DavidO

Kagehitokiri

Amanfayun (& beijing) may have peaked in 2012
Musken did have amazing butler (left) in 2014

mumum17

Yes, a GM can sometimes make a difference in ones experience. I whole heartily believe that. Hacienda Altagracia was our latest experience of it... we recently also had our experience elevated at the St Regis in Puerto Rico due to the GM too.

Fc912

This I can confirm.

uclabruin82

Not to get too OT, but why was Amanfayun such a disaster? Currently have a trip booked to amanfayun / Pen Shanghai next April, largely because of how interesting Amanfayun looks online.

Kagehitokiri

if no butler, language problems, may have only been one FTer who did not get butler so far

"worst Aman" may be different vs typical luxury hotels >

above older, recent (most recent here?) fayun report >
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/luxur...l#post27717974

at opening dayan got a bunch of good reports from amanjunkies

chinmoylad

I went in 2013 (or was it 2014?) - who was @Musken's butler? We had Danielle and she was excellent.

chinmoylad

It wasn't a disaster by any means. I said it would rank as one of my worst Amans, which is no bad thing - it's up against Aman Bali, Amanpulo, Aman-i-Khas etc. It's all relative, as Kagehitokiri said.

It's a stunning resort and locale, and I'd much rather be here than by a resort at the West Lake (which is a much more 'standard' luxury hotel experience). Lukasz and Monika Prendke were the GM/Resort Manager respectively while we were there and they were fantastic, and we were serviced by Danielle who was also amazing.

There are a couple of issues when we were there, mostly owing to language I assume, but also that China, generally speaking, is no Thailand when it comes to hospitality (nevermind Bali/Philippines/India etc). So it's not going to be the perfect Aman in that regard, but it's such a unique location.

On the point of location however, you will have some peeping toms - people who have come to visit the temples, walking through the resort. So while it is generally a very peaceful place, there are a few hours when it does get a bit more crowded than you would like, and it's not ideal to sit in your wonderful courtyard while people pass by staring at you. But that's part and parcel of how the resort is based on its location/structure I suppose.

Food also varies based on where you eat - since only two (?) of the restaurants are run by Aman while the others are outsourced.

Finally, and this is a general problem with many of the Amans - the lighting is just far too dark. I don't want it to be lit up like Las Vegas at all, but a bit more light would be very much welcome especially in locations such as these where the sunlight does not always filter through to the rooms.

Again though, absolutely worth it for the location/experience alone.

Kagehitokiri

Musken had head butler, who has left
fayun opened 2010, beijing opened 2008
where did time go.. many poached since then
great english in 2012 (staff from other amans?)
food may also have peaked in 2010 >
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/luxur...estaurant.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/luxur...ry-hotels.html

Musken

We went in October 2014. It is correct that we had a very good butler. She was head butler at that point of time, but unfortunately I cannot remember her name.

vuittonsofstyle

I wonder if the sale of Amanfayun and Amandayan to the Chinese has had any impact on the management of these resorts.

bearbrick

To AhnLuh ?

Aventine

Most likely.

vuittonsofstyle

Not sure, but I heard they had been sold to the Chinese Evergrande Group, who apear to have pretty wide-ranging investments.

Kagehitokiri

fayun always local government? like beijing - always BTG.

ahn luh is BTG, GHM, other JV.