When I booked online in March 2008, the Shangri-La's website offered two rates, one for room only and another (substantially higher and called their "Value Rate") which included 6pm checkout, complimentary breakfast, free airport limousine transfers, unlimited laundry and dry cleaning, international calls and faxes at cost and free local calls. For the hotel to describe the breakfasts as "complimentary" and the airport transfers as "free" is more than a little cheeky since they are well and truly costed into the overall rate. As ours was a split stay of 9 days and 5 days, with a gap of 9 days and a late night flight between the two, I opted for the Value Rate which, in the event, proved to be no more than fair value for money. The real benefit was the 6pm checkout, which the hotel immediately extended to 7pm on asking for our flight departure time. Other than this, using metered airport taxis, and paying for breakfasts and services such as laundry, would have worked out quite a bit cheaper.
Having travelled on an overnight flight from London, we arrived at the hotel just after eight in the morning and were taken immediately to our room. There was no question of waiting until after 12 noon before being able to check-in. On our return, we again arrived around 8am and were again taken straight to our room, even though the hotel was very busy. Whether this had anything to do with our being on the Value Rate, I don't know.
The rooms were spacious with high ceilings, well furnished and very comfortable, had excellent beds and lacked nothing. State-of-the-art TV and DVD player, large illuminated walk-in wardrobe with lots of hangers, cunningly concealed kettle, tea and coffee, china mugs, saucers and plates, nice cutlery lots of glassware and a well stocked minibar. An equally spacious and well stocked bathroom had a separate walk-in shower compartment and another housing WC and bidet. Attention to detail was impressive as was the standard of housekeeping. Each day rooms were cleaned as though being prepared for new arrivals and the evening "turn-down" service was much more than that.
The several restaurants meant that, even for a stay of 9 days, there was lots of variety and choice, and the dinner buffet in the Sofra Bld had an amazing range of dishes. I felt that dinner here was excellent value although wines came at eye-watering prices. It was in this restaurant that the buffet breakfast was set out and, once again, there was a fine selection but sadly, with the exception of egg dishes cooked to order by duty chefs, much of the food which should have been hot was barely warm.
There must be few nationalities which are not represented by the staff of this hotel who are mainly young, efficient, polite and friendly. On the whole, service was not just reliable but was very good indeed and we look forward to returning to the Shangri-La in the future provided that there is no total collapse of the British Pound! Overall, this would have been incredibly good value had the rate of exchange been at the same level during our stay as when I booked last March. In the event, the Pound depreciated by more than 35 per cent against the United Arab Dirham during this time.
On a final note, when booking I asked for a high level room and stressed that I did not want one at low level. The room allocated was on the 4th floor, which was ideal, but had we been on the ground floor (rooms starting with the number 1) we would have been most unhappy as these rooms have views of passing guests and staff from their windows and terraces.
