FlyerTalk Forums - Please post your Royal Ambassador Experiences 2019

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Please post your Royal Ambassador Experiences 2019

Royal Ambassador Experience Thread 2019

This thread is about Member holding Royal Ambassador Status in the InterContinental Hotels and Resorts Loyalty Program. A template for the post is provided in this post.

Regions

Africa
North America
Central and South America
Asia Pacific
Europe
Middle East
Oceania

Regions are related to the InterContinental Hotels and Resort location list.

A list with older Royal Ambassador Experience Thread could be found here.

There are also the following threads for additional information
Ambassador Exprience Thread 2019
Rewards Club at Kimpton Hotels Experience Thread 2019
Rewards Club Experience Thread 2019

Please note

This thread is dedicated to the report of the experience and not so much about discussions about each individual hotel, which should be done in the hotel. One of the moderators will add the report to the overview in each thread, which is listed in regions.

If you post here as either Rewards Club or Ambassador Member, you post will be moved accordingly without further notice.

Template for Posting in this thread

How to post

1. Do not use the "Reply with Review Button" but the regular one

2. Put the name of the hotel in the title of the post and the thread

3. Use the following format by extracting it, ie by using "reply quoting", copying the content into memory, then backing out of "reply quoting" and then pasting the copied content into a new post. Each line is formatted so that you can paste in between them having deleted these opening comments:
----

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?

How are the rooms?

How is the exec. lounge?

Did you receive a welcome gift?

How was the minibar?

What was good and what was bad?

-Good

-Bad

Value for $ or Priority Club Points?

Would you return?

Central and South America

The links to each reports in the posts above will cover all of 2018.

Maintenance Schedule
Links to reports between January 2017 and March 2017 will be deleted after April 01, 2019 --> deleted on December 28, 2019
Links to reports between Aprill 2017 and June 2017 will be deleted after July 01, 2019 --> deleted on December 28, 2019
Links to reports between July 2017 and September 2017 will be deleted after October 01, 2019 --> deleted on December 28, 2019
Links to reports between October 2017 and December 2017 will be deleted after January 01, 2020 --> deleted on December 30, 2019

WIth this approach I hope to get a balance between the reqeust to have also older post in this thread and those requesting only to have newer up-to-date posts.

ANA InterContinental Tokyo

ANA InterContinental Tokyo

What is your IHG Rewards Club status?
Spire Royal Ambassador

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Yes

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Booked Club InterContinental Executive Suite for Year End/New Year Holiday, received Imperial Suite.(a.k.a. “HANA” Club InterContinental Luxury Suite)

How are the rooms?
86sqm. I think this room is the best room of 2017-2018 renovations. By this renovations, work desks are gone from Suites. But, only this room have proper work desk. Jacuzzi has gone, replaced to strange shaped but normal functions bathtub.

Video of Imperial Suite:

How is the exec. lounge?
New manager has been on boarded. (Japanese lady, She has been relocated from ICHK) Services and offerings are almost same to before.

What was your welcome gift?
Japanese Mixed Nuts and Daruma doll.

How was the mini-bar?
Fairly good.

Did you receive fruit in the room?
Yes

What was good?
Guest recognitions of field staff. Many choices of restaurant outlet.

What was bad?
None

Value for $ or Rewards Club Points?
Yes

Would you return?
Yes. Here is my home. Every staff are my family.

The Strings by InterContinental Tokyo

The Strings by InterContinental Tokyo

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Meh.

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Booked cheapest and got a '2 level upgrade' to a corner room

How are the rooms?
Very small. the space between the bed and the workdesk was the only area big enough to open a large suitcase. The room is at one of the corners, but has only windows on one side. It did feel more like a downgrade.
Bathroom was ok with separate shower and bathtub
Nespresso machine with 4 capsules (refilled) and two single cup containers with creamer (not refilled)

How is the exec. lounge?
None. They did not even offer free breakfast, only a discounted price of a bit over 3000 yen for breakfast.

Did you receive a welcome gift?
A few crackers, a plate with 4 fruits, 2 bottles of still water

How was the minibar?
Very basic, but two full bottles of wine. Only partially refilled (and charged at the end, had to complain to remove charges)

What was good and what was bad?

-Good
Nice staff, especially the concierge
Location is good for public transportation

-Bad
Room was very small
We arrived by Limousine Bus from NRT. The bus dumps you close to the building. Need to take the luggage up a ramp, then an elevator to a 2nd floor pedestrian bridge, then to the building and another elevator to the 2x floor where the reception is. Not a good experience with a few pieces of luggage.

Value for $ or Priority Club Points?
Since the room rate was around 1/3 of what the other ICs were charging it was ok. It was over new year.

Would you return?
I have been in all four ICs in the Tokyo area now. This is on the bottom of my list.

IC San Fransisco

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?

No

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?

King corner room, upgraded to Junior Suite. I queries at check in why I had not received a 2 category upgrade as per RA T&C's especially given that 1 bed suites remained available for sale until the day prior to my stay. I was promised a move to a 1 bed suite on this one night stay (check in at 15:30) and allocated the Junior Suite (not entirely sure how this differs from a corner room as there was nothing "suite like" about it) pending a long wait to move

How are the rooms?

The Corner/Junior Suite is I think a relatively poor room, the only positive is that it is fairly large but is in all functional respects simply a standard king hotel room.

How is the exec. lounge?

The exec lounge is great and possibly the highlight of this particular stay, with a good food offering and a wide range of alcoholic drinks available in various presentations

Did you receive a welcome gift?

Chocolates and water given to me at check in? After several attempts to deliver fruit and more water to my temporary room it was finally taken to my ultimate room many hours later

How was the minibar?

OK if uninspired, local sparkling wine, some mediocre red and white and a decent spirits selection

What was good and what was bad?

-Good

The lounge and lounge staff, the ultimate suite was OK if not palatial.

-Bad

The 3 hour plus wait for the room I should have had in the first place. This was followed up later by more drama when I discovered (once my room service had arrived) that there was not a single glass in the room.

Value for $ or Priority Club Points?

Would have been good value at $282 without all the shenanigans with the room. I am mystified and remain angry at how it can take over 3 hours from the last checkout time for a RA to clean and make available a room and still have it short of basic accessories.

Would you return?

No, I was ultimately offered to have my bill waived which I declined as I wanted the final push towards spend for RA renewal at the end of 2018, without that I would I think have refused to pay.

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?

Yes

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?

1 Bedroom Oceanfront 1 King Bed Suite, no upgrade given

How are the rooms?

The rooms and view are great although I did not like the position of the room with bathroom and side balcony facing the hotel entrance and shopping plaza with Bubba Gump restaurant.

How is the exec. lounge?

No lounge

Did you receive a welcome gift?

Fruit, water, half bottle of red, nut bowl, cheese, crackers and local honey

How was the minibar?

Mixed, I preferred the contents on my last visit a few years prior but with the exception of only one half bottle of white and the very small Moet piccolo, it was quite decent. What seems to be new is in addition to a decent array of spirits in the minibar there is a set of drinks above the minibar (full bottle of good local blend, 2 half bottles of red, relatively large spirits I think at least 25cl (Goose, Makers Mark, Patron, Tanqueray gin etc.) all included within the minibar benefit

What was good and what was bad?

-Good

The suite is great, the property is in good condition and most staff were superb, the views over the bay and location is unbeatable. The minibar is at the better end of IC properties.

Fabulously straightforward internet access including for devices (like Android TV) that can be a little tricky to get online.

Good bar and bar entertainment

-Bad

Upon arrival at circa 3pm was allocated a second floor room (there is a boardwalk that sees continual people traffic directly below the 2nd floor and these rooms are above the bar and restaurant). I had specifically requested a top floor room (and specific location) and booked 8 months ahead of my stay. Given that I received no upgrade room position was everything and I think I might have left the property then and there had they not moved me from the 2nd floor (it turns out the intended occupant for my 4th floor room was a presumably upgrade AMB). After some stiff words at check in I was reallocated to a 4th floor room (the worst positioned in my view, as I had on my last stay).

No proactive refresh of the minibar (which was not fully stocked on arrival and did not have any snack content until day 2 -after I called at 4pm for my minibar to be refreshed).

No upgrade (but I knew this and wasn't prepared to leave my allocated room to chance, or be given the room type I wanted with a poor location, which I ultimately had to compromise on a little).

Proactive breakfast voucher of $50 for 2 per day plus $15 for tax and service, did not seem to cover much (the cheapest addition we had was circa $30 and that was for one course each, plus coffee, juice and some pastries).

Value for $ or Priority Club Points?

Fair value at the $650 a night cost. Would have been more acceptable without the check in shenanigans on what might be my last ever IC stay (given RA renewal uncertainty)

Would you return?

Yes, with strict caveats. I would probably only book via a TA who could ensure that I got a specific suite allocation. I don't think I would like any of the lesser room types and I wasn't pleased that I got in my view the worst located of the 4th floor suites but was at least happy not to be on the second floor (the lowest floor for this room type)