Did a significant amount of research of research on the internet, and finally swung for Langkawi Lagoon despite a number of negative reviews. I booked what I thought was a decent deal for one of their 'Sea Village Suites', which essentially is a cottage on the water (2 levels, one suite per level).
I went in with high hopes with my fiancee, but unfortunately, the room was, bar none, the worst room I stayed in in the past ten years, and I do a lot of traveling in budget hotels.
1) The room was dirty; parts of the windows and curtains were extremely dusty, and my fiancee got hit in the face with a cloud of dust when she was searching for something in the corner of the curtains.
2) There is some sort of air-con freezer/motor/generator situated right outside the door. It was very, very loud. I can handle noise alright, but my fiancee is very sensitive to sound, and found it very difficult to fall asleep.
3) The room was very hot and humid. This normally would not be a big issue, as we could just turn on the AC, but:
4) The AC smelled like mold or mildew. It was very, very nasty. Clearly not cleaned.
5) The toilet was not working properly; it had that problem old toilets have where after it flushes, the mechanism doesn't work properly and it can't fill with water. We had to manually open up the toilet lid and adjust it to get it work properly. Twice.
6) The final straw was the discovery of two cockroaches in my suite. When I raised this issue with reception/management and asked for a different room, they said none were available, but offered to send in the cleaning crew to give it a thorough cleaning "to get rid of anything which is attracting the cockroaches", subtly suggesting that I was at fault. After waiting an hour, nobody came. This was the last straw; I cut short my intended stay and checked out. This is the first time I have ever gotten so fed up with a hotel that I actually cancelled my reservation early and left.
I really hope I just got a crappy room, but I have strong doubts. This is the first time that I have ever given a review of a room; I was upset enough to do so. I moved into a legitimate 4/5 star, and am posting the review from there. BUYER BEWARE!
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC