Here now on a last-minute booking for a few days solo — flew down from Bangkok for a quiet place to catch up on some writing — and am having a great experience. As an Ambassador, got upgraded from a base room on my corporate rate to a garden pool villa — no SNAs involved. Hardly anyone here; have seen maybe five other people in total apart from staff.

The villa is lovely, clean, and well-maintained, even if starting to show its age a bit around the edges (no convenient outlets next to the bed, for instance). F&B has been excellent, as others have noted, and the service has been impeccable and friendly: everyone knew my name the morning after I arrived. The beach is nice but waters very shallow; I don't mind as I am mainly here to sit around lounging with a laptop.

I'd absolutely return, especially for the 3,500 THB a night I'm paying...

Apparently, the hotel changed hands a year ago.
https://www.kap.co.th/kudun-and-part...b-925-million/

I believe that the General Manager is a Thai national, which is rarity for Marriott GMs in Thailand.

Any recent stays here? Ambassadors still getting good upgrades? Anyone stay at any other Marriott properties recently and want to compare? Rates are reasonable compared to the W etc

In December, even with SNAs, I had to get in touch with the hotel (it did not help much), then asked for the help of the Ambassador desk help.
At the end, I got a "Panoramic Ocean Suite, 1 Bedroom Suite, 1 King, Ocean view, High floor, Balcony, Whirlpool". I was offered a Garden view villa for one night, but declined.
My advice is to be proactive and even try to get in touch with the GM of that small (outdated) hotel.

We finished a five night award stay here first week of February.

The stay did not start well.
Website shows that breakfast is included for everyone. It's complimentary. Says so right in the App and on the hotel page on the Marriott website. On check-in, I was offered breakfast as my welcome amenity. Initially I bit my tongue but couldn't help but show the hotel features. I was also told that I was upgraded and got the that dumb little 'you've been upgraded' slip with my key card that drives me bananas.

I booked the base level room offered with points.
I got a base level room on the 1st floor way at the back of the property. Technically it was ocean facing. But was way too low for any kind of view, even if you're looking way out on the horizon. I despise when hotels call something like this an upgrade. Just say 'sorry', nothing available. Argh.

I enjoy garden views for the most part. This first floor room had some nice trees in the view. But it was essentially the exact room type that I booked on points.

Except this room we were assigned was a king bed room. And I'm travelling with my adult daughter and booked a room with the twin beds.

Back to the front desk.

We got relocated to the 4th floor in the same building at the back of the property. This base level room was garden view overlooking a garden-ish type parking lot. A nice parking lot in the grand scheme. And at least the room had twin beds.

Also, in fairness to the hotel, at this point the front desk staff offered to switch us to a garden villa for nights 3 to 5 but I declined because we didn't want to pack up and move. And more importantly, I didn't know this next room was a step down.

As advertised, this room had a jacuzzi tub outside. The jacuzzi didn't work and there was no ceiling fan outside like the other rooms. The ceiling fan is a really nice perk for rooms at the back of the property facing away from the ocean with no breeze. I had to McGyver the tub drain because the plug mechanism was broken. There was a lit candle in the indoor bathroom on the floor beside the plumbing stack (presumably to burn off odor, IDK). The room design itself is nice.

Deal breaker for us was the wifi signal did not reach the room adequately. I didn't notice this until well after dinner. Three attempts by the technician gave us intermittent slow service but eventually failed. Late the next morning with still no fix, I asked for a new room. I specifically asked for the upgrade that I was offered.

We were moved to a garden villa for the last three nights. Lovely, with high ceilings. Stuffy with the a/c off. Too warm and too many mosquitos to leave the windows open. A/C worked very well. It would have been a good start to the stay.

Based on our stay, I can't recommend this hotel and would not stay here again.

Aside from the poor elite recognition, the breakfast was meh. Things like hot dogs in the salad and a very unfortunate signature Samui Eggs Benedict thing. We gave the on-site restaurant three tries for lunch but it was consistently poorly done. The base rooms are in the back of the property across the road from the main hotel. It seems to me that they purchased an adjacent hotel and are trying to incorporate it into the main one.

Walking from the main hotel across the road and toward the base rooms, one can enjoy the ambience of this section of the hotel including a prominent and broken water fountain with associated debris in the dry basin, a second useable but unused rectangular swimming pool, and a poorly concealed mattress storage area directly in what is the lobby area of this section of the hotel. Really not okay.

Staff were all pleasant.

Titanium. No other stays in Koh Samui to compare.

Does anyone know the current upgrade policy at the hotel? I was there 2-3 years ago and was told that the (beach) pool villas are exempt from upgrades. I had to upsell from the regular pool villa to the beach pool villa. It seems that the hotel is quite stingy with upgrades to elite members, when even Titanium only get one room category higher as mentioned in the previous post. I actually wanted to book the sea view room, the next category would be the pool villa as an upgrade. Is this possible as a Paltium member?