I mustered all my strength to pull out the ever-tightly tucked-in hotel bedsheets and ended up pulling them out of shape. They were already out! I guess in most hotels I am used to the snug bed-hogging sheets stuffed inside so perfectly that pulling them out is a feat in itself, which often requires the kind of energy I don’t always want to expend at night. And so this was refreshing, though I wondered if it was perhaps the fact that I don’t always get evening turn down service in other hotels. I wasn’t entirely sure.

I was at the JW Marriott in Mumbai, a hotel which has the ultimate lobby, has become quite the statement hotel only because it has never ceased to be the “it” place, but also a hotel where a few have told me the service has humungously improved. And whether improved or not, I found the service to be impeccable. The only slight disappointment had been the lack of spa facilities, under refurbishment as of now, which I did miss. I guess that means I have something even better to look forward to next time.

See, the thing about good service is that it is not only the coffee they serve just the way I like it or the speed with which they send up a DVD player after I call, it is also the extent to which they accommodate and handle a guest’s requests. Does it feel like they genuinely care or not?

Well, every time I have been to the Marriott, they have always obliged, and at the very least tried their best, to meet my request to, for example, upgrade to a higher category room, or whatever it might be.

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In fact, since my room category allowed me to have breakfast in the lounge and not the main huge breakfast in Lotus Café, one fine morning when I was craving that extravagant breakfast, hot dosas, fresh muffins and all the rest of the crazy shabang, I asked if I could just this one day do so. Tadaa, five minutes later, I was downstairs, in the buzzing vast café below the lobby having a breakfast I knew I might end up regretting. But heck, how often did I really do this!

And so, back to the sheets, I smiled as I realised that this was just one illustration of the Marriott’s faultless service. I was at home.

— For more from Meera Ashish log on to www.meera-ashish.com