Lazy Day Mumbai (Bombay), India

Mumbai (Bombay), India

Got through immigration and customs relatively quickly. And thank heavens, both our cases came around on the conveyor belt! We were pretty desperate to get to the hotel by then, get a shower and get into bed. We were pretty spaced out.Coming out of Arrivals, you are immediately hit by the heat and volume of people. Just SOOOO many people waiting to greet arriving travellers. You cannot help but take a slight step back and go “oh my god….” Just for a moment! But the faces are all friendly and welcoming and easily noticed was the small group of Marriott greeters/chauffeurs. We’d booked their car to transfer us to the hotel just to make it easier and at about £10 for a lovely clean Mercedes, it was a bargain. Smartly uniformed and so friendly, out chap got the luggage and ourselves to the car easily and we were at the hotel within 5 minutes.Absolutely gorgeous hotel it must be said. The security around it was pretty tight and quite high tech with sensors and electronic bollards to protect the environs. Even the hotel car had to be searched, bonnet and boot opened. That’s fine by us! The welcome began at security and just kept going. Everyone greeted us with a friendly “Namaste” and the traditional hand gesture. We must have looked and smelled like scruffs.
Our keys were waiting – we’d been upgraded to an Executive room – and a lovely girl from the reception escorted us to our room and explained how everything worked. Not that we took much in to be honest. We were zombies.
We both enjoyed the rather glamorous rainshower, a cup of coffee from the Nespresso machine, and just unpacked enough to find toiletries and pjs. Then jumped into bed and slept till 3pm! Unbelievable. When we woke up, we felt like being lazy so we stayed in bed till about 530, enjoying the large tv, and the wifi. Then we threw some clothes on and had a bit of an explore of the hotel. The swimming pool is very glamorous. Long with a very shallow end that has loungers actually in the water. It is surrounded by beautiful curtained cabanas. Very atmospheric lighting too. Gorgeous. We opted to eat in the multi-cuisine buffet restaurant. Now we have eaten in a lot of these in a lot of places and I have to say that this restaurant would rank 3 in our list, behind the Bally Sterling buffet in Las Vegas (unbeatable but it is $100ish per head), and the one at the Ciragan Palace hotel in Istanbul which was incredible. Anyway, the JW one was really excellent and amazing value at 2000 rupees each. Very expensive by Indian standards but very cheap by JW Marriott standards. The room was spacious and quiet. No queueing or anything like that. There were a lot of food stations: Indian appetisers; sushi; Thai main courses; Indian main courses; salads; cold meats and cheese; Indian street food; a waffle bar; an ice cream bar and a dessert bar. They kept the dishes turning quickly – nothing stewed – and you could scarcely move before they were taking your plate, tidying your napkin up – service was superb. We had some great sushi and sashimi (2 plates each!!) – no more of that for 3 months, that’s for sure. I also tried some of the Indian appetisers and mains. They were so very very good. The Marriott chefs really know their stuff. Bob had some Japanese noodles with sea food. I finished with some delicious ice cream (also no more of that to come) and Bob did too, also with some other desserts. Double espresso and a latte. It was all very excellent both in quality, freshness and taste. Would certainly eat there again.Had another wander round and then turned in to FaceTime the girls and watch some tv. Naturally we woke up in the middle of the night, body clocks all akimbo but…….