The Oberoi, Mumbai – Review

By | May 27, 2023

It all started when my complimentary Amex domestic travel voucher was nearing its expiry. I initially decided to use this voucher for a family trip, but later changed the plan to book The Oberoi hotel located at Nariman Point, Mumbai as I felt that would give more unique experience.

I visited The Oberoi, Mumbai during 1st week of September 2019 as a part of weekend getaway to Mumbai with my friend and this is about my detailed experience in the property. Here we go,

The Oberoi, Mumbai (Image: Makemytrip)

Booking

  • Revenue Rate: ~21K (incl. GST)
  • Paid: Amex travel Voucher (20k) + Rs.1000 from card 
  • Inclusions: One way airport transfer & breakfast for two

This is the travel voucher that I recently received as a part of Feb 2019 Amex Spend Based Promo and not to mention, I got 9X accelerated points for the spend of 1K as well as it falls under Amex Travel Offer.

Airport Meet & Greet

This travel was done during those days of heavy rain in Mumbai. We fortunately landed on time (thanks to Vistara) and was heading to the baggage collection area.

I was super surprised to see a smart 50+ in suite holding my name tag. I almost missed to notice it because this kind of service is usually reserved for VIP’s but glad that I saw him.

I then came to know that he was there to assist us as our driver was about 15 mins late for pickup, thanks to Mumbai rains. He asked us to wait near the baggage collection area until he returns.

And we didn’t mind to visit the arrival lounge as we just had a tasty lunch on Vistara business class an hour ago. After a short wait of about 10 mins, he then escorted us to the car. 

Airport to Hotel Transfer

This is one of the experience I was eagerly looking forward to, as the value of this hotel transfer inclusion is valued at about 5K INR – for a 1hr ride in black Mercedes S Class 350

While most of those who travel in this luxury car prefer to take the rear seat, I decided to go front, which surprised the executive.

The driver welcomed me with a very good English “Sir, our ride is going to be 1hr & 15 mins. Hope you enjoy the ride”. Thank god, I don’t need to worry about learning Hindi. We had a good conversation and he is indeed an amazing guy. 

The 60 mins ride felt like 6 mins as I was busy all through the ride exploring all the available controls on the dashboard 😀

A quick review of the car: A noise free cabin, good suspension, more than enough leg room, user friendly controls, but I was shocked to experience the poor audio system. I assumed that those who travel in such cars don’t have time to listen to songs!

Check-in

As we reached the hotel, a checkin executive was waiting in the car drop off area with all our details ready. That was lovely and I never expected or experienced that until now. 

She took us directly to the room and completed a super quick check-in formality.. in the room! Then came the cold towel (Yeah!) & welcome drink.

The Room

The room was quite luxurious as expected but it was small for the cost it comes with, anyway you wouldn’t notice it as the room opens up to a big window. It has a partial city view and partial marine drive view and you can see a lot of pigeons just outside the window. 

The mistake I did here was that I didn’t even request for an upgrade, as it somehow skipped my mind while enjoying all these new experiences. A full view of the marine drive from top is what you could expect on upgrade.

But this room is good enough with the view it had and those pigeons were so beautiful. Have a look,

And I’ve created a video to show you the property even better. Check out below:

Breakfast

They serve hot from the menu and the cold dishes are available as buffet spread.  Basically you could get almost anything under the sun. I went with some Poha and Vada Pav while my friend experimented with some new international delicacies. 

The Food was all tasty and service equally good. You could see about 15-20 waiters (yes!) in fresh white dress roaming in the restaurant helping the customers. It was totally new to me to see so many people inside the restaurant. 

Executive Lounge

I’m a great fan of lounges, be it an airport lounge or an executive lounge in a hotel. I’ve had very good experience in almost every lounge I had been to, so I had similar expectations. But they disappointed me!

The initial welcome was good and we were offered two plates of tiny starters and some tea/coffee. They did a refill once and then no one turned up after that, even after 30 mins.

From the response, I assume that they discourage further refill or maybe they want us to pay for something from menu.

I did check reviews of the lounge later on Tripadvisor and found a bunch of angry customers there as well. It’s quite shocking to see a big property making such huge mistakes.

So, better don’t keep high expectations like other Marriott properties. The starters don’t taste great either. You’re better off skipping the visit to lounge!

Bottomline

  • Cardexpert Hotel Rating: 4.6/5

Except the lounge part, it’s an amazing property and suits good for both business & leisure travellers. Having visited the nearby Taj Mahal Palace the same week, I would still say that the Oberoi is better in many aspects like relatively quiet atmosphere, modern interiors and less touristy

The quick access to marine drive is the greatest advantage of the hotel. Morning & evening walk along the marine drive with the Naturals ice cream (a good suggestion by Abhishek Roy) was memorable .

Overall this stay got me a lot of new experiences that started with a surprise meet & greet, a ride in Merc, dedicated executive with in-room check-in, tasty food and an amazing location.

That’s the kind of experience I wish to enjoy for using the right credit card, in this case it is American Express Platinum Travel Card 🙂

I’m so thankful to American Express for travel voucher promos and I wish they keep sending those in future as well, just like they did for 2019 Diwali. Incase if you’re not into Amex network, here are some of the cards worth considering,

Have you gone through these kind of experiences during any of your hotel stays? Feel free to share them in the comments below. 

Author: Siddharth

Helping Indians to choose right credit cards, pick right offers and enjoy luxury vacations for less. Day & night exploring the spiritual reality of our human existence.

17 thoughts on “The Oberoi, Mumbai – Review

  1. SURINDAR SIINGH

    Yes, I was at this place last Aug (24/08/18) for day. We were offered exactly the same room but we had also an exclusive happy hours at the Tea Lounge from 7 PM to 9 PM. We could taste Blue Label (as much as you like !) along with 3 rounds of superb snacks. The choice of amazing liquor was huge.

    We were looking forward to meet the celebrated chef Vineet Bhatia to taste one of his preparations but we were too full for that. Some other time, perhaps, for sure !

    Reply
  2. SH

    Loved reading the review. An honest one.

    I had a similar experience when I stayed at Oberoi’s Wildflower Hall just a week ago. We had two rooms for three days. It is an unique property in Shimla – away from the maddening crowd. They upgraded us, and thanks to Amex Plat offer got free breakfast, one night complimentary, a bottle of wine for each room, and guaranteed late check out. We put all of that to good use. Overall Oberoi’s have some of the unique properties and their hospitality is a shade above what one can expect from the other hotel chains. Sadly they don’t have a loyalty programme – and that may be because they don’t need one.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      Added Oberoi’s Wildflower Hall to wishlist. Thanks 🙂

      “Sadly they don’t have a loyalty programme – and that may be because they don’t need one.” True. Works for now. But they’ll be forced to have one in future I guess.

      Reply
      1. Mouli

        Nice One Sid,I have used the same Amex Voucher in the last year promo and booked Jw marriott-mussoorie for upcoming April family trip

        I have used the Executive lounge in Taj Mahal Delhi(Booked using Vistara Club room offer) and had a good experience and even the Car pickup was also way good and Driver spoke good English so no worries about Hindi there too

        Reply
          1. aka

            Its slightly off topic but isn’t the stance against Hindi a bit too political ? All i am saying is that we have imbibed English as a ” common language “across states but it is still not a native language !! So to have a common thread , we may start from the majority spoken language i.e. hindi !!

          2. Rajesh

            aka, not everybody is from the north. -_-

            Hindi isn’t the native language for half the country either. They know English, so that’s what they’ll use.

      2. FrequentFlyer15

        Actually, the trident hotel is owned by the Oberoi group and they have trident privilege which gives you an opportunity to earn and redeem points for all stays with the Oberoi Group of Hotels. That’s what was told to me by the SBI executive when he signed me up for their Trident Privilege Red membership as a part of my SBI Prime Card.

        Reply
    2. Ramesh Padmanaban

      I believe they used to have a loyalty programme. Stay for five nights and get one night free.

      Reply
    3. Neo

      SH,
      on an unrelated note, do we get Marriott credits if booked using FHR ?

      ~Neo

      Reply
      1. SH

        Neo,

        Yet to try FHR. My business travels are on company dime and thought I stay in the same hotels, they are not part of FHR package. For leisure travels, I am yet to try them. So not sure if you get points for FHR. But I think you should.

        Cheers
        SH

        Reply
    4. Rahul Dev Gupta

      They had what they called “The Oberoi Plus” (TOP). And now they have Oberoi One with various privileges (upgrades etc.).

      And I agree with Siddharth — the Oberoi hotels at Mumbai (+ of course the Trident @ Chennai) are both excellent, though my personal preference is for the sea facing rooms at its taller (& IMHO friendlier though some might consider the Trident brand as lesser than the Oberoi branded hotels) neighbour the Oberoi Trident*** Nariman Point Mumbai. It is right next to The Oberoi where Siddharth stayed.

      Amazing sea view, especially if you get a sea facing rooms on a higher floor — I have great recollections of sipping tea during sunsets & during the Mumbai monsoons!!

      *** It has had many name changes over the years — e.g. it was called Oberoi Hilton about a decade back. And of course, along with the Taj, it too was targeted by our western neighbor’s terrorists during 26/11.

      Reply
  3. Prashant Gupta

    Oberoi service is par excellence along with some Taj properties. I stayed in Trident Agra for 3 nights recently and we had an excellent stay as usual excellent service and food.

    Reply
  4. Harmanveer Kaur

    Hi Sid!
    Can you explain, how much points are required for the vouchers from Amex?
    Did they take up all your expenses, or you’d to pay something extra too!???

    Reply
  5. SATENDRA SHARMA

    I also earn that voucher and used for Club Mahindra Resort, Manali for two night of MAP package due to off season.

    Food and the property was extremely satisfied !

    It was my experience with Club Mahindra, and i love it.

    Amex is love <3

    Reply

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