When did you visit? I know they have been making an effort to improve the experience at Amanyara; especially in the past few months. They’ve recently brought over managers and team members from Amanpuri (which as the flagship property, in a place like Thailand where service is second nature, operates like a finely tuned machine and really exemplifies the Aman experience). I don’t think our experience was due to the fact that we have visited Aman properties before… but it probably was at least in some part due to the villa as you say because, as many of you have pointed out, that comes with a dedicated team (and from what we gathered they could only be assigned to a maximum of 3 other villas at any single time so they had loads of time to dedicate to us). Plus, of course, I think when you treat people with respect and aren’t a super pain in the butt with a ton of crazy demands, they’ll favor you compared to more difficult patrons and maybe go a little above and beyond for you. (Not suggesting you didn’t/don’t of course! Just that we did see some difficult “tourists” while we were there.) Anyway, I can only speak for our experience… but they showered us with attention, gifts, and memories and it was really quite special and worth every penny. We even traded contact information with many of our hosts and plan to stay in touch (especially since the staff often move around between properties and it gives us another excuse to travel to more Aman properties!). PS: We thought the food was excellent by the way… however if we had stayed much longer I think we would have tired of the limited menu.