• Room
Our room was on the 15th floor with the view of Park Square and SM Makati. It was spacious with two double beds with a shared bedside table, a spacious desk with a professional-looking swivel chair, wide countertop with a mini fridge and drawers for coffee/tea-making under it, a wide bench where you could accept 2 guests or place your things, TV, and a spacious cabinet to store luggage with ironing equipment and hangers and robe and slippers and safe. The TV has many channels to choose from. A minor gripe from me is the bins aren't lined with plastic or anything. Makes one wonder how that is cleaned and disinfected. There's an adequate number of sockets, two of which are bedside.
The bathroom is quite spacious and came with toiletries. Water pressure was good. Too bad our room didn't have a bidet, but other rooms have it apparently. The shower has an opaque rolling shower curtain, so you can still have privacy.
• Dining
Our room came with free breakfast at The Pantry opposite the lobby by the entrance. There was a variety of choices from different cuisines of average quantity. Despite the food tasting good, I was kind of expecting much more from a five-star hotel. I've experienced a much more plentiful and varied breakfast buffet from a four-star hotel before.
At the entrance of The Pantry is Grab & Go, which is like a café/patisserie. It's not part of the buffet but you can buy nice treats, pastries, coffee, and frappés. It has its own small but nice seating area at the entrance by the window. I wanted to drink frappé there in the evening but it turns out that particular seating area closes by 10 pm.
Also at the hotel is RJ Bistro, owned by Filipino musician Ramon Jacinto, where a couple of shows are held for guests. Pre-COVID, there's the "Executive Lounge" on Tuesday evening where guests sing, a show Wednesday evenings, and RJ playing rock and roll songs himself every Friday evening. I know Executive Lounge has resumed under the current general community quarantine status of Metro Manila, but I'm not sure about other shows.
The Park Square building opposite it has a few restaurants. Arnaiz Street is lined with Japanese restaurants.
A few minutes from the hotel is the Glorietta mall that has a lot of restaurants of various cuisines outside the mall facing the street.
• Service
Hotel service is good overall. It was my birthday and I think my mom arranged with the hotel something for me. Staff came to our room and sang happy birthday to me, gave a lovely slice of cake to me too, and a card. It was a nice birthday experience. And one time, my mom and I were taking photos. A staff offered and took a picture for us. How nice!
• Hotel Facilities/Amenities/Atmosphere
The hotel has a regular swimming pool and a kiddie pool. I think the regular pool has jet streams, but too bad it isn't heated. Adequate seating is available poolside. There's a life guard on duty.
A clinic and nurse on duty are available. I had a bad stomachache during our stay because of hyperacidity. My mom called front desk and I think they connected the call to the clinic. There was a nurse available in the middle of the night who checked up on me and gave me some meds. She came back some hours later to check on me again. I was okay by morning and even got to swim and eat at the buffet. (Thank you Nurse Blessie! ^_^)
In terms of atmosphere, the lobby is high ceiling and spacious and the decorations look elegant. Too bad the tuk-tuk on display that we saw several months before when we were still inquiring was no longer there on our stay.
• WiFi
WiFi was available and came with the room with good speed. (I forgot to do a speed test. ^.^')
• Parking
I'm not sure if Dusit Thani has its own parking spaces, but right in front of it is the Park Square parking building.
• Location and Shopping
The hotel is right next to SM Makati, which has a department store, upscale brand stores, a few dining choices, and a huge supermarket. SM Makati is connected to Glorietta, that's connected to Landmark, then Greenbelt. The first three are all connected by "indoor" bridges, so you wouldn't worry about rain. Landmark to Greenbelt, it's a roofed bridge. When rain is strong, it's hard to pass through it as per experience. Overall, the hotel's location is in a shopping haven! :D All malls have supermarkets by the way.
• Vicinity
At the Park Square building across the hotel is a Family Mart convenience store and a drug store. It also has jeepney terminals of different routes. If you need a taxi, there are taxi queues at SM, which you can see from the hotel. You need to know where you're headed though because there's also another taxi queue on the other side of SM that's facing Glorietta 5. The two taxi queues are either headed to the southern or northern parts of Metro Manila.
Arnaiz Street Japanese Restaurants, Mini Stop, and the "Western" appliance store.
For currency exchange, SM Makati has it. I'm not sure whether there's any other money changer nearby. The other one I know is at Greenbelt 1, but that's too far away from the hotel, as in it's exactly at the opposite end of the entire set of malls.
• Security
The hotel is well-secured right from entry of guests and into the building. Security personnel roam the hotel grounds. The Park Square building across has a police outpost I think.
• Reservation, Check-in, Deposit, Check-out
My mom booked the room via phone and paid upon check-in. I think the deposit is PhP 2000 per day if I remember correctly. Check-in and check-out were a breeze.
• Value
I'd say the value for money is good with the service we received. Value would be much better if they can make the breakfast buffet even better cuisine-wise and quantity-wise considering they're a 5-star hotel.
• Overall
We had a lovely stay with good service. We tend to stay at a cheaper hotel in the area. But if we want affordable luxury, we would choose Dusit Thani again.
