A Staycation Experience

As you all know that, “Travel diaries have numerous pages to explore, and the one who does not travel, cannot explore more”. If you have anything to explore, go for it because everything has a particular time. Keeping this quote in mind, I planned a trip to one of the best hotels in Mumbai for my marriage anniversary. Covid19 times have been a kiosk creating moment for everyone in this world. Remembering this effect, I decided to just change the destination internally and opted for St. Regis. Lower Parel, Mumbai.

I was in two different moods now; one was my marriage anniversary and the other was our office monthly catchups. Why not do both at the same time? Right!!! This is what came to my mind as my wife and daughter were ready for the trip, we mutually decided to drive in for both the plans. One of the prime reasons opting for St. Regis was someone’s recommendation, and it was close to the office as well. Like everyone, even I wanted a smooth and secured check-in, and I think I got this gifted, from the hotel staff.

Witnessing a smooth check-in, duty officer assisting us in every manner possible, answering all my painful questions, I felt that we have landed at the best place ever. Entering our room, we sided the curtains experiencing a beautiful view that gave me a thought of sitting with a cup of coffee or tea with some snacks and talking to the sea before me. I was simply viewing the scenario and got a call stating that we even have a personal butler for us. Isn’t this amazing!!! I have traveled globally to many hotels but never got such an amazing acquaintance. I had never experienced such a wonderful way of welcoming guests in any hotel.

Evening time was particularly for celebrations and that’s why me, my wife and daughter went to the lounge for some entertainment. They also offered and guided us with some of their best mocktails. Post this, we saw the champagne sabrage that is St. Regis signature ritual. It was quite unique. We got a souvenir as well from this ritual. After a couple of hours, we went back to our room, enjoyed the mesmerizing view at the window. The dinner time arrived and we noticed that the hotel had a buffet system with huge amount people gathering for the dinner. We had to wait for a long time for our turn to come. I felt this deep and shared my experience reacting to which many people came to my rescue, apologizing and informing me that there were more people at the hotel for this weekend than expected.

 Driving my family down for the breakfast, I again noticed a helpful and wonderful staff who suggested us everything going out of the way. We say surprises are good but I found that surprises are excellent!! Reaching our room after breakfast, I saw a delicious cake with a set of balloons decorating our hall was waiting for us. A nice gesture for any couple I would say on their marriage anniversary day. Later, I opted to choose room-in dining that gave me an unexpected result. Unexpected as in, we all found this room-in dining with hand-to-hand services, an out-of-the-world experience for us. I spent my whole day in our room chilling and then again in the lounge relaxing with some mocktails, milkshakes for my wife and daughter after which we had a delicious dinner and was ready the next morning for our breakfast again.

Here, I was a bit late as I got a soothing effect on the soft bed in my room and joined my family in a hurry. I could see that the hotel staff was consistently asking my wife for some customized pancakes and dosas which was a sweet gesture from their end for us. We had so many options in the buffet breakfast that we all were unable to decide where to go first and what to have. Post breakfast, I had an amazing shower bath which made me feel like being in heaven. So, now we were ready to leave and went down for the check-out. The front desk was calmly doing my check-out process and the analytical staff came out and started asking us about the experience we got while staying in St. Regis.

One beautiful thing about this place I will always remember is the extremely helpful and courteous staff including the "butlers". They’ll be in the top 2 for me on the list. Whenever you get an extremely out-of-the-way service, you forget all the cons. Extremely good managers who were open for the feedback in the venue team. I have already planned an outing here again in July and will give a surprise visit to St. Regis. As the experience is about keeping it consistently good & shouldn't be one of thing which happened. Most importantly nowhere did I mention to them that I was going to write an article on this. Yet they were extremely nice and helpful. If I do pay the 2nd visit, will let you know about the experience. In this pandemic time, where the hotel and travel industry has been badly affected, we should show some empathy towards the hotel staff and their team so that they could feel positive and build the same track again.