safety of this first - the last time i went was 3-4 years ago. there are a number of places you can surf, if you wanna rent a board and cart it around on the scooter. diving is available in kenting as well.

have fun

All of the beaches in the area are public (with the exception of the Kenting Beach ruled by the Chateau) so it doesn’t matter where you stay. If you are willing to have lunch at the Chateau, or pay an entrance fee, you can use that stretch of beach as well. Most people rent a scooter when they are in the area so getting to the different beaches is simple.

If you want to be close to the water without paying an arm and a leg stay, as DB suggested at Sail Rock, or Nanwan, a few kilometres before Kenting town. Nanwan is a pretty bay with a short row of shops, B&B’s, restauarnts and the like across the road from the bay. There’s a surf and dive shop, Fu Dog, run by two foreigners on the strip.

If you stay in Nanwan watch out for the damn jet-skis…And that is not a joke.

In the winter we usually camp, but for those hot summer months we’ll hang out in the Nixon Rock area. There are several hotels back there, and if you’re an old-timer it will remind you strongly of the Kenting of days long past downtown.

Fudog is run by a guy called Sam, and he’ll get you sussed out for rental gear, but he doesn’t have his own tanks. He should have finished his IDC by now, so he’ll have the capacity to do discover dives. Nan Bei dive center is another option in Nanwan, and it’s one of the best established dive centers in Kenting. A-chuen, the owner, is one of Taiwans leading underwater photographers (government sponsered) and his work is worth taking a look at. He also has rooms upstairs with a nice balcony overlooking Nanwan bay. If you plan to take a dedicated dive trip, then I would recommend A-Chuens place. It’s located on the east side of Nanwan bay. They also do boat dives.

Many of the little hotels along the strip are like $700/night (about $20 USD) and up for a double. It’s not like you’re going to be spending the whole day indoors so you need amenities like a game room or a pool (that’s what the beach is for, right?). Just a place to crash at night. Rent a scooter and drive to the new beaches. Hopefully the new edition of LP Taiwan will have more accurate maps and better descriptions of the beaches around that area.

Hotel California was mentioned in the last Robert Storey LP.

Is it good?

hotelca.idv.tw/

Thanks for your suggestions on the hotels.
I plan to go there with my family so plan to rent a car, I live in Hsinchu and plan to take a train from here to Kaohsiung and then go to kending.

So should I take a car on rent in kaohsiung or in kending.? If you suggest taking it on rent from kending then a shuttle bus would be a good idea from kaohsiung to kending. right

Does any one know of good car rental agencies in kending or kaohsiung. How much would it cost approx.

Is this all a good plan?

I’d rent the car in Kenting. I don’t have any specific info on that, someone else might, but any hotel should be able to help you.

I wouldn’t rent a car in Kaohsiung as the drive down is not that interesting until you get closer to Kenting anyway (unless you want to make a stop at Dapeng bay for a little sea kayaking or wind surfing). Also, by the time you get to a rental agency in Kaohsiung and go through the paperwork and then drive out of town you could be in Kenting already. Since Kenting is so much smaller renting a car will be so much less of an errand.

Also, renting in kaohsiung means that the last hour of your vacation will be spent driving through Kaohsiung. Blah!

There are dozens and dozens of buses leaving Kaohsiung for Kenting every day. PM me if you need more details.

Since you are going to have a car, you should think about driving up the 199 over to the east coast and the Shuihai grasslands. Very scenic. You’ll pass by Sichingshi hot springs where there are many new hot spring facilities. Some are outdoor and the pools have different temperature water. Most are probably a bit warm in the day, but lovely on a starry night.

The Shuangliao Forest Reserve is one of the newest forest reserves in Taiwan and worth a visit if you have time.

Also, Kenting has several ecologically protected areas that are off limits to casual visitors but if you apply for a permit beforehand (available on their website - Chinese only) you can get in to see them.

if you haven’t checked out their website you should. It is very thorough.

www.ktnp.gov.tw

14 year old thread LOL

I’m planning on going to Kenting for a few days next week. What is the Fourmosa.com hotel of choice (in 2018) when it comes to a low-key relaxing getaway in Kenting. My wife really wants to stay at that Howard beach meme resort. Anybody have any experience staying there? It looks incredibly dated IMO. We won’t be staying there.

I’m just looking for something clean, quite and close to the ocean. What do y’all recommend?

Most hotels are small and either across the highway from beach or within walking distance. Only one hotel is on the beach.
Chateau Beach Resort 墾丁夏都沙灘酒店

Two other hotels have a beach access through a tunnel. Howard is kind of old and wonky.

Caesar Park

and

Howard Beach Resort

Smokey Joe’s is really trendy.
承億文旅-墾丁雅客小半島
https://goo.gl/maps/9L5a51AQjZ62

Most of the other hotels are all the same. Some type of standard hotel room with beach decor.

2 Likes

Thanks for the reply @tango42 I’ll research/book one of those. :grinning:

I have always stayed at Chateau through the years, and I go quite a lot to Kenting, several times a year. Lately I am very disappointed with Chateau management, service and the rooms. No matter which room you book it is always full of smoke smell. I don’t smoke so I got so angry last time I even don’t want to be back at all.

1 Like

This was the one that I’m probably going to book. Damn, i don’t want some smoke smelling room. Any other complaints for the chateau?

do you have to be near the Kenting strip?
have stayed at some nice cheaper places closer to the lighthouse.

This is a good spot for drinks at dusk few pubs here and food.

南灣之星
No. 223, Nanwan Road, Hengchun Township, Pingtung County, 946
08 889 9799
https://goo.gl/maps/3oKv6PkynCU2

Chateau is great for everything. Nice beach, nice water activities, good food. Just the smoking smell is ridiculous. Last time I paid 7k+/room/night and made they change me 3 times. All 3 times were awful the smell. Eventually they changed me to last room and I left and said I would be back to the room in 4 hours and that’s the time they should do whatever they could to remove he smell. After I was back the smell was less but still a bit there.

Btw, they are running a promotion now, if you are going to stay before dec. 24th

I’ve stayed at the Caesar and Chateau a couple times each this year and they both have their pros and cons.

The Chateau has the benefit of being right on the beach and you can get rooms with patio access to the pools with the ocean view in the background. The rooms are quite small though. The “mountain view” rooms seem to be more parking lot/street view rooms.

It also has a great hot tub with ocean views and was never too busy. I bought beer from the store just down the street (surprisingly had American craft IPAs), had a Bluetooth speaker playing quite loud and spent a long time in the hot tub and the lifeguards didn’t bother us. Don’t even remember needing a swimming cap but I could wrong about that.

The main pool also has nice ocean views. I think they turn most of the outdoor lights off at around 11 or midnight so you can see a pretty nice night sky from their lounge chairs on the beach.

The breakfast was really disappointing.

The Caeser has a cool atmosphere but feels a bit rundown in certain areas. They were doing some remodeling when I was there last so maybe that’s changed. The rooms were bigger than the Chateau’s and I think they all have either pool or ocean views. The central pool area is very nice but the hot tub can’t match the one at the Chateau. I think they have rooms with private hot tubs but I’ve never stayed in one of those.

The Caesar has a private waking path to the beach but it’s faster to just walk across the street. The breakfast was very good.

We took the shuttle from the hotel directly to HSR station and this makes life so easy. I’m assuming the Chateau has one too but we didn’t use it.

All in all I think I prefer the Caesar and it was cheaper too if I remember correctly.