Can anyone recommend a good place to stay in Sanya? Yalong Bay, Sanya Bay or Dadonghai Bay? We are traveling a family so we expect to spend most of our time on the beach, but would also like to be close to restaurants and other activities.

i went there this past august w/ my GF. we stayed in yalong bay, in a 4-star hotel, that was within walking distance to some of the bigger, more famous hotels. i think if u stick to 4 or 5 star hotels, u should be fine. note that other than the restaurants in the hotel (or in other nearby hotels), there will be no other places to get food. u can take a shuttle bus to downtown sanya, but the trip is at least 40 minutes each way. some hotels are far more noisy than others (e.g. Holiday Inn is swamped with kids).

I found this site to be very useful and the gal by name Ella is actually a great help to arrange things for your travelling need.

Check it out and maybe compare with other bargains you have in mind:
http://www.chinasanya.com/default.htm

FYI. Yalong Bay seems to be the fave spot to based in.

I heard about the biggest spa hotel resort in Haikou (as per guiness book???), well maybe you can check it out en share the story with me (us here). It's only RMB400plus per nite.

We just came back from Sanya with our 3 year old and we had a great time there. We stayed at Sheridan Hotel in Yalong Bay, which is the best hotel there and probably have the most foreigners. Quite family friendly, with heated pools outside near the beach, a must have! They also have a indoor kids play area with organized activities. The food is quite expensive though and the service isn't quite to the five star level, but the hardware of the hotel is the best. You should definitely get the option with breakfast for your hotel stay. There is a restaurant (cost 1/2-1/3 of hotel price) outside of Marriot next door where you could either walk there or get the restaurant to come over and pick you up. Taxi drivers are not as honest as Shanghai. Also I found out while I am there that if you book your trip through www.ctrip.com or Shanghai Airline for air+hotel+airport pick up, you can get better deal than buying separately.

I can't decide whether to take the package trip including four nights, or book my own trip and stay for 6-7 nights. To the ones who have been there, did you start to get bored after four days, or was it too short? I guess it also gets expensive in restaurant expenses since you have to eat three times a day in a restaurant. Is there really nothing but hotels around the Yalong Bay area?

Thank you for all your input. I promise to share my experiences when I get back.

Camilla, I have been in Sanya several times. Always along Yalong Bay. The resorts there are nice. Specially the Sheraton. The only interesting thing are the nice beaches. Other than that there's not really much to see. Personally a 4 - 5 day stay to recharge the battery was always enough. Sanya itself is a dump.

We have gone to Sanya twice now and prefer Dadonghai to Yalong Bay - it is the "Chinese" bay so it doesn't have the resorts but it is within walking distance to supermarkets and shops and some wonderful cheap seafood restaurants. It is less crowded and less expensive and the beach just as enjoyable but of course it won't have the western "perks" of a resort with a kids club etc.
As to duration of stay it really depends on what you want out of your trip. In 2004 we did 5 days with the touristy things - Nanshan, Luhuitou, Tianya Haijiao, a Li village and scuba from Xidao, as well as lounging on the beach and at hotsprings. This year we spent the same amount of time and just did the beach and hotsprings with a night on the resort island Wuzhizhao. If your primary focus is to relax on the beach with maybe one day touring of a couple major venues, then a package 4-5 day is enough.
Something we discovered this year and I would suggest is the Sanya Pearl River Nantian Hotspring - it is family friendly with a kid's waterpark play area- we spent a day there and wish it were closer to Shanghai. It runs a free shuttle from Horizon Hotel in Yalong Bay (and another in Dadonghai I can't remember the name)
One tip for flying -boarding the plane on the tarmac is incredibly vicious; if your seats are toward the back of the plane watch to see if it is boarding from the rear as well as the front...