And Luko how long ago did you stay at aiyanar? I agree there have been food complaints at the beggining of Aiayanar's operations God Knows the food was no good the first time I visited the resort when I wasnt working for them yet. There were also at the time Lapses in operations with the Hotel House keeping and the Dive Shop at the time...
Since July 2013 Aiyanar's Owners have gotten pretty serious about living up to the "world class" moniker and they havent spared any expense in doing so. The Resort Manager was taken from Shangrila… The new chefs and kitchen is run by Sweet Bella cafe (a gourmet restaurant in manila an offshoot of the famous Melo's Steak House). And a Dive Center that would make any Dive Operation Proud… Managed by a Dive Pro with Many Years at NECO Marine in Palau…
My stay was end of december 2013, we even spent the christmas eve there.
It happens that we arrived as the owner's family was also vacationing into the resort. We were only 2 rooms booked outside owners, they also had brought in the "famous chef" who btw didn't impress me much at all... Oh btw, I'm french and also a fine gourmet, I happen to know a little about real gourmet food and self called gourmet food
... for instance I don't call "gourmet food" scoops of fruit ice cream stuffed with cubicles of french gruyere cheese, this was one plate I sent back for instance.. and the best of all is that the chef tried to serve us the same ice cream for dessert three meals in a row. Then we stuck to fresh fruit...
I don't particularly enjoy a "gourmet breakfast" composed with fried corned beef and greasy eggs (fried too cold) either, especially when I instructed beforehand that I would like a light breakfast stacked with glucides before diving rather than a grease bathed one.
So I complained to that ShangriLa manager on duty who assured me with lotsa "
certainly sir" that I could have a banana pancake the next day ( I'm a sort of cliché guy who considers the Philippines are the land of Banana or Mango pancake at breakfast
). Eventually I got pancakes the day after which were... uncooked in the middle and therefore unedible, topped with slices of the banana you use for cooked food, not the sweet ones. Of course the following day it was back to fried corned beef, greasy bacon and eggs. That's for the Resort Manager efficiency, and I won't say no more the day she didn't tell any guest the dive center would be locked with my own dive stuff inside because it would be very mean...
There's overall a problem of attitude with guests in this resort were it looks owners family are treated well before guest, taht was so shocking at times, for example we were served pieces of the cream cake the family ate the day before but was not served to the guests... which sweet cake btw tasted like garlic butter. One more for the brillant chef !
You mentioned food served as buffet or à la carte ; it was neither of the two we had a fixed menu, we didn't even have the choice, at some time we were served some kind of filipino dish with bits of beef cartilage and fat floating in a kind of curry sauce, and nothing else... it was completely disgraceful knowing we were paying 10.000php for 2 people per night! A special mention also for the horrible cold squid stuffed with minced vegetable that had nothing but the taste of lavatory bleach, hence sent back immediately where it belonged in the kitchen, it was unfortunately seen on the table of other guests the night at dinner. Poor guys.Was it due to peak season? certainly not, as I mentioned there were no more than 3 or 4 rooms occupied by outside guest on the most busy day.
Just to mention how Aiyanar cares about their guest : do you think there was something special on Xmas like a dinner going a bit out of the usual routine? No, not even!
Luckily enough, with a fellow diver I knew from an Ambon trip we could organize ourselves a decent Xmas dinner with our freelance guide and some other divers, as we had brought from outside champagne and also a stuffed turkey specially ordered for the occasion.
I agree with you the dive center operations are amazing, probably because Anabel, the wife of the owner is into photography so, everything is indeed focused on photo, (which is not to unplease me since I am also a published UW photographer :cool2
that said I feel that if you are not a big name in photo or introduce yourself as one, you will receive little care about. Probably they might be going out of their way if your name matters in the UWphoto circus and will be probably asked to kindly write a good review (it's fun to notice that some photographers only wrote one article in Tripadvisor... Weirdly that was about the Aiyanar).
Aiyanar should focus more on their guest rather than on the media exposure they'd like to provide.
One word for the dive manager, who's one of the only staff I would save from that hospitality crash. A big guy who was helpful and friendly, pleasant to discuss with.
I could carry on for hours with Aiyanar failures, I can understand some of the flaws for a soft opening, I cannot excuse the attitude though and certainly not their pricing at this low level of delivering a service.
Now Marco, you may throw in mottos, future perpectives, visions of customer relationship and all the stuff, I know'em all... I am a tourism consultant for my living, my word of advice is that only the customer experience counts. This is why Aiyanar has poor chances to see me back.
Just a question for you Marco, with no harmful intentions : did you actually stay at the Aiyanar in the recent months and got reviews from real customers (I mean not VIPs)?
