Update on our stay:
Just got back from our first stay at Amanpulo, and it was incredible. In my past post, I had spoken about Amanpulo's response to my request for an excursion to El Nido, which was lackluster and somewhat unresponsive. Well, two days prior to our arrival, Juliana, the Experience Director, reached out and secured a trip! On our second day, Amanpulo chartered a small Cessna to take us to and from El Nido, and then arranged a private island hopping excursion in the area. It was amazing! Amanpulo is apparently trying to make this trip an offered excursion, but they are still working out logistics, so we were the crash test dummies. The cost was very high, but seeing as we were short on time and really wanted to explore Palawan, we found it very worthwhile. We have plenty of pics if anyone is interested.
We were gifted Amanjunkie polos and the woven luggage tags as a farewell gift. One thing to note, we never met Audeline and she never seemed to be present on the island. For all intents and purposes, it seemed Juliana acted as the GM, and she interacted with is often and warmly.
Overall, we had a great stay and finally experienced the Aman style service that is raved about (we didn't receive it as much at Amanpuri or Tokyo). Never needed to ask for our room, everyone knew our name, and rooms were always prepared while we were away. We also lucked out that our stay was sandwiched between two weddings. I don't think we would have received the same level of treatment while weddings were going on, and as we were leaving, the staff seemed very busy prepping for the wedding that night. We stayed in beach casita 21, which worked for us, and we didn't feel the need for a villa.
If I had to nitpick, or provide constructive criticism, it would be that their afternoon tea needs work, and they should work to have a more experienced bartender. On the first point, when we stayed at Amanpuri, we were really impressed with their complimentary tea service in the afternoon. Amanpuri would have traditional Thai musicians play music, while you sampled freshly made thai pancakes and other snacks along with your tea. We always made sure to make it in time to experience this. At Amanpulo, it simply consisted of trays of two sweets placed on the bar. It was very unremarkable, although maybe it's more a credit to Amanpuri than a critique of Amanpulo. With respect to the bartender, we ran in to repeated issues when we tried to order a drink off menu at night. I specifically wanted a gimlet, and my wife wanted a negroni. Nothing overly complicated and fairly well known drinks, but the bartender on our last night wasn't familiar with them (though the previous night's bartender did know it and made a great gimlet).
Either way, these are small things on an otherwise incredible trip. We rarely like to repeat trips (prefer to explore new locales), but we are already trying to figure out when we can go back!