Amanpulo Trip Report

Dear Luxury Forum participants,

I just returned from Amanpulo and wish to share some of my experiences and thoughts with the Luxury Forum, which I have so much appreciation for, I prepared a more comprehensive trip report onthe regular TR forum, if you wish to see some pictures and read some more general information. This report will have two sections; Highlights and Lowerlights...

1) The beach, the beach, the beach. Truly exceptional. I wonder if it can get any better?

2) The resort and service. It was a great Aman experience and the service rarely faltered.

3) The diving program. Earl, the dive master, was incredible and really helped me in my first dives ever and my subsequent certification.

4) The casita. Was very comfortable and the beach access was a real treat.

5) The bicycle. I had not ridden on one for maybe 25 years. It was a pleasure to get back on a bike, and it felt very natural riding one throughout the resort.

6) The massage I had by the guest masseur. He was from Tokyo and practised Shiatsu. It was simply incredible. He was a true master. Kudos to Aman for bringing him in. The treatment was like physio therapy; it was not just a mere relaxing rub down....

7) Perhaps one of the greatest highlights of all was meeting Aiinternational, a Luxury Forum regular! He was a super, super guy and it was a thrill to meet him and exchange notes on our respective travel. It was comforting to know that the people here who one suspects will have a lot of common interests and tastes, do in fact have such common interests and tastes! If you can ever meet up with another Luxury Forum regular, I highly encourage you to do so!

I find myself a bit confused because although I had a great time, there were a number of areas which I felt disappointed with, and for me, this changed the complexion of my trip. With Trisara, Amandari, and Amankila, I had only positive things to say, and was blown away by every aspect. Here, although the service and facilities, and physical environment were second to none, I feel upset that I have to write what is unexpectedly a somewhat mixed review.

1) Now, this is by no means the fault of Aman whatsoever, but as a word of caution to others, it was a real pain in the arse to go from Toronto to SFO to Seoul to SIN to MNL, and then finally get to Amanpulo by another plane, even if it was mostly on SQ First Class....I would not want to do that again without a couple days in between as layovers....When going to Bali from Toronto, I did YYZ-HKG (stopover) then SIN (stopover) and then Bali, and that was enjoyable..., particularly without US customs....This was a bit much, as I did it without any real stopovers.....

2) The food that I had at Amanpulo was lacklustre. This was very surprising to me. I had fully expected food that would serve as a highlight for the trip, but what I experienced was food that would make me not have any urge to go back to Amanpulo whatsoever, for that reason alone. I simply did not find many dishes that I would ever want to have more than a single time. The Philippino dishes, which understandably (given the location) took up a full third of the menu, yet had absolutely no attraction for me. That left the Asian and Western menus. Out of all the dishes that I had over a six night stay, only the grilled sardines were great. The rest was just good, and good is not enough for me on such a trip, especially when at Amandari and Amankila, each dish I had was exciting and each dish was deserving of ordering it yet again.

Here are some examples:

Pad thai: good/average

Wagyu steak: good/average

Greek salad: good/average

Shrimp tapas: pretty good, one of the better dishes

Mixed fried seafood: good/average

Tropical bircher musli: nothing special at all and too sweet

Pizza: good/average

Toast with cheese and tomatoes tapas: very good

Grilled sardines: excellent

Vietnamese crab: good, but a real mess to eat, and like $100

Rice paper salad rolls: not very good

Cheeseburger and fries: burger was good, fries very soggy

Thai grilled beef salad with coriander etc: good/average

Shrimp Chips served with KETCHUP in the Vietnamese restaurant: Ridiculous.

The big disappointment for me was the Nasi Goreng. I would go to Bali again just for this dish which was my favourite. At pulo, I ordered it once (would have been $25 plus service charges if breakfast wasnt included), and never bothered to order it again. It was just the usual fried rice..... So you can see that very little was actually bad. It was just that nothing really excelled or excited, and over 6 nights, I want exciting and excellent food every time on my vacation.

3) Spa/Massage

I found the "Signature Massage" treatment very lacklustre. Now given, I had it shortly after the best massage of my life (the guest Shiatsu master), but I really felt that this was nothing more than an oily rub down with very little vigour or use. Also, there was not much to the pre-massage or post-massage experience; it felt quite perfunctory.

4) The aquatic life

Now, I am a bit hesitant here, because I really enjoyed and appreciated the professionalism of the dive program and Earl was a stellar teacher. It is worth going wherever he is for training IMHO. And I did see some incredible, massive sea turtles, and a cool marble sting ray. But after exploring several dive sites, I cannot help recall that, if my recollection serves me (which I am unsure about), then the abundance of colourful fish at Amankila (while snorkeling only, no less) was superior to what I saw at pulo, and I was very surprised by this.

5) The transfers

Bit of a back-story here. Upon arriving at MNL, the Aman rep was nowhere to be found for about 15 minutes while I sweated it out at the terminal. Every other hotel rep was there with a sign, but not Aman's. Finally I asked the IC rep where the Aman rep was, and was told he was outside...I went outside and found him. Not a good start....

The driver was in a beautiful new black luxury vehicle, marked with Shangri La hotel btw. He was an incredibly gracious driver. Since I had about 3 hours to kill before my flight, I asked him if he would mind taking me to the Mall of Asia, which is right next to the airport, so that I could very quickly pick up a bathing suit from the Speedo store there. He contacted Aman and obliged, and I tipped him $30 for his trouble. We were in and out of the mall in under 15 minutes, perhaps a half hour more in time spent than if we had just gone right to the terminal, including travel time . I then got a bill at check out for about 3600 PHP plus service charges, for an hour car service, which is about $100. OK fine. It was worth it, but didn't think they would charge me for that and that is why I tipped the driver so much.

But that leads me to the next thing; the Aman terminal which is adjacent to the main MNL terminal and is only about 15 minutes from the Sofitel, involves a 3500 PHP transfer charged by Aman. The same price applies for a transfer to Makati, which is more like 45 minutes away instead of 15. On the way back from pulo, I decided to go by the SQ office to see if they had found my camera which I had left on a previous flight (no they hadn't...), and then took a taxi to the Sofitel. I also took a taxi from the Sofitel to the airport the next day. Guess how much the taxis cost? 125 PHP or US $3.00! And the taxis were no problem whatsoever. Just so you know....

6) There was some concern over the Virtuoso breakfast benefit. When checking in, I was handed a card which set out what a "Continental Breakfast" entailed. The Virtuoso benefit included only a Continental Breakfast. So I thought that was going to be it....I checked with the waiter the first morning, and he told me I could order anything I wanted, so I did. Fortunately, I was never charged for breakfast, and thank you for that, Aman. Very nice. But that was not the case with another guest who was there at about the same time....

7) Where the F&$# are my leather luggage tags? I got paper luggage tags. I was REALLY looking forward to the beautiful leather ones...What happened with that?!

8) Housekeeping was perfect in their execution. They made my casita perfect every time. But unlike other Amans, they didn't always manage to do it while I was out, even with adequate opportunity. This left me cooling my heels on several occasions and was a bit surprising.

You know what? I really enjoyed myself there. It was a great experience in an absolutely amazing place. But for whatever reason, I just feel that it was not as enjoyable as Trisara, Dari, or Kila....And that is frustrating for me, because other than the food issue, there is no reason I can put my finger on. Maybe Bali just has something more magical for me. I have no idea. Maybe it was the food...I don't know. Frankly, I am surprised that I am feeling this way about it, but all in all, I would go back to Bali without any hesitation, but would not rush to go back to Amanpulo. Maybe someone has some thoughts on this...No disrespect intended to Amanpulo, which is of course an amazing place. And MANY THANKS to DavidO, for a confirmed upgrade to a beach casita!!!