Purpose of trip: 1st time to dubai celebrating an old friend's birthday. Enjoyed our stay in Ritz Carlton Desert Resort prior to checking in Bvlgari Resort Dubai

Why Bvlgari Dubai: Stayed in Beijing Bvlgari during 2019 & the superb services rendered during the trip by the butler allocated to us left us a good memory& assurance to the Bvlgari brand and quality offered. Hence, wanted to try Bvlgari Dubai resort.

Before the trip: Got in touched with the customer service through Whatsapp. Notified that it will be a birthday celebration & requested for two beach bag and birthday arrangements. Very professional support provided and experienced an extension from the Beijing Bvlgari services. Thanks to the team.

During the check-in process: Alighted from the car, the reception collected our passports and invited us to the lounge for welcome drink and some snacks. Waited from 12:58am-13:10pm when the tea we ordered are served. Then close to 14:00pm, a staff from Bvlgari approached us. The whole process took close to more than an hour... The first sentence she introduced herself as a staff who only serves guests with a China nationality. We were very shocked as she was holding to our passports which clearly mentioned that we have no affiliation to China nationality at all. We are not against China nationality but we are proud to be citizens of our own country which we are born and bred in. Then she asked if we can speak in Mandarin, which we mentioned we can but we are not well versed in it as our national language is English. Then she asked for a deposit payment, where I provided my credit card. After the transaction went through, she asked a question that we couldn't relate to. She asked can I have a document of your credit card's expiration date. Isn't the expiry date of all credit card printed onto the card itself? It was the first time we were asked for a document to show such information... Then she asked us to wait for awhile and came back with our room cards with a printed mandarin copy of the hotel facilities introduction, which we told her that we could barely understand. She said there's no English copy, which was quite unprofessional for an international hotel. Anyway, she left us to go to our room without sharing on the breakfast information and etc. Then I approached her for a guide towards the premise and etc, which she then did showed us to our room and explained about the facilities and amenities.

The corridor into the room: There's a musty smell which I believe is coming from the carpet.

Arranging for breakfast: We arranged for breakfast at 9am but the breakfast only arrived in our room at 9:15am...the staff who helped to set up our breakfast asked how's our stay and did we went to other Bvlgari hotels before. We said yes we did went to the Beijing one pre-covid and we felt that it was better over there than our experience here. He made a comment it must be because you are from China. As an international hotel, shouldn't the staff be briefed about the guests profile and not all Asians are from China. We were asked to sign a 675Aed receipt after the breakfast was set up, but he said anyway it is complimentary with every room bookings just a form of assurance that breakfast has been served to us, which I signed off then.

During check-out: Check out was smooth. The staff asked for the feedback on how was our stay, we gave the feedback and they said they will do an investigation. He asked about the room and we provided him with the photos we took on the room as attached in our review here.

Overall: Not a typical Bvlgari experience. Pretty disappointed for the amount we have paid for just to experience this kind of holiday while the intention is to relax and celebrate our birthday.