It’s always a pleasure to stay in any Shangri-La hotels. This time I stayed at The Fort, from the security, front desk staff, housekeeping, room service, everybody was exceptionally nice. The hotel followed the safety health protocols. I would definitely stay here again.
Horror of horrors checking in and out. It really was taxing checking in as I had to go through a bunch of emails to prove that we already paid for the voucher. I mean how can we pay for the 2 rooms without paying for the voucher first? Does it make sense? Wait there's more...
We originally planned to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary (Oct 10) and my 35th birthday (Oct 11) in the Shangri-La Boracay, though covid happened ☹️ Our airline cancelled our flight about a week before Boracay re-opened so we decided not to force ourselves to push through with the trip altogether. Since hotels have also just reopened their doors to local guests for leisure, my wife and I took this chance to try out the Shangri-La at the Fort. Just a little background about us, me and my wife are designers/contractors. My wifes family has always been fans of the Makati Shangri-La, while my family has always been loyal to The Peninsula Manila. I proposed at Makati Shang, we had our wedding reception at The Pen. As a couple we love trying out hotels, we’ve tried pretty much all the hotels around the metro. We’d like to think of ourselves as hotel connoisseurs. 😆 Fast forward to the present, a few days before our stay, we called the property to ask if there are any specific requirements for our stay so that we may prepare. We also asked if we could check in early, and we were gladly allowed to check in earlier than the usual. When we got to the hotel around noon (didn’t get to take advantage of the early check in as we had to take a Covid rapid test in the morning 🙁), there was no one in the front desk and concierge. We stood around for about 15 minutes until a roving guard noticed us waiting and radioed for someone to attend to us. We waited for about 10-15 more minutes and two front desk officers arrived, though it seemed like they were not aware that we were waiting. We then asked she could assist us to check in and she obliged (no apologies for the wait, though I think she wasn’t aware that we’ve been waiting for quite a while now). She was quite pleasant to talk to and she also greeted us for our anniversary and my birthday after she saw it on her screen. There was also a time that we were going out so we had to get a parking pass but again, no one was around and we had to have a guard to radio for someone to assist us. The check in process was a breeze and soon enough we were up in our room. As we always do, we check out every part of the room first. At first glance the room was really nice. The view of BGC (we were in the 26th floor) was aIso quite nice. I appreciated the room better in actual than in pictures. The bathroom wasn’t too nice though, I think the layout would’ve been better if the bathtub and lavatory counter switched places, much like the layout of most hotels. It also looked a bit bland compared to how the actual room looked. What really shocked us though was how the room was finished, it was really quite bad. For a hotel that’s barely a few years old, some of the finishes are quite falling apart. We also noticed that some finishes showed damage not from wear and tear but from poor finishing work (maybe rushed?). Wood veneers chipped, poorly executed patchwork, grout flaking off, loose toilet paper holder, extensively repaired hinges in some cabinets, very poor application of caulking, improper aiming of directional lights. I also didn’t get why the drawers were soft-close while cabinet doors were not. When I first used the handheld shower, the liquid that came out was brown and murky at first, good thing it was directed at the floor. Management should probably do a run of all taps and showers before guests use the room since probably a lot of the rooms were unused during the quarantine periods. It was also quite rainy during our stay and I noticed that there were quite annoying noises that could be heard from outside the building, specifically the sound of raindrops hitting the tubular metal outside the window, I have a video of this and I attached a photo of the tubular metal here on this review. The bed and pillows though were sublime. I miss sleeping in them. The couch was comfortable too, though a bigger and lower coffee table would’ve been better. When we arrived there were a total of 8 bottles of water in the room already which is very generous compared to others, though I wish that a coffee machine would be standard in all rooms (as I was informed that Nespresso machines were only equipped in the club floor.), most newer hotels of the same tier have this as standard (all Grand Hyatt rooms have Illy espresso machines; all Raffles rooms have Malongo; and all Ascott BGC and Discovery Primea rooms have Nespresso). Also even a little note to greet us for our anniversary and my birthday would’ve been greatly appreciated. In other hotels we’ve recieved a small cake at the very minimum. I loved the idea of having breakfast ordered online. It was easy to do although our first breakfast took quite a while to be sent to our room. We had to call to follow up twice. There were also a few mistakes in our order although probably it was because of a few requests I made. Breakfast the following day was better as it was served quickly and the server showed all our food first to make sure that everything was right. For our anniversary dinner, we had a table booked at the Raging Bull Chophouse thru the phone operator. Reservation was a breeze and dinner was fantastic. I loved the selection of wines. Still irked a bit by the knives though. This is our third time to dine at Raging Bull and still, the knives are not as sharp as we expected them to be, as those are supposedly a highlight experience when dining at Raging Bull. During our first try, we were with my MIL and uncle, we tried changing all our knives but all were not too sharp. This time we didn’t go through changing anymore as we were starving already. Haha Sorry if this review is quite long and if there were quite a few negatives that I pointed out, these are not meant to tarnish the property but instead to help you guys find ways to improve. The whole stay came out fair as there were highs and there were lows. Though this stay would not dissuade us from staying at the property again in the future. Hoping that things would all be better by then. …
Upon enquiring whether employees got mandatory testing, the girl nervously replied they did. However, another employee informed me that none of employees have been tested for COVID and those who have, have had to pay for their own tests before resuming work. This is very concerning when all employees are residing together in the hotel.
I came to the Philippines for a humanitarian purpose on July 4th 2020 and stayed at the Shangri-La hotel at the Fort Manila until August 7th. From being picked up at the airport to the hotel, I received 1st class accommodations. The staff is amazingly friendly and supportive of their guests every needs. All this during a pandemic. It was extremely emotional leaving Shangri-La because my fiancé Karen and I, forged such tight bonds with the front desk staff. I’m looking forward to going back to the Philippines as I’m planning to live there permanently. This is by far the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at. Patrick OGrady
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