Great place for a family vacation

My wife, 5 year old daughter, and I stayed at Centara for a week. Overall it was a great stay and perfect for a family with kids (with one caveat – see below). They have 3 pools – a huge pool with a slide that my daughter loved (she went up and down the slide over and over for days), a nice big pool by our room that was great for doing laps in the morning. There was also a small quiet pool where no kids were allowed. The breakfast was very good and had lots of choice.
The hotel is located right in the center of all of the Kata Beach shops, restaurants and massage places – just walk down the driveway of the hotel and you are right in the middle of everything the area has to offer (and can pick up a tuk tuk or taxi to anyplace else you want to go).
The beach is a 10 to 15 minute walk down the street and they have a one-way shuttle in the morning. It is actually only a couple hundred meters in a direct line from the hotel to the beach, but you have to walk right or left down the street to one of the alleys that connect the back road to reach it. It is pretty much true of any of the hotels nearby.
Two complaints I have are the smoking and lack of free wifi. Most of the guests are Russian or European and smoked, and smoked and smoked. The rooms themselves are smoke-free, so this means that everyone goes out to their balconies or sits by the pool and is constantly smoking. It seemed that no matter where we sat at the pool, we were surrounded by about 15 smokers that chain-smoked all day. I would suggest that the hotel limit smoking to certain areas and especially not allow it around the kid’s pool.
As for wifi – it is not free but if you buy a drink at the pool bar you get one hour for free. More drinks equal more hours so in the end it wasn’t a problem!
Other than that – a good place to stay.