Another tremendous stay

With apologies for my delay in posting this, we enjoyed our second amazing stay at Amangiri in almost 5 years in late January 2019 to celebrate my 49th birthday. As it turns out, this place is a perfect place for me to visit in the cooler/colder season!

We were meeting friends from Sydney here, and it was that wife's second visit, too.

With daytime temps around the low 50s and evening temps dropping to high 20s/low 30s, the King of Air Con was in heaven. 

On our first stay in April 2015, we had Great Lakes Airlines and a very easy and cheap return flights via LAX-IGM-PGA. With Great Lakes first ending the LAX segment and then going bankrupt in 2018, we knew this would be our likely first shot at private aviation. While Contour Airlines now serves PGA to LAS and PHX, that wasn't looking so certain when we were planning our trip,

So with our dog, Macallan, in tow, we enjoyed our first private "jet" (turbo prop) air travel via SNA-PGA and back. It was glorious. But very pricey. 

Landing in Page:

On landing, a complimentary SUV and driver was waiting on the tarmac to pick us up for the 20 min drive to Amangiri. We never even touched our luggage until they were in our suite.

The property is as beautifully situated and as spectacularly blended into the scenery as any we've ever enjoyed.

Bliss.

A quick overview of the property:

While technically dogs are not supposed to hang out in the main building, Macallan is a diva (like his mother) who always wants to be where we are. With gracious permission, we were able to hang with him on the reception side of the lounge, where Macallan curled up whenever we had drinks or played Mexican Train and Wizards. It helps that Ridgebacks are a great breed that don't bark and just want to lounge. 

We were greeted by the Assist GM Manpreet Sidhu and some of the staff, including some who remembered us from almost 5 years ago. (I was stunned that there were that many people who still were here in such a remote locale for such a long duration, to be honest!) 

Within a few minutes, we were on our way to Desert View Suite 12.

(Dogs currently are only allowed on the Desert wing. The separate entrance/exit on that side made it quite obvious why this might be preferable, along with not having dogs traipsing through the central kitchen/dining/pool building.)

On our last stay, we paid up for the Mesa View. This time, we had to have the Desert View since we brought our dog. To be honest, we couldn't much tell a difference. They're both spectacular views. From now on, we'd feel quite comfortable being on the Desert side. (Heck, if the Amangiri Suite is on the end of the Desert side, how bad can it be?)

We had some welcome amenities:

They also had some hats for us as returning Amanjunkies. Nice touch. Not my favorite hat, though!

And Macallan felt right at home almost immediately.

Service was very impressive. While not perfect, it was darn close--even with service recovery when a very disruptive group caused quite a stir for everyone on premises.

First, this is an extraordinary Aman team. Considering how the hotel was at 100% occupancy for 2 of our 4 nights, that’s saying something. Everyone was wonderful. Not perfect, but truly authentic and impressive. I don’t think we ever heard “no” throughout our stay, and everyone bent over backward to try to help us, see if we might like anything else, ask us how we were doing, etc. Heck, one server remembered us from when he served us at Mukul exactly 4 years ago. That was crazy!

Second, staff constantly looked out for us while never feeling intrusive. While food/beverage service sometimes could be slow, the manager was never far to take care of it. 

Third, we really connected again with some of the staff. The food/beverage team are awesome and hilarious. The activities team is also quite fun. The management is also very friendly and very helpful.

Finally, the disruptive group. Wow, a bunch of total jerks from LA caused issues for everyone--guests and staff alike. They were rude to staff, and rude to other guests, leaving cigarette butts everywhere, walking in front of the property where guests are not allowed so the views are not disturbed, playing loud music into the wee hours of the night, etc. We've never seen any group anywhere be so rude and unapologetically inconsiderate. Even after you knew the staff had tried to get them to behave, they misbehaved. 

Fortunately, Asst GM Manpreet Sidhu took care of us and comp'd one of our four nights (and did the same for our friends) and offered free massage treatments to us all. (I gave mine to my husband.) We all felt that was more than generous. We actually suggested they charge our lost 2 nights revenue to the group of jerks!

I know some think the Asian Amans have the best service, but again we felt that Amangiri lived up to Aman easily as well. And at full occupancy, no less. Sorry, but the Asian Amans rarely are full except for Tokyo--and we know all too well the service failings there. 

To me, this is one of the most impressive Amans for service, even with it being imperfect here and there. We just always felt so comfortable, so looked after, so right at home in the middle of nowhere. Kudos.

Dining was a highlight--though it did have its uneven moments. We all felt that dining had improved from our last stays--and we all enjoyed the dining then, too! But the F&B team now is even better.

I leave it to moderators to delete my food photos, but since this property is full board and since that is a critical element for our stay, I am posting some photos of our food.

First, I asked the chef to prepare a special birthday dinner for us. We had it on our second night in the private dining room across from the kitchen, just as we'd had our anniversary dinner there in 2015. It was a glorious dinner!

The entire meal was delicious. But that celebration strawberry shortcake dessert was just too good. I was dining on that for dessert for several other meals!

Our other meals were great. My husband did have a fish meal he thought was a bit overcooked once, and our friends had a beef dish another night they thought overcooked. Those were quickly replaced when the miss was mentioned, to their credit. But my meals were almost always spectacularly good. 

Some other highlights:

And for our last evening, they really went crazy for us:

Turns out that F&B was a total highlight of our stay. Sublime! Kudos again!

'Nuff said.

Horsehoe Bend.

On property.

Upper Antelope Canyon.

Lower Antelope Canyon--our first time, and we loved it.

Forgot to mention that we used the loaner BMW for our last day exploring Lower Antelope Canyon. You get use of the car for up to 4 hours, and we used it for just about that duration. The team clearly went out of its way to make sure we had the use of this after we'd inquired about it earlier in our stay.

We loved it--again. We already are talking about when we can go back. Probably not until 2021...but I'm not sure I want to wait that long.