Aloft Langkawi Pantai Tengah — Hotel in Langkawi Island

What worked well:

lovely lady welcoming customer to their breakfast and taking room numbers daily was a ray of sunshine. Consistent performance whole 10 days of our stay, excellent job :)!

young gentleman in the restaurant (im sorry of not knowing the names as name tags are not worn, but he wears braces). Always providing great service to the pool terrace with a big smile and strong professional skills (as this is transferable knowledge, he would add value e.g. if promoted team lead / trainer for the collegues, as his work ethics also should be adopted by many other people who should have been servicing the terrace)

Rooms have beautiful view and are overall clear and well kept

pool is very lovely indeed

Areas which would provide value if improved / considered:

Coffee not filled in the room - needed to call many mornings to remind them to separately bring it

Shampoo not replaced, even after reminders three days in a row, shower drain blocked, no conditioner (only replaced once reminded separately), floor not vacuumed for many days = housekeeping was a bit too hasty

Not enough staff in the restaurant / Nook staf not willing to step to terrace during daytime to service customer, meaning lunches took very long and I even needed to go inside few times to request staff to service us (it's not a good look to have two-three people chatting around daily inside when you have customer on the terrace and not even looking to the terrace once. Please re-train the staff)

Not all items on the menu, which was also the case last year - please simply remove them and you are good to go

menu items not matching with description (e.g. pumpkin soup supposed to have lemongrass etc. Actually with RM20 you will get a tiny breakfast bowl of readymade soup with not even salt in it, so either please improve the recipe or consider to remove the item for good)

No dedicated area for adults in the pool area, meaning every single area could be filled with screaming kids, sometimes whole day (kiddie pool, jacuzzis, adult pool) this would be se easily solved by e.g. dedicating all the seats near the bar area at least K-12 (many of your competitors already do this successfully)

during our stay we whitnessed chinese tourists bringing their entire sets of luggage, and kids (not allowed due to serious risk of injuries) to the gym to weight their luggage on the scale meant for people. They also thought it was ok to block a large area with their clothes while exchanging the items from bag to another. Only one hour later another group of chinese tourists came in and stole the scale for good, so perhaps it would be a good idea to consider providing a luggage scale in the lobby Instead...

during our stay, pricing in the restaurant doubled since the beginning of the week with the new food menu, but service is not on par - if we are paying close RM70 for a pasta, the expectation is that four people will be served their main courses at the same time (now the time was 25 min between first and last person served and also our appitizer was served last.. if you expect people to pay even above  KL prices, please ensure you deliver KL quality too)

after the +50% price increase in Nook, same food items are 3-5 x cheaper in less than 100m proxomity, please note knowing your market is important

perhaps I still would recommend to consider the pricing of your new menu, as we have stayed in Malaysia for close to a decade and visited every 5*hotels in KL, but none of them has ever had e.g. as pricy Nasi Goreng as yours here in Langkawi which hopefully gives a bit of perspective how overpriced the...

Excellent service provided by the staff from the Front desk to the cleaners and security. They were all friendly and professional. The front desk staff were exceptionally welcoming. Was given a welcome drink and also checked in early as I arrived in late morning and staff had checked that the room was ready. Was celebrating my wedding anniversary and the hotel provided some simple decorations for the room.

Apart from service, another major plus is how the hotel pays attention to the small details and provides for its guests well (of course, I also agree with alot of the hotel's choice).

Third main draw is their buffet breakfast. There is too much variety that there is something for everyone. I was so stuffed because I wanted to try everything. The buffet menu was slightly changed the second day too, which I appreciate. My personal favourite (if I have to choose) are the peranakan kuehs, which look and taste good. I also like the smoothies that the staff give out at random timings. My spouse likes the Mediterranean section ( Falafel, hummus...) Loved the egg omelette from the live station but it was better when kakak made it on the first day (second day it was manned by a Chinese male and it was too dry and needed more cheese). The milk tea was also good but too sweet for me, I added 30% more hot water from the coffee machine then it was much better. One feedback would be for the meatballs it has stale and very bad aftertaste so I could not eat it, it was the same for both days whether it is in tomato sauce or cream sauce).

The hotel design and rooms are clean, simple and modern. The amenities are quite comprehensive (infinity pool, kids room, gym, soccer and pool table. ) The small snack bar at the lobby was great for late night hunger pangs, grabbed a tuna apple sandwich which was really nice. But note that fresh food have limited quantities...They have activities available daily which you can register with the hotel front desk for (like henna, baking..?) The in-room drinks bar was complimentary which was nice but a suggestion to the hotel to provide Milo powder and perhaps simple tidbits (I feel that they are easy to provide and will be a plus)? The layout of the room is a little awkward as the wardrobe cupboards and mirrors are tucked into the toilet (which is spacious no doubt). Personally feel that the bed is much too soft and would be great to have the option of a private bathtub. Another thing is the shampoo and conditioner is really drying, a suggestion to change to something more moisturizing especially since guests are beach goers so hair and skin would already be dry.

A major flaw I think the hotel has is bad soundproofing of the rooms. I could hear my neighbors conversing in Cantonese even though they were not raising their voices. This is quite important as I felt that I was intruding on others and I was also afraid of making too much noise and disturbing others.

Overall, I think if not for some of the above that can be expanded on (and perhaps a little classy vibes), with the "hardware" the hotel has, it is more a five-star than a four star hotel. It is worthy of it's price. However, do note the location of the hotel is corner of Pantai Tengah which is quite a distance from the bustling Pantai Cenang. So is suitable for those who prefer less busy vibes, plus transport is convenient via...

WILL NOT RECOMMEND. WORST MARRIOTT EXPERIENCE.

Late Check-in Our check-in time was scheduled for 3:00 PM, but our room was not ready until 1.5 hours later. The reason provided was that the hotel was full house, with back to back bookings, and the previous guest had a late check-out. Baffled as to why late checkouts were allowed given that bookings were back to back and with no service recovery offered for such a delay.

Room Cleanliness There were cleanliness issues throughout our stay. To name a few: The drinking cups had black specks on the bottoms, which required us to wash them before use. Additionally, the curtains were dusty, and we observed some mould along the bottom and other parts of the room. Dust was a major issue, as it triggered my friend’s allergies, she needed to take antihistamines and her asthma inhaler.

Ventilation and Temperature Control The temperature in the room was frustratingly inconsistent, which made it difficult to maintain a comfortable environment throughout our stay. It was hot on one twin bed, and cold on the other. On one occasion, we also noticed that the air conditioning had switched off by itself during the night (the balcony door remained shut throughout).

Unresponsive Room Service and Front Desk; long wait time for room service Room service and front desk were uncontactable. We called many times, but were unable to get through. As a result, we had to inconveniently make a trip down to the front desk to resolve our room service order.

Christmas Dinner Buffet We opted for the Christmas Dinner Buffet . To say we were disappointed was an understatement. The hot food was cold, especially the meat options which were cold to the touch (not warm nor room temperature). Both of us experienced diarrhoea the same night and following morning, which we believe was related to the meal.

Poolside Service Drinks and empty cans were littered all around the pool beds and we had to clear them ourselves to create space. Service was slow, cups were dirty and clean towels were dirty.

Request for Early Settlement of Charges On the second day of our stay, we received a letter under the door requesting payment for room service charges exceeding the initial MYR 100 deposit. While we understand the need for deposits, we found this to be unsettling and unprofessional. It created an impression that the hotel did not trust that we would settle our bill at the end of our stay.

Feedback Recovery We brought up all the above points to the management but their response was very disappointing. No recovery, no efforts to compensate or provide any resolution. Just an acknowledgment.

This is the WORST Marriott experience I’ve ever had. Please save your money and go somewhere else during your...