Island questions: Koh Samui & Koh Tao

I'm thinking about an island holiday this coming June or July and am considering Koh Samui & Koh Tao. Does anyone have any recommendations on:

General areas to stay...relatively laid back with nice beach (snorkeling on Koh Tao maybe).
Lodging: bungalow resorts or small hotels (up to 2500 baht a night)
Restaurants
Transit tips (coming from Bangkok)
Anything else?

Thanks in advance.

Recent thread :
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1907528&messageID=17088028#17088028
from Bangkok combo ticket bus/ train and ferry. I have always found Lompraya a good reliable service.
You'll be colour coded,put on a bus at about 21.00 at their office near Kaosan and delivered directly to their pier at Chumphon in time for an early breakfast and first ferry to Ko tao > Phangan >Samui.

If you're looking for somewhere a bit more relaxed then somewhere like either Shark Bay or Mango Bay are going to be better options than the main strip of Sairee Beach as a lot of resorts there suffer from noise problems because of the local beach bars at night.

With the transit from Bangkok I'd recommend taking the 6am morning Lomprayah service as this get's you down to Chumphon around 12:30 and then the ferry departs at 1pm, where as with the over night ferries you end up waiting around at the pier from around 4:30am until th e ferry departs at 7am. With restaurants there are lots of great restaurants here on Koh Tao and not just Thai food restaurants either there is a whole selection of food available, French, Italian, Mexican, Indian, Korean, Swedish etc there's a even a few places that you can get a Sunday Roast if you get the craving whilst you're here.

found Maenam beach was a not so crowded alternative in Koh Samui

I agree with many rivers about the crowd situation at Maenam, unfortunately its not got the greatest stretch of beach and certainly no snorkelling. If you want reasonable snorkelling off the beach you can give Samui a miss and head to Phangan or Tao.

The most spectacular scenery on Tao is at Ko Nangyuan a tiny tri-islet about 1km off the north west corner. The beach and snorkelling there is also just about the best in the area. There is only one resort, Ko Nangyuan Dive Resort, which welcomes non-divers - these days at peak season they predominate over divers.

Samui has so many options. I stayed at scenic and quiet Thong Ta Kien in August - this is midway between popular Lamai and Chaweng for shopping, clubbing. TTK has a half dozen midrange places - the flashest is Samui Yacht Club, nothing to do with boats.

I also stayed at the junction of Chaweng and Chaweng Noi - I reckon both these plus Lamai are real nice beaches, there is no Miami, Patong, Pattaya high rise crap, they were relatively uncrowded in what is a peak month and the choice of accommodation given your budget is bamboozling.

I have a fair bit of info/pix on all these locations plus the islands in general plus the properties I stayed at HERE might help your planning. There is a GETTING THERE section for each island and I think there is a link to Lomprayah. I seem to remember their Chumpon-Tao-Phanga-Samui service actually calls in at Nangyuan. They have a jump on - jump off ticket so you don't have to buy individual sectors.

Thanks to everyone for all of your input.

This gives me a lot of resources to begin my planning, or at least, now I have a better sense of where I am (or will be) once I go.

I don't imagine there will be a big rush of foreigners coming to Thailand this summer. Not unless the TAT starts giving away free airline tickets with the free visas!

Right now Samui is rather quiet in general, but that has more to do with the situation in BKK and the negative travel advices the various foreign offices had issued against Thailand than it being low season.

Maenam is nice and has a variety of budget and up scale places nowadays however, I would opt for Choengmon and especially for the Choengmon Beach Hotel . It's my fave beach on Samui and there will be other kids on the beach as well.

{quote:title=tezza:}

The most spectacular scenery on Tao is at Ko Nangyuan a tiny tri-islet about 1km off the north west corner. The beach and snorkelling there is also just about the best in the area. There is only one resort, Ko Nangyuan Dive Resort, which welcomes non-divers - these days at peak season they predominate over divers
{quote}

No chance. Lighthouse bay, Aow Mao and Aow Luek have better snorkeling and the resort is run down with bad tasting high price food, 120 baht tiger beer (7/11 is 35 baht) and the place is flooded with Thai / farang tourists from Samui every day. Best to take a long tail over and spend an hour there and then go back to Tao.

Moondance bunglows on June Juea beach to the South, Aow Luek or Laem Thien resort are nice places to get away. Koh Tao is not that big so it does not take long to get anywhere. Sairee is busy and can be very loud but the food options in Sairee and Mae Haad are pretty good.

As for Koh Samui, you have to go a long way away from Chaweng / Lamai to find somewhere peaceful. Traffic jams, bad smells and a feeling the place has sold out best describes it. Only worth going there for the airport, docotor, immigration, supermarket!!

The Northern beaches of Koh Pha Ngan of a great alternative too, Haad Salad or Haad Yao, nice and quiet.

Hope this helps!

Things change - thanks for the update Tim.
I'll stick to my opinion about most spectacular scenery having seen those other places. But Tao is not short on very good views - only Sairree and the pier area could be described as ordinary.

Resorts get bad press from time to time - a few years back the guy who ran Aow Leuk Bungalows was being castigated on this forum for harassing visitors to the beach who dared to bring their own food and didn't use his restaurant. And way back in the 90s the guy running Rocky at Shark Bay was sprung peering thru bungalow windows at cuties getting changed. More recently he or one of his successors was charging non-guests for use of the beach at Shark Bay.
Haven't seen similar complaints recently.

I'm revisiting in June - hope to update a lot of my stuff.

thanks Tezza

{quote:title=tezza wrote:} I'll stick to my opinion about most spectacular scenery having seen those other places {quote}

Pretty well explains that you are an opinionated kind of guy, never mind the advice of people that actually live there... Did you see them from a longtail or one of the cheap snorkel tours or have you actually spent some time in each place both above and under the water?

Maybe someone who had not set foot on Tao proper since 1997 should not be giving advise given its 2010 and a great deal has changed?