Relative Joy

The last day of our staycation was expectedly hectic for the hotel staff. Breakfast was erratic and the servers were busily confused. With the crowd pouring in yesterday for the New Year celebration, the chaos was expected. However, I am sure that the marketing people expected this. But degrading the Residence Club to an area that has no privacy feel is really not worth the hype or the extra charge for the supposedly whistles and bells to the more expensive floors.

The good

Dinner at Jasmine was good. Not very good but good. But that’s it. On a better day, I would most likely come back but this wouldn’t be my go-to Chinese restaurant. There are better.

The bad

For a hectic harassed day (or night) at the food outlets in this hotel, the least they can do with mediocre food is to compensate with better service. Yes. That’s the first rule of thumb. A good service always shines above an ordinary meal or below par accommodation.

Breakfast today was a joke. You had to literally wait for a refill. Which didn’t come until I stood up to inform the concierge desk to stop making people come in and take care of the food and the service first.

When something as basic as bacon can’t get refilled, this is classically bad service. And the coffee took quite awhile. I had to stand in line before a lady approached me to ask me what I wanted. I said – coffee. No one assisted me at the door unlike the first day. Chaos overtook service.

Coming from lockdowns in 2021, 2022 supposedly had prepared them for better customer experience. There was Christmas Day to practice anyway.

Even Jasmine was not spared from the attack of the “staycationers”. Dinner reservations was at 730pm. They actually placed us in a shabby makeshift room which hardly justified the ambience of the place.

The set menu was a “blah” so we decided to get what was worth a New Year dinner. But the service was sadly turtle paced. The prawns came ahead of the soup. The cold cuts were the last to be served. The roasted duck was just okay. The dessert was forgetful.

Because the staff needed to go home, they were in a hurry to close all orders by 930pm. Take note that it took us 1 hr to get food on the table because we ordered ala carte. The rest of the snail-paced food finally arrived by 9pm. The kitchen was literally overwhelmed.

The ugly

And while the food came at such a slow pace, they missed one dish. After the meal service, the server noticed that the dish which was never served was just lying on the service table. Now how bad was that? With all servers running back and forth, not one of them bothered to ask – who’s dish was this?

Finally, check out was a breeze at the 24th floor. But the elevators took more than 30 mins to even get a ride. And that is really a bitch with the “overnighters”.

Finally, if you can – DO NOT have your car valeted. It took us almost an hour just to have the car delivered to us. And you still needed to pay for valet with that kind of service.

The recommendation

While the hotel is just a stone’s throw from the Greenbelt mall, that’s its only strength. The rooms are outdated. The place isn’t highly recommended as many of the rooms (and we booked 3 for 6 adults) have awful beds (sleep quality is 1 of 4) and broken furnitures.

It’s a pet-friendly hotel. And seriously, the pets were more behaved than rowdy kids that rolled around the hallways and lobby. (I hate saying it but the kids needed the leash more than the pets.)

While it was understandable that it was, after all, a vacation for everyone after the more than two years lockdown of Du30, the hotel should have been more prepared.

Among many of the hotels we stayed in for our staycations, this rates at the bottom rung.

On check-in, we were welcomed by someone who asked me about where our previous vacation hotels where and she responded that she hopes after our stay this New Year, we would make New World Hotel our destination staycation hotel of choice from now on.

I recall those very words. And as we checked out of the hotel, I laughed and thought she was joking. They don’t know how bad their hotel is.