Mandarin Oriental Sanya

Mandarin Oriental is great hotel brand with world class hotels around the world. Mandarin Oriental Sanya opened in January 2009 with Gerd Knaust as general manager. This year Paul Jackson, formerly F&B manager of The Oriental in Bangkok, took over. I arrived at the hotel, and Paul Jackson welcomed me and informed me they upgraded to a Two Bedroom Duplex Pool Villa, which is their second highest category of accommodation. The arrival experience also included a cold towel and a welcome drink before being escorted to their villa lounge for registration. The villa lounge was a disappointment. At the evening cocktail, they only had a small selection of food, and it was all Chinese. For the actual cocktails, they didn’t even have Baileys. That’s the first lounge I’ve been to where Baileys wasn’t available.

Back to the arrival experience. After the registration, I was escorted to the villa where there was another welcome drink. Unusual to have two welcome drink on the arrival experience, but it was good. Another unusual thing which I liked was the mobile phone the hotel provides villa guests. You have your Chinese number through your stay. Something I’ve never seen before and I like to explore new things. The Internet is complimentary for villa guests but chargeable for others. Back to the villa. It was amazing. 150 square metres spacious villa with great design and many nice details. I liked the view and the private pool, actually I loved everything about the two level villa.

The service was not perfect and not as good as the best Mandarin Orientals, but still at an acceptable level. The staff needs more training and a better English level. The spa was superb, the Balinese therapist did an amazing treatment in their beautiful spa, and it was one of the best spa treatment I’ve ever had. Overall a great experience, the villas is world class, and the atmosphere of being in the hotel feels great. Like a great Mandarin Oriental. Service can be better, but you can live with that when everything else is world class. Huge potential in this property and highly recommended.

My opinion: Great+ experience.