My husband and I spent 5 nights at Raffles The Palm in early December, and it is a strikingly beautiful hotel, but to be really honest, we were disappointed with our experience and felt it offered poor value for money. I've refrained from leaving this review for a few weeks as I was fearful of being a little overly critical straight afterwards, but given the prestige of the brand, and the price tag attached to this hotel, I think it's worth taking the time to set people's expectations.
The Good Bits
Beautiful hotel, opulent, grand, smells incredible. The majority of staff are very friendly, always greet you with a smile and are eager to help.
The Club lounge is (usually) a peaceful escape from the crowds, breakfast selection is plentiful and tasty, afternoon tea is delicious and there are a generous amount of nibbles during appretivo hour. Views from the terrace are lovely.
The food and drink at all outlets was exceptionally good, we ate in the main restaurant, the beach restaurant and the Japanese twice (excellent- not to be missed!) The gardens are gorgeous, and the beach is huge and relatively peaceful.
Rooms are vast, extravagantly dressed and come with every amenity you could need. Blackout curtains are excellent! No early sun creeping in whatsoever! Housekeeping kept it looking amazing every day and the turn-down service was a nice touch.
The Not So Good
We amended our booking a while back from 3 nights to 5. Even though we had had several emails back and forth with the hotel prior to arrival and confirmation that the bookings had been linked, upon check in, they still had these logged separately. We were given all the details on how the Club Lounge operated and invited to stay for breakfast (we had arrived very early, 8am) and they advised they'd do their best to get us a room ready as quickly as they could. We were left to our own devices from there, no hotel show around, no explanations on the hotels facilities, where to find anything etc. Despite checking in with reception a couple of times, by 3pm - our room was still not ready. We made our way back up to the Club Lounge, where the staff did their best to avoid eye contact with us and were looking generally rather flustered. When we enquired yet again about our room, we were asked to wait in the lounge and a butler would be with us shortly to escort us to our room. 30 minutes later, no sign of the butler. We nudged the check in staff for an update, no apology, just another hasty call made and a request to wait a little longer. In the end the gentleman at the Club Lounge check in desk came over and said he would take us to our room, it was almost 4pm by this point.
When we entered, it was sadly not the room we had booked which was incredibly frustrating to say the least. My husband had been liasing with a member of the team prior to our arrival with some specific requests with regards to the rooms balcony and location, and it seemed these conversations were also no where on record. The Club Lounge gentleman advised us that it was the only room ready, and we were welcome to use it whilst he tried to find us another. Not ideal, we were hardly going to unpack, shower etc knowing we could be moving again at any point. At 4.30pm he called to say he had located the correct room type for us, but it wouldn't be ready for another 2 hours.
In that time 2 different butlers visited the room to check on us, neither aware of our situation, but set us up with the WhatsApp communication. At 6.30pm the Club Lounge called to say our new room was ready, our 3rd different butler arrived to take us to see it. It was thankfully the room we had booked. He asked us if we would like to enjoy a complimentary drink in the lounge before moving our cases, which we did. We got into our new room around 7.30pm. It didn't have any of the welcome gifts (fruit bowl etc) that the first had, I assume as it had been prepped in a hurry, but we were just pleased to finally be in it.
The following morning at breakfast we were approached by a manager to check in on us. We had eaten lunch at the beach restaurant the day of arrival, and asked if we could utilise this in our half-board allowance, as getting our room had been such a headache. He said we could have a complimentary lunch that day instead as this would be easier for him to arrange and had called through to make the restaurant aware. When we arrived for lunch - they had no idea who we were or that we were not to be charged for the lunch!
Service in the Club Lounge was very hit and miss. Some days we could be waiting ages for someone to approach us, or bring over a cup of coffee. My husband drank English breakfast tea with milk, and I think the milk only arrived with the tea on one occasion in 5 days! One afternoon he had to ask 3 times before the milk arrived. We went for afternoon tea on one day and the food arrived about 15 minutes before the drinks. The lounge also looked a little run down, the chairs especially, all peeling on the arms and a bit grubby.
Our butler text us on day 3 to ask us what time we were checking out (see previous note on extending our booking!) When we explained we were there for 5 nights, he advised us to get our keys reissued as they wouldn't work the next day, but when we approached the lady at the Club Lounge to do so, she was very short with us, demanded to know who had told us that and said that getting new keys wasn't necessary. In fact, any interaction we had with her was unpleasant, she never smiled, was abrupt and gave the impression that everything was a bit of an effort.
The day before we checked out, our Butler sent us a message on WhatsApp to say he was off for a couple of days but someone else would be in touch. No goodbye, no safe travels message, and probably no idea we were leaving!
In Summary
Raffles is a beautiful hotel, but the service levels do not live up to the brands reputation and fall wildly short of the experience a hotel in this price bracket should be providing. We overheard many people complaining in the Club Lounge every single day of our stay, and I can understand why. When you are staying in such a prestigious hotel and paying thousands of £ a night, you expect more than just surface level sparkle and a generic WhatsApp concierge service. In all honesty, we've experienced more personal levels of service at superior 4* hotels in Europe. We twinned our stay with the Al Zorah Beach Resort (formerly the Oberoi/soon to be the Four Seasons) in Ajman, and to say it was like comparing night and day would be an understatement. We enjoyed our time in Dubai, but we wouldn't rush back to Raffles, nor would we recommend it to others based on our experience.
Just on a side note - to any couples considering Raffles, the hotel is very family friendly, on more than one occasion, there were young children in the Club Lounge kicking an inflatable ball around like it was a play park and toddlers were left to scream themselves to sleep in their pushchairs whilst their parents tucked into breakfast. The staff do not intervene, even when it is quite noticeably impacting on other guests experience. There has also been an entertainment venue built next door to Atlantis The Palm, which hosts music events. There were concerts on a couple of nights during our stay. It took almost an hour to get from the bottom of the Palm to our hotel due to traffic. Sound checks could be heard clearly throughout the day (VERY loud on the beach!) and in the evenings the music could be heard in your room even with the doors closed. Just something to bear in mind if you are looking for romantic and peaceful escape!
