The Sugar Marina Art is one of 4 Sugar Marina properties in Phuket. This can be confusing and despite telling the driver it was the Sugar Marina Art at Karon, I still got dropped at the wrong hotel - so make sure you show your driver the hotel on a map.
Check-in at the hotel was efficient - the car was greeted by a porter who took me and and my bags to reception for check-in. I didn't realise that the hotel occupies 2 separate buildings. One building is for the pool access & pool view rooms while reception and more rooms are in the other building. Despite the efficient check-in, I found the information very poor. I assumed there might be a book in my room with answers to basic questions like is there a laundry?, a gym?, what are the restaurant hours?, the pool hours?, where do I book tours?, what is the wi-fi password?, etc. But I was told nothing on check-in and there was no information in the room. I went back to reception to ask for the wi-fi password but they spoke very poor English. First I was told "it in room" so I went and checked and there was no paper in my room with the wi-fi password. So I went back to reception and all I could understand was "it change daily", so I gave up and bought a SIM card with internet access (I recommend the DTAC tourist SIM).
It is definitely better if you get a pool view or pool access room so you are in the quieter building with better view over the pool and lawn area. The rooms are a decent size but mine had a terrible musty smell which I had to use a lot of cologne spray to mask. They really should air the rooms occasionally. The free mini-bar is awesome - you get a beer, cola, fruit drink and snickers bar daily per person. My room had 2 single beds even though I had requested a double. I called reception and they sent someone who just pushed them together! They didn't even put on a double doona and had 2 single doonas overlapping which was very annoying when sleeping.
I found the location of the hotel to be the best thing. It really is just a 5 minute walk to Karon Beach and it is nice that the hotel provides in the room beach towels and a beach mat to take to the beach. The hotel is down a small laneway which means there is less traffic noise. Out of the laneway is Patak Road which has lots of shopping and restaurants.
I only had breakfast at the hotel one morning. It is expensive for Karon at 389 baht and I found that many dishes had run out and they were slow at replacing. There is one chef cooking eggs to order but who is so swamped with orders that you will wait a long time. The other mornings I instead went to Karon Backpackers just 2 blocks away and breakfast is 159 baht without eggs or 199 baht with eggs (omelette, eggs benedict, etc).
Yes this hotel was full of Russians but you find them all over Phuket. It did seem strange at first that all the signs are in Thai, English and Russian. But really, if you wanted to escape other tourists, you wouldn't go to Phuket in the first place!