The Westin Tashee Resort, Taoyuan — Hotel in Taoyuan City

This is a beautiful resort. The views are gorgeous for taiwan, the food was of great quality, and the staff are generally friendly. I dined at the Chinese restaurant for dinner and had arguably the best fukkien fried rice. A pretty rare dish for taiwan, it was even more rare on its presentation where they brought the dish to me with the sauce separated from the fried rice. In contrast to typically fully mixed in sauce on rice, this presentation allowed me to not only enjoy the dish with its full flavor sauce on rice with real crab and scallop meats, but I can also taste the fried rice's fluffy and light texture in-between bites. This dish was the highlight of my stay.||Furthermore, the beautiful handmade cake provided to us for our special occasion was greatly appreciated by my family. It was beautifully presented, great tasting, and an overall delightful experience. ||As an elite benefit, They allowed us to enter the sauna spa room for free. I don't know how much it costs otherwise, but it has a steam room and dry sauna, a hot pool and cold plunge pool, and a few loungers. It is beautiful, but you gotta partake in this going full commando, which isn't a social norm in taiwan. I was a bit surprised by this, but no one else used the facility when I was there so it was really nice. Mind you I would likely never used the lounger fully naked with other strangers in the room. ||Unfortunately the weather wasn't great during our stay, so some of the facilities couldn't be used like the unhealed outdoor pool. I also found some of the attractions a bit gimmicky, like the 9 hoops basketball station that doesn't keep any score or have a timer or something. Any electronic that keeps scores or times the players would have made the attraction a lot more engaging. The playground was big and fun, but again with the rain we couldn't fully enjoy it. The carousel was nice, but maybe more suited for little kids. Then there's the mini golf which closes at 6pm. I thought that was really weird considering it's still quite bright out. Our bigger disappointment was with the race track being closed for renovation. The alternate track they had on was laughable with a tiny rectangle track that takes 10 point turns for the kiddos to make a 180 turn.||The indoor kids facilities felt a bit nickel and diming. For the price we pay at the resort ($600USD a night), you would think they wouldn't charge you another $3 here and there for every little video games you wanna play. The "free 10 minutes vr" was also quite laughable. For a weekday stay benefit, one of our kids was able to make a wood postcard art craft for free, but the second kid had to pay an extra $6. REALLY? ||Finally, I thought the value proposition of the rooms left quite a bit to be desired. We booked the standard room that was around $450USD, not cheap by any means. Only to realize the room would have 2 twin beds for 2 adults and 2 kids. I've never stayed at any Marriott properties that allowed 2+2 with 2 twin beds, at worst it would be 2 doubles most times 2 queens. My jaw almost dropped when I saw the room. Then, they said there is no suite upgrades for 2+2 even for titanium elite members. And if we wanted a proper suite that can sleep 4, we had to pay. So we reluctantly moved up to the $600 usd suite. Mind you this is on a weekday when occupancy is relatively low, I felt for the amount of money we spend at marriott properties I have never been treated less as a titanium elite member. I can fully understand suite upgrades are subject to availability, but instead they put it behind a pay wall, plus stuffing you with a non-realistic sleeping arrangement for a standard room, I gotta say I felt pretty cheated and the disgenuinty from the hotel. Another small negative, is given how elaborate and fancy the breakfast is, I was very surprised it didn't have any smoke salmon, it should be a staple at these 5 star establishments. ||All in all, I felt Tashee Westin is one of our less appreciated 5 star stays throughout our marriott loyalty journey. I won't be back here nor would I recommend it to other well traveled...

Well... NT$ 14'301 for one night with dinner and breakfast for two. There is nothing to complain about the staff we've met, starting from the curbside, the check-in and the restaurant. All absolutely friendly, helpful and professional. Ok - the uniforms looked like 20 years old. A stain here and there, a torn seem and a look like stone washed. This is not the issue of the person itself, but of the management. But there is another, more serious issue with the staff: The cooks in the "Seasonal Tastes" buffet restaurant are not really aware, that they are working in an open kitchen! Sure - they have fun and they communicate. But in a way which is far away from professional. They are loud and obviously totally unaware of the fact, that all guests can see and - more annoying - hear them. This unprofessional behaviour is also reflected in the food they prepare. It is a buffet, full of nice varieties, but everything appears like it was cooked a few days ago! Everything (except the Indian section of the buffet) is dry, overcooked and it looks just not fresh. It is most likely cooked on a budget (which is understandable in current times), but still, an educated chef should be able to enhance appearance and taste, even if the ingredients are not from highest quality. Also the replenishment of the dishes was more than slow! Although there were many kitchen staff present, it looked like none of them were in charge to refill empty plates or even empty glove dispenseres. Charging NT$ 1'200 for an adult is overpriced and the CP is as low as it can be. For food and kitchen I definitely issue a 1-Star review. The management should provide some training!

The room was nice. Many nice details. But many nice details also need many detailed cleaning! If there is not enough time to clean and keep the agreed check-in time at 3pm, then it would probably help to remove some items from the room and allow the room service staff to focus better. Just one example is that orange box. I couldn't find out, for what use it should be. But I could find out by opening it up, that many many guest before us used this box to store cookies, chocolate and probably socks or similar items. The leftovers were still in that box. Birds on the balcony leave their signs of existence too....

The Westin provides something for everybody - but unfortunately not much for us. We are not really interested in sitting at the pool bar and watching our phones. But there is no other way to spend the time at the pool bar, because a normal conversation is impossible due to such loud music pouring out of huge speakers. Drinks and fruit platters are pricy too! We had to go back to our room to continue our chat.

And probably because everything is a bit expensive, you have to pay a deposit upon check-in! Obviously the management had bad experience with guests just departing without paying??? This was never mentioned during the reservation process, nor in any of the confirmation mails. Unusual and surprising - but, as we already arrived, there is not much to do against such a measure of mistrust.

This Resort-Hotel isn't for us! It is also not for you, if you are looking for a relaxed over-night stay, away from business stress and to relax for an evening at the pool bar during happy hour after a nice cosy dinner. Oh - happy hour is also weird. It's only for beer. Wine and other nice drinks are just discounted or even exempt. To compensate this, a DJ is providing even louder music which you can enjoy back there in your room too.

But The Westin is definitely for you, if you like to go swimming with your kids, hang around and show to the world what you have.

And to make it clear: This is my very personal opinion and I do not want to harm the business. There are thousands of other who like this style and who will book here again and again. This is great, because The Westin deserves to exist and it is an important employer for the region. Wish you all the best and thank you...

To Patrick Lin (Loyalty Manager) 林明勳，忠誠客戶經理。

Wasn't going to say anything but sitting here having awful breakfast changed my mind.

Overall, the arrival check-in service is fine, no issues here. We were offered upgrade to a lower floor "resort view" room as a Titanium benefit, was told no suites were available (which in fact wasn't true as one can still book a base level suite same day). This property has always been stingy on suite upgrades, I would have much more respect for your procedures if you your staff simply say "our suite upgrade quota is full", rather than no suites are available.

I didn't escalate the situation during check-in as I figured it would be a typical resort view room facing the pool. Little did I know we got stuck in possibly the worst room on your property at Room 337. Not only was this the furthest walk possible from hotel lobby, the room also have a strange bathroom layout/small compared to others we've stayed at here. Frankly, if we were told this "resort view" upgrade was this terrible location and really just mountain view, we would of rather kept our originally mountain view base room. Also not to mention we found a live cockroach this morning on the floor by vanity sink area. For as long as I've been a Marriott/SPG member (lifetime platinum), I've never seen a cockroach of any size inside a room in Taiwan or anythwre else in the world.

Upon this return, the property have turned what used to be a member's lounge area into a gaming area, not necessarily a bad thing, as the lounge area was probably under utilized. Although that's likely due to you've only provided soft drinks, coffee, and chips previously. So instead of lounge, members are offered a welcome drink at the lobby bar. When we went and took advantage of this benefit, we found out your property is the first Marriott property we've ever visited where welcome drink offer choices doesn't include a well drink or beer, another negative.

While the service at check-in was fine, same can't be said about your staff in your outdoor facility area. We were looking to play miniature golf and was waiting in line to be assisted, but your staff only seem to pay attention to family with kids. We had to flag someone down to be assisted. While this resort clearly caters to kids, a plus, it doesn't mean folks visiting without kids should be treated as second class citizens.

Now, let's circle back to the food, which is what really triggered this email to you. We first stayed at this property during the first year of grand opening as I recall. On our first stay here, we decided to do your buffet dinner on site, which proved to be the first and last time. The ingredient qualify, freshness, preparation and even refilling certain dishes are simply awful. We even skipped breakfast here since that visit until this morning. Thinking that the food offering here may have improved, but I was wrong.

Compare the food program at this property vs. similar level Marriott properties in Taiwan it's very clear that your resort is the absolute worst by a large margin. Sheraton, W, Le Meridien, Marriott, Renaissance, and even the Courtyard properties in Taipei have much better food than here.

I am not sure how serious you would take the above complaints, as the property seems to be doing good business. I am also fairly certain we would come back to stay at this property in the future, as there lacks other options in northern Taiwan. That said, this property can be vastly better if the ownership is willing to improve on it's...