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We stay at the Q-Signature (formerly Samudra) resort at Choeng Mon beach, so we usually go left out of the airport.  Go that way if staying at Bophut, Mae Nam or other Northern resorts. Go right if staying at Chaweng or Lamai.

If you aren't getting a car, use a taxi (supposedly metered, but arrange a price first, they don't turn them on) or resort car/bus (pre-arrange).

We usually check-in, dump our gear and head to Tesco Lotus to stock up on supplies.

It's worthwhile doing an around-the-island drive, just to get a feel for the place, speed in most places is 40-45kph, you can get up to about 80kph in a few places, but it really only takes about an hour and a half to do the trip non-stop.  (It used to be one hour, but traffic has increased with the development of new resorts and was quite heavy in June 2009 despite low tourist numbers at many resorts.)

Pick up a free map (not necessarily very accurate) and other free guides, at the airport and at hotels etc.  Note that the restaurants in the dining guide are at the expensive end of the market, we have tried a few, found good food, but prefer the market food and less formal restaurants most of the time.  Many of them are not air conditioned either, a few are or have aircon areas.
 

Money Exchange: Like most tourist areas in Thailand, there are many bank-run booths or small branches offering exchange services at good rates without extra fees.  They are all much the same on any given day, there usually isn't much point shopping around.  We mostly take Aus dollars these days rather than TC as much of our stuff is pre-paid and we use CC for bigger items, duty free etc.  (We use Wizard Mastercard as it has no exchange fees).

Laundry: There are a lot of places to get laundry done cheaply, just look for the signs along most roads, 30-40Bt/kg, but don't expect whites to be whiter-than, we usually do underwear in the unit and get T-shirts, shorts etc laundered.  We usually go to one that looks like it is done on the spot rather than a drop-off place which sends it away.  For Samudra, there are a couple on the road not far from the entrance.

Internet: Internet can be expensive at the resorts, there are quite a few places to access the internet, usually quite fast speeds, if we find a slow place we just get up and move on without paying.  The Q Signature had quite good WiFi available this year (2009) and at quite reasonable prices if you bought a bulk amount.  There are some wireless hot spots (including Starbucks), probably more by now, but you usually have to pay.

Coffee: Good espresso coffee is a bit hard to get, even twice in a row at the same place, Starbucks is actually one of the better places to get a short black.  There is also a place at Big Buddha and a few others along Chaweng, make sure you can see they have either a full-scale machine (unlikely) or at least a decent automatic one and don't be afraid to send it back if it's crap.

Market Food:  There are many roadside food stalls either out on their own a bit or near/in other market areas.  One of our favourites is on the road from Chaweng around the top of the lake towards Tesco, marked with "M" on the map, turn off just as the road turns to one-way. (There is a picture of it in the Auswine forum post above, the same woman has been there the last 3 times we've been there).  Most of them will let you look at/taste the contents of the pots and try to steer you away from the hot stuff, which immediately makes us go for those dishes.  We've never had any trouble eating market food, the whole island food setup is pretty clean (maybe stay away from the meat areas of the markets until late in your visit though).  You can probably eat anything that looks good and smells OK, we don't have many of the fish dishes, there is a lot of fermented gizzard flavouring used in these, some of them look good, but a smell is often enough to steer you elsewhere.  Last trip we tried the food stalls just next to the fresh food Market, it's not as far down as the map indicates (or is a different market, there is a different style of market further down I think), you can actually see it from the main Chaweng Rd, it's opposite a Muay Thai (Boxing) centre.  We had lunch at one place (were lucky to find an English-speaking Thai there) and had take away from several others, with three variations on Kua Kling.  There are plenty of other places as well, you'll get to recognise the little farms of big pots.

Tours/Trips:  Because we have a car we don't usually do any on-island tours, there are a couple of places to ride elephants and there is a road up to a lookout / cafe in the centre of the island, but the view isn't as brilliant as you might hope.  We tried 4 different roads that the map indicated went up to a lookout (and didn't) before we found one that did.  Getting to waterfalls usually requires a good walk or elephant trek from parking, we haven't bothered, most of the Thai waterfalls are pretty unimpressive on a world scale.

There are numerous offerings for fishing/snorkelling/sightseeing tours to the nearby islands, we went on one last year that turned out to be a pretty mass event, but still had fun snorkelling, it's a fair trip even on a fast boat, the smaller speedboats would probably be better, but are much more expensive.  There are quite a few wats (temples) and a couple of mummified monks, but we've seen so many wats on past visits to Thailand we haven't bothered.

Petrol: A lot of the locals fill up their motor bikes from small wayside vendors, often from a pre-filled bottle, there are a few petrol stations, one on the road across from the top of Chaweng above the lake on the way to Tesco and there is one on the main road between the top and bottom roads to/from Chaweng.  There are some in Na Thon as well and some other areas, price doesn't seem to vary between them much, I think prices are controlled.

Massage/Spa:  You can spend as little or as much as you like on massage and beauty treatments.  There are small massage places all over the beach areas, every resort has a spa offering all sorts of massages and health/beauty treatments.  You generally get what you pay for, so cheap isn't necessarily good.  We often go the the Friends larger establishment on the road to Chaweng from our resort at Choeng Mon.  We can park right outside and they have a good range of massages from Thai, Foot, Oil, aromatherapy etc at reasonable prices and generally good masseuses, although some times you strike a novice.  In June 2009 we did 4-hand oil massages - 2 girls per person for an hour.  Rates range from about 250Bt an hour for foot or Thai massage to 480 (I think) for the 4-hand massage.  Resort spa massage probably starts around 1200 Bt and up (a long way) for fancier treatments.  Every beach has massage stands, but we prefer a modicum of air conditioning, as much for the masseuse as for us so that we farang don't sweat as much.
 

We tend to alternate between market stall food eaten in our unit and various types of restaurant dining, from fairly basic to one expensive one each week.  If you are driving around the market stalls selling pre-cooked food are fairly common, but the range and quality varies.  Don't be afraid to ask for a taste of any likely looking pots.

In June 2009 our Bangkok Thai friends were with us and found a restaurant we had driven past dozens of times.  It turns out to be a repository of old southern Thai and Samui recipes handed down within the family running it.  We tried many new and unusual dishes there, both eat-in and takeaway.  It is named Khaw Hom (Fragrant Rice) and has quite a large illuminated sign with the name of the restaurant and pictures of some of their dishes on it and is not far from the Big Buddha Pier on the other side of the road from the beach and is set back behind shrubbery, so you don't really notice it is a restaurant on casually driving by.  (The fuzzy picture below is the sign at night)

There is a good choice of wine available now on Samui, from the TOPS supermarket in Chaweng to Tesco Lotus and there are now two specialist wine shops on the main ring road, one near Tescos and one a bit further on towards Bohput heading north, both on the left as you head north.

Incidentally, NV Champagne is often a (relative) bargain on wine lists here, so look at what is offered in comparison to the huge markups on many still wines.  In some places you can get an acceptable NV Champagne for about the same price as a $20-$25 AUD Australian wine on the list.

Many restaurants will allow BYO wine if you ask, but corkage can be fairly high (200-500Bt) but is usually negotiable, especially if business is a bit quiet.  We usually pack 2-3 bottles in each suitcase and last year for 6 people we had a dozen bottles for the week without having to buy more locally.  It's a little incongruous at times eating market stall food costing about $10 in total for two people and scoffing a $50AUD shiraz.
 

Tongsai Bay resort restaurant is supposed to be good, but we haven't made it there yet.

If you really want to splurge (probably ~AUD300/couple with drinks), book in at Dining on the Rocks at Sila Evason resort at the very top of the map below.  If you do dine there, pre-dinner drinks with the resort guests at the bar on the hill is included.  Even if you don't dine there, go and have a look, park below and walk up or catch a trolley and just have a look at the place. 

Some more info on this and other Samui food here.

Big Buddha is worth a visit, there are some quite good clothes at the markets at the entrance and a good coffee shop too.  We tried the BBC (Big Buddha Cafe) just outside the entrance this year and the food is pretty good.

We've enjoyed good Italian food at Villa Bianca in on the beach side in the middle of Fishermans village at Bophut.  They had big glasses to serve the mostly Italian red wines, we picked a NV Champagne that seemed to be the best value on the list and got promoted to a beachside table.  The food was excellent, we mostly ate sea food ( I had a good Aglo, Olia e Peperoncino pasta entree), but there were plenty of meat dishes to go with the red wine selection.

Parking is a bit tricky along the main road, it's best to take the first one you see and walk or even park in the area up near Iyara where it is both directions.  If you do want to go further down, parking in the Tops supermarket carpark is good.  If you go too far in the one-way section, you either have to go all the way down to the bottom of Chaweng, around the main road and back along the top of the lake.  There is a short cut that cuts back along the east side of the lake, but it's not as obvious as on the map.  It has now been moved slightly south and is a two-way paved street, much easier to negotiate.  The satellite map doesn't show it clearly either, the easiest way to find it may be to look for motorbikes turning in, it's now a couple of hundred metres just past Chaba hotel on the right side of the road that seems to jut a little into the footpath, the Exit sign is a give-away not to turn into the fist entry..  There is another road cutting across past the main Market (see middle of the map below), it's worth going down there to look at the markets and eat/buy take away at the restaurants next to it, ask for Kua Kling.  But avoid this route if its wet/raining, it's pretty narrow and drainage is poor.

One good restaurant we often go to is Chilli.  A recent visitor found it lacking, you have to insist on properly spicy dishes.  We went there twice in July 2008 and found it consistently good and on other nights driving past it was consistently the most patronised restaurant open to the street front.  (Again in June 2009 it was good, but not great and Khaw Hom mentioned above is now top of the list for interesting Thai food.)

It's a short walk from the TOPS supermarket car park and has a huge range of food, from seafood through European, Thai and Japanese.  We've only had Thai food there, but have seen plenty of Europeans tucking into Schnitzel and chips etc.  The Thai food is pretty good, fairly small serves though and you have to keep reminding them you want it "spicy" or "pet".  I think you would get reasonable food at many of the other places too, if you avoid the obviously westernised and obviously touristy places.  (Good seafood can be pretty expensive though.)  There was another one on the right-hand side (in traffic direction) a bit further north on the road that was up a very steep flight of stairs from the sidewalk, a mix of Thai and Indian menu, it was Ok and had a variant of Chilli Cashews on the menu.

The most recent trip we also went to HOT (House of Thai), it's air-conditioned, has some different Thai dishes and not too spicy for novices, Sandies Resort on the beach for lunch (just across the road from HOT) and went back to Pee Soon, one of the very basic restaurants in a row behind some markets on the road around the top of the lake from Chaweng. 

Lamai is a lot smaller than Chaweng and has more girly bars on the main drag, it's interesting to wander along there at night (once) just to see what it's like. The resorts are mostly more down-market and European-oriented too, although that may be gradually changing with renovations and re-built/new resorts.  We stayed at the Pavillion on our first visit, in a small bungalow literally 25 paces from the beach and 15 from the pool.

It's worth having a look at the Hin Ta Hin Yai rocks (Grandfather/Grandmother), there are market stalls on the way down to the rocks if you go in the proper entrance, we bought some stuff there last time, they had some large sizes for our big male friend who was along and had difficulty getting clothing to fit.  Don't park in the open area a little away from the market entrance even though it has a sign for Hin Ta Hin Yai), the way to the rocks from there is quite difficult.  A small fee is charged for parking at both places.

Na Thon (major centre, ferry port, shopping)

West Coast, Five Islands (lovely restaurant for lunch, but fairly expoensive), Le Meridien