We booked Villa Nirvana for the month of March 2017. The pictures of the Villa were so inspiring I thought there was no way the villa could actually live up to what I'd seen.When we got there I was thankful that the Villa was even more perfect than we saw in the video.
Everything is as advertised or better. Villa Nirvana is extremely well-located. It's right at the beach and there's an incredible pool between the villa and the beach. The sunsets are amazing and we really enjoyed relaxing by the pool to watch. There are also great views from the main floor of the villa.
There's a maid who comes to clean each day. She's there from about 9am to 2pm. We have a 1 year old son and she helped with him a bit, which was nice. If there's anything you want, just ask the maid. She brought us fresh fruit each vegetables each day from the local market. She's very laid back, so if you don't have specific requests she'll be in and out really fast, well before 2pm. She also does laundry and will iron ALL of your clothes, which is sort of pointless for the beach so we asked her just to dry them outside and fold them. We learned this early fairly quickly, so it wasn't a real problem.
It takes about a minute to get from the villa to the beach or pool. A word about the pool: there are several older French couples living in the surrounding villas and they are very serious about making sure you shower before you enter the pool. It's not enough to shower at the villa before you go to the pool, they must see you use the shower near the pool. Whatever, older people... It's a small price to pay.
When you get to the beach, make a left and you'll see four or five restaurants with tables set up right on the sand. In our opinion, "The Beach Bar" is much better than "@The Beach". We went to "The Beach Bar" at least a few times per week and found the food to be very consistent. The Curry Crab and Steamed Fish w/ Lemon were standouts.
We rented a car for the duration of our stay. I think we paid 16,000THB for a compact car for the entire month. This seemed like a good deal. We also rented a motorcycle for around 4000THB per month. It's good to have both, but, no matter what, you should rent a car. The grocery store at Central is about as good as it gets for Thailand, which is of about average quality for the US or Europe. We went once a week and stocked up and were always thankful for the car.
By the way, the villa is extremely well-equipped. The kitchen has absolutely every utensil, spice, and condiment you will need. You can tell that the owners cook a lot. The kitchen is quite spacious and we found it a joy to use. There are two refrigerators side-by-side which is fantastic! You'll end up using both. There was no blender when we arrived, but within a day or two the owners sent over a super high quality blender. Again, the kitchen is super high end and joy to use.
My wife and I never agree on room temperature. She likes HOT and I like it cooler. There are no blankets at Villa Nirvana, so if you are in a similar predicament, bring a blanket or you can buy a very soft one at the local market for around $10.
The AV system is done well. Everything works, but you'll need to read the Villa guide book carefully to learn which buttons do what, especially when it comes to the lighting system. There are so many options for lighting the house... to match any mood.
The TV upstairs is quite large and has a nice satellite package with dozens of western channels. The TVs downstairs are not connected to the satellite but you if you can log in with your netflix acocunt.
The wifi is fiber and fast. At our request the owner added an additional access point downstairs and this helped with reception in all the bedrooms. Now every corner of the house has great wifi coverage.
The owners were kind enough to arrange transportation (luxury van) to and from the airport. This was nice as it's nice to have someone at the airport when you arrive, so you don't have to figure out how to get to your destination.
Overall, this is one of those really special places that you will remember forever. The views are fantastic and the vibe of the place is just right. I searched for about a month before booking Villa Nirvana and I found it almost impossible to find a newer villa with a pool that's located directly on an uncrowded beach.