We decided to give the hotel a try, and it just disappointing despite that they have tried to compensate us with F&B and Spa during the stay. Titanium members.
At check in it was slow - we were promised 2 connecting rooms by the Director of Rooms but apparently an ambassador "suddenly" exercised his late check out. The hotel was giving us free F&B while waiting (which was nice) - however the food was not good - the meat in the beef burgers we got were like the meat in Chinese dumplings - not 100% beef. We wanted tandoori but they ran out (they didn't have coconut either so no coconut drinks). As titanium members we could choose breakfast as arrival gift.
I showed the facebook message to the staff that checked us in regarding lounge benefits and she said she will comp us the breakfast and offered us 1000 points each - which BTW still not in our accounts.
The director of rooms also issued a Rm 500 Spa coupon (for the poor start of our stay) - will get to that later.
Finally we got our rooms and they look nice - however the housekeeping wasn't doing their job properly - on arrival we found a slipper and a empty crayon pack and a black crayon under the beds. Later when we did another check before checking out we found a pasta under the bed. Then the bathtubs don't have hot water all the times, I had to call the front desk and people came to "activate" the hot water by turning on the tap in the sink. It seems that water don't get hot easily (lukewarm) if it hasn't been used for a few hours.
On the second day we wanted to partake the activities as the weather was terrible - we wanted to try Hanna painting, so we went to the lobby ask where it takes place. No one knows and we were waiting and waiting and the activity starts at 3pm, no one knows until the DOR came and the family club staff came and said the Hanna melted due to hot weather (I guess it melted just around the time the activity starts - no signage or information about it). On the same day I got an email about free ice-cream from Marriott for children under 12 and I do have 2, so I asked about that and again they know nothing about it and we waited and waited. Then the FOM came and said they will be in the lobby at 4pm, at 4:05 we decided to leave and then someone finally gave us some ice-lolly.
We told the Director of Rooms about the bathtubs during elite appreciation cocktail (Saturday evening) - it's a nice gesture (especially when there's no lounge - we messaged the hotel via facebook before they decided not to have the lounge they told us that there will be cocktails at the mix lounge and breakfast at the restaurant). The DOR offered to change room but we thought as long as one is functional then we can live with that. There were a lot of elites with families there and the GM suddenly called the babysitter (family club staff) to offer entertainment (she wasn't prepared so she was standing around and did not know what to do).
We couldn't go anywhere because of continuous thunderstorm on Saturday so we decided to go somewhere on Sunday. We had breakfast and went to the beach (was closed the first day we arrived due to explosion from a nearby oil refinery) and the pool (we told the housekeeping to make up our rooms while we were gone). Mr. went up to check and they have just started doing the first room, waited an hour and it wasn't done. We decided to use the room that's not cleaned and got ready to go out. We wanted to go out at 2pm but ended up leaving at 4pm - and we booked the message at 7:30pm. We took a quick drive to Kota Tinggi and back - grabbed some pizza on the way back.
The message was ok, I don't think it's cheap 60 minutes of fusion massage costs RM 250 - I'm not a massage/spa person so I can't judge if it's good or not. Mr. mentioned he saw RM 80 for a 60 minutes massage in Bandar Penawar.
At 11:30am the construction workers were fixing the room next door, and there were work going on outside our rooms - you can hear it clearly from the room. At around 1pm I smelled garlic fried vegetables in room 655 - on top of the fried egg smells in the morning. I wanted to have a bath before check-out but none of the tubs have hot water. I gave up (after having people come up more than 2 times and it's not fixed).
We asked for 2pm check out and was granted - check out was slow - plus they claimed we had to pay for 2 breakfasts in each room (we gave the restaurant vouchers every morning), I told them it's not the case and they had to go through the breakfast list, and finally removed the charges.
The breakfast at the restaurant was good - good variation and quality. Both Mr and I slept poorly on the Heavenly Bed (first time in Westin so we were so excited to try it - and we actually preferred Marriott's bed). The pool was nice mostly because it's empty - when the hotel is fully operational then I don't think it'll be the same (the GM said he expects people to go to the water world next door, also he very much stressed the fact about the hotel being a conference hotel).
We stayed at the JB Renaissance before the Westin stay and the Ren was a much better experience except their breakfast - we got a suite upgrade with a connecting room, the lounge offering was awesome. Housekeeping was prompt and got everything refilled properly all 5 nights we stayed there.
You can take a Grab from JB to Desaru (RM 127), we flew in and out of SIN, so we rented a MPV - on the way from SG to JB it was SGD 80 all in and on the way back it was RM 220 all in.
We rented a car to Desaru - if you are planning to go during SG holiday, book your car in advance. Fortunately we found one via the concierge at the Ren and we got a hyundai elentra for RM 200/day (we were hoping to drive around more than we did due to weather and poor housekeeping).
Filled in the post stay survey (just rated the stay and we just want to let the hotel management know how our stay was) and the DOR replied and mentioned the 400 F&B credit (which I think it was more like 300) and 500 spa voucher for all the inconvenience, and not apologetic (and not trying to rectify the issues). When I talked to the staff my impression was that they used the excuse of a newly opened hotel for all the mishaps.
If you are driving use Waze, the area of Desaru coast is not completed and Mr. used google map and guided me into a road that's not opened.
My advice: Don't go there until next year. We used our points and thought it was good value.
