My young family and i had our first mini vacation since the pandemic hit. It was the first time my 1 year old daughter had been out since she was born during the pandemic so this was an exciting, as well as anxious, time for us. Anxious due to it being the first time we were out with our babies and that we had to ensure our surroundings to be disinfected as best as we can. So we had to ask our 2 helpers to accompany us on this trip. Before the trip, we were informed by Shangri-La that they have strict limits of persons inside 1 room; they only allowed 2 adults and 2 kids at most. My wife, myself and 2 babies were already counted as 4, no matter if our younger is still small at 1 year old. We checked in before lunch, had lunch at the Lobby Lounge restaurant of Shangri-La and my parents-in-law came to Shangri-La to play with their grandkids and joined us for dinner at the Cowrie Cove. They came to Shangri-La to also drive home the 2 helpers after dinner so we would comply with the strict 4 person limit Shangri-La has. After dinner, as we all went back to the room, a person from customer relations called to remind us of the 4 person limit. As my parents-in-law were leaving with the 2 helpers, our 1 year old and toddler were starting to cry due to their attachment to their nanny and didn't understand why they were leaving. We tried our best to reason and pacify them before the nannies left but it was hopeless at that point so we decided to let 1 of the nannies stay secretly which was our mistake. Morning came and we all had breakfast at Tides since the room only came with 2 free breakfast for 2 adults, we readily paid for the nanny's breakfast. On a side note, the selection was great but Shangri-La maintained their usual breakfast rate. At lunch, we patronized Shangri-La yet again by dining in their Lobby Lounge before checking-out (our request for late check-out was denied). At the check-out counter, as i was settling my bills. The front desk staff missed to charge the lunch we just had as it was too recent so i told her to include it into my bill which she was grateful for. In the middle of checking my Golden Circle number while settling my bill, there was a sudden loud impatient knocking on the glass partition (similar to a bank teller's cgae) that Shangri-La had installed during the pandemic. The manager, Veronica, as she identified herself, was calling out my family name as she was persistently knocking on the glass partition. She then proceeded to berate me on why I hadn't informed them of my nanny staying over, she did this in a condescending tone which i can only compare how a teacher would scold a young kindergarten student. Before I could say a word to apologize and explain my side of the story, she simply turned her back and walked away. I was clearly at fault here but I think an establishment in the hospitality business, especially during pandemic, should've and could've handled it more professionally. And to think, this is not some run-in-the-mill hotel, this is supposedly Shangri-La. My family and i are no strangers to what Shangri-La offers that is why we chose to stay in the Shangri-Las in Hong Kong and Taiwan when we traveled before. Even though we only traveled once/twice a year and in no way are we frequent travelers or regulars, we always chose Shangri-La in spite of the high price because we always felt that they went the extra mile to make us feel welcomed before, during and after our stay. Our latest experience in Shangri-La Mactan was just the exact opposite.
