First update post-covid, my first time in Desaru.

Booked a 2-night weekend stay for 37.5k points total (instead of MYR1k/night cash rates) which seems value. I see 37-40k rates available for Fri-Sun stays over the next months.

Platinum perks:
-Upgrade from rock-bottom garden room to high floor sea view. Suites were all booked days before.
-Breakfast (or 1,000 points or 2 glasses of wine)
-Fruit and chocolate platter
-An hour of lounge*
-Late checkout wasn't guaranteed ("as we are a resort") but with heavy rain on Sunday I didn't even try

Overall the property is in good shape post covid (which is worth a callout in this region). Guests were roughly 1/3 locals, 1/3 westerners, 1/3 Singaporeans with Monday being a public holiday in MY. Decent sized rooms, I enjoyed the balcony, bathtub and the kids room.

Lounge: Officially no. The physical Coral lounge however does exist on the 6th floor though and in fact I was ceremoniously given an invite for a "member appreciation event" on Friday which turned out to be an hour of normal lounge operations with cocktails, beers, wine and canapes. Limited to an hour and only happening on Friday I can't help thinking they are trial running regular lounge operations to commence in the future but I might be wrong. Quality was good (although a bit packed).

Food: Had room service on the first day and breakfast on both days from their main dining room "Seasonal Tastes". Local dishes were good, western dishes were... well, available. Service was friendly but not too fast. Leftover dishes everywhere. "Prego", their Italian joint, was 2 classes above that and actually nice.

People: Overall trained for friendliness, not necessarily efficiency. Told housekeeping to "come back in 30 minutes" at 11 and when I returned to the room at 3:30 it wasn't done yet. Called in and it took them another hour to arrive. To be fair that may have been their fullest weekend in a while.

Beach and surroundings: It's a long stretch of fairly clean beach. Tides are not too strong. The closest place in walking distance is the Hard Rock next door where we had friends staying. Although in the same price class, rooms are not as nice and EDM blasts the whole day from the waterpark next to it. Tables in their restaurants looked like those free options on a cruise ship where people forget about thousands of years of evolution. Compared to that the Westin is a lot classier and way more quiet.

Overall not a bad stay but for MYR1k/night and with a 2.5 hour queue at the road border back to Singapore I'd probably just fly off to Phuket next time. Not much apart from a few resort hotels in the surroundings.

7.5/10 - Hotel standalone is nice with some service flaws, Desaru itself probably not worth a second visit.