A frequent visitor to Macau and we would normally at the Mandarin Oriental.
Tried the Crown for a change. Great rooms, large and really nicely designed but badly let down by the service. English spoken by concierge and front desk staff was generally relatively poor. Concierge in particular was very poor. Ask a question about Chinese food and get shown brochures on Brazilian food, enormous issues with booking ferry tickets and it just went on from there, newspaper deliveries to the room happened once out of 4 days that sort of stuff. In themselves small issues but not acceptable at this level of hotel. Even more strange was a phone call at 9.30 at night to extend the holding charge over my credit card. Normally hotels just do this but no, the Crown wanted to do the right thing and check first. The reason for the call was never explained etc leaving me feeling most unwelcome and as if my credit was in doubt. It wasn't was adequately explained the next day but what 5 star hotel calls its guests with this stuff at 9.30 at night? A very amateurish experience. Business Centre is dreadful by the way but its a hotel on top of a casino even then should have been accessible to guests.
Staff really made an effort to try but just lacked the training and the skills to do the job to a 5 star hotel standard. Don't get me wrong, never rude or unwilling just entirely unable due to skills levels to provide the required and really not very complex service.
Breakfast was again very average but the room lovely. Really, unless you must stay at the City of Dreams for conference or other reasons do yourself a favour and stay somewhere else if you want real 5 star e.g. the Mandarin Oriental. Very disappointing experience.
Please note that I raised these issues with management who acknowledged them all and provided an unasked for complimentary transfer to the ferry terminal when leaving.
