Feeling like a head of state at Raffles

Last week, my husband Ed shared his impressions of a “stay-cation” at the Raffles and Fairmont Hotels in Makati City (“Unruffled at Raffles,” May 14, 2013). Today, I share how my own experience was a fulfillment of a secret craving!

She said:

Once in a while, we indulge in fantasies. Once in a while, they come true.

I’ve always wondered how it is like to be pampered like a head of state. Since I have worked for a President before (the revered Corazon Aquino) and have accompanied her on official visits abroad, I have had a glimpse of how the red carpet unfurls for heads of state and their delegation. I’ve always wondered how it’s like to be head of state  (sans the hard work and the pressure), to be whisked off in limousines and billeted in the most posh of dwellings. Forget that heads of state also get to decide on war and invasions… in my fantasies, heads of state are synonymous with pomp, pageantry, history and… accommodations befitting royalty.

Raffles Hotels worldwide are synonymous with heads of state. When I covered the ASEAN summit in Singapore in the late ‘80s, most of the visiting heads of state stayed at the historic 126-year-old Raffles Hotel, the first of the Raffles properties. When President Barack Obama made a historic visit to Cambodia, he also stayed at the Raffles.

So when Monique Toda, director of marketing communications of Raffles and Fairmont Hotels Makati, asked me if I wanted to experience a “stay-cation” at the newest luxury hotel to rise in Makati in 17 years, she asked me what I wanted to try out. I revealed my secret fantasy.

“I want to try out being a head of state, sans the headaches!” I exclaimed. A tall order, but like the genie in the bottle, Monique and her team set out to work (not unlike Vicky Morales in Wish Ko Lang). The experience was to start at Ground Zero, and so my husband Ed and I were fetched at our doorstep in Parañaque City by a chauffeur-driven black BMW limousine with lavender-scented cold towels and mints on the back seat, and Wi-Fi. Just like in a VIP’s limo, our chauffeur radioed his home base every crucial step of the way, and so by the time the BMW pulled over One Raffles Drive, a receiving line of doormen, guest relations officers and duty manager were waiting for us. If a band had played Mabuhay, I wouldn’t have missed a step at all.

We were welcomed by name at the lobby before we were shown to our room, a Raffles Executive Suite, one of only eight in the hotel. (There are 23 junior suites and one Presidential Suite.)

Emerging from our elevator to our floor, we beheld a wide, high-ceilinged corridor reminiscent of a colonial mansion’s, but with modern trappings. The quiet spoke loud and clear about the exclusivity of the place. Then Dennis, the butler assigned to us, led us to our suite, which had a spacious living/dining area and a clear view of the impressive Makati skyline. Our son Chino, who was in a Junior Suite, had a bathtub with a view…

All throughout our stay, there were butlers assigned to our suite, I was beginning to fear I could get used to it! Sweets and pralines in multi-tiered candy dishes awaited us at the dining table, with a bottle of wine begging to be uncorked. The latter had to wait as we had a wedding to attend.

We opted for a light lunch at the Long Bar, a high-ceilinged bar that takes you back to Asia’s colonial past with its punkahs (overhead “paypays”), the precursor of the ceiling fan. Just like at the Raffles in Singapore, the tiled floors are for walking and for taking the hits of dried peanut shells.

 It was too early to have its signature drink, the “Singapore Sling,” so we had salmon, calamari and barbecue  and a “tabla” of cheese and Jamon Serrano. (For cocktails or when the mood suits you, check out its Makati Luxury Sling, a mix of Tanqueray Gin, Cherry Blossom essence, Gran Marnier, lime, pineapple juice, angostura foam and — 24-k gold flakes!) We wanted to listen to music that night at the Long Bar, but the sight of our soothing suite with the wine and hors d’oeuvres waiting at the table made us just stay in. Like a head of state, I had the luxury of choice and I voted for a night cap en suite in my PJs.

We began the next day, a Sunday, with an early breakfast at the Fairmont Gold Lounge, where the buffet is beefed up with anything your heart desires from the Spectrum Café on the Lobby floor. A champagne brunch at the Spectrum of the Fairmont Hotel (you differentiate the two connecting hotels, Fairmont and Raffles, by the color of their marble floors) was the highlight of our Sunday. A “Black Widow” from Veuve Clicquot awaits you at the restaurant’s entrance, dispensing glasses of the bubbly.  Even before you survey the bacchanalian offerings at the restaurant’s five food theaters (including a barbecue row in the terrace), waiters already bring an array of dishes (like lechon sushi, go figure!) and pizza to your table. So your experience is a mélange of à la carte and buffet. I swear by the restaurant’s barbecued rib-eye and steamed oysters,  and “homemade” ice cream. The Spectrum is known for its busy honeycomb — you drizzle pure honey over your mascarpone cheese.

After lunch was digested, I hied off to the Fairmont’s Willow Stream Spa for a massage while my boys surrendered to the allure of an afternoon nap. It was so far the best massage I’ve ever had  in my life, with the expert strokes of Roselynne. She combined Swedish massage with hilot, which I needed for my shoulders. “I have to press long, even if it hurts,” Roselynne warned me as she kneaded my shoulders and tried to untangle a knot. I swear the tightness disappeared.

Aside from Roselynne’s golden hands, the spa boasts of majesty in its appointments. Its massage table, for one, has six layers of bed sheets and comforters so there is an unhurried ritual of  “tucking” you in and out, with the therapist peeling away every layer of blanket and comforter, before and after a treatment. There was also an almost antiseptic cleanliness to the spa, with the face towels warmed in a sterilizer. For those who are OC about cleanliness, this is your antiseptic haven.

After taking an invigorating nap myself, I headed for the Writers Bar in the lobby for tea, pastries and scones. Again, there is a deliberate unhurried pace in the way they serve tea, as if asking you to respect time and the niceties of life. I succumbed.

My family gathered again for pica-picas at the Fairmont Lounge, where a guitarist serenaded us, for dinner. I especially liked the skewered shrimps. After the feast of the Spectrum brunch, it was nice to nibble on tapas.

We had room service for breakfast on the day we checked out of the Raffles. Again, a retinue of well-wishers on the driveway waved goodbye in unison as the limo picked us up for the journey back to reality.  It was hard to peel ourselves off from the pampering that heads of state have come to expect at the Raffles. But such is life — duty calls on a Monday morning and some good things must come to an end.

Reinvigorated after being treated virtually like a head of state, I swear I could have addressed Congress after check-out.

(Raffles Hotel may be reached at 632-555-9777 and Fairmont Hotel at 632-555-9888. )

(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com.)