Location:

The Mandarin Oriental Santiago hotel is located to the east of the city, approximately half an hour drive from the airport located on the west side of the city. It is situated in a upmarket part of the city and is close to some good restaurants and nice cafes, although there is no need to leave the hotel as it has two very good restaurants. Downtown Santiago is about 5 miles away from the hotel with the newer business district in between. Located around the hotel are some nice parks, including the lovely Parque Bicentenario about one mile away and the Parque Araucano just down the road. The area around the hotel and heading towards the new central district and the Gran Torre Santiago building, which houses a large shopping centre and the Sky Costanera 62nd floor viewpoint, is safe to walk in and pleasant to stroll through.

Room:

We stayed in an Executive room on the 4th floor with a lovely view over the hotel pool and gardens with the Andes mountain range as a backdrop. Upon entering the room the open plan bathroom is situated on one side with a cupboard housing a very large safe, handily positioned for leaving the room. The other side of the entrance to the bathroom is a large wardrobe housing two bathrobes, slippers, a shoe brush, an iron and an ironing board. On the inside of the wardrobe doors are full length mirrors. Beside the wardrobe and conveniently placed next to the bathroom are two hooks, prefect for keeping the robes on, making them easy to grab when in the bathroom. The bathroom itself is very contemporary and bright with a large, powerful shower to one side, a large marble unit housing the single sink and a separate toilet off to the the side, complete with a set of scales to help make sure you don’t over-indulge at the delicious restaurants in the hotel. Above the sink is a mirror with two lights encased within it, as well as a separate illuminated magnifying mirror.

Down a short corridor is the main part of the room with a large and sumptuous bed facing towards the window to make the most of the gorgeous sunrises over the Andes mountains in the background. Either side of the bed is a large bedside table, a wall mounted bedside light and separate reading light, a USB socket, a Chilean socket and a universal socket - so plenty of charging points. On one side of the bed is a bluetooth radio alarm clock and the other side has the one of the two telephones in the room. Although the flooring in this area of the room is a lovely modern wooden floor, there is a soft rug under the bed so that your feet are greeted by soft warmness when you get out of bed.

Beyond the bedroom area is the ‘living’ area which is separated from the sleeping area by very handy cupboards and table tops with plenty of sockets nearby making them very useful for working at. In the middle of the cupboards are two steps taking you down to the lovely open seating area complete with two very comfortable, tasteful velvet swivel chairs and a coffee table. The chairs are perfect for looking out of the large picture window which faces down to the hotel’s lovely large pool and gardens and over to the mountain range, as well as being able to swivel round towards the room and the wall mounted TV located on one side of the wall next to the cupboard housing the minibar, which was regularly restocked with bottled water. The TV sits within the wall unit but is mounted on a wall bracket which enables it to be turned towards the chairs as well as turning completely the other way to enable guests to watch TV from the bed. The cupboard unit on the other side houses some useful drawers as well as chairs either side, one being an ordinary desk chair, the other a bar stool type chair. This is also where the main telephone is situated.

Public areas:

Lobby, reception and concierge desk -

Entering the Mandarin Oriental the lobby is grand and lofty with an atrium reaching up the full height of the hotel with a round glass dome at the top. Upon walking in the entrance doors guests are greeted by a double height piece of art using beautiful coloured strips of material to create a ‘wall’ between the large seating area in the centre of the lobby and the lifts on the other side. Off to the left is a small meeting room, stairs to the conference rooms and entrance to the bar. To the right are further steps to the mezzanine level located beyond the reception and concierge desk, home to the fabulous Juan Carlos who helped us a few times during our stay offering tourist advise, arranging transport and changing currency for us.

Atrium lounge -

Located behind the lifts at the rear of the lobby is the Atrium lounge, a beautiful light-filled area adorned with some sumptuously comfortable sofas and seating, as well as tables and chairs for guests to enjoy a drink or a snack from the small deli counter off to the right of this area. The seating area is surrounded by some marvellous sculptures and ornaments with a double height glass wall looking out over the terrace, pool and gardens.

At one end of the Atrium lounge is a small deli and coffee bar serving delicious snacks, cakes and drinks from early morning until late at night. At breakfast time it serves refined pastries and croissants and during the day the deli displays the most divine looking desserts and macarons, also available on the Senso restaurant menu.

Bar -

The indoor bar is located at the rear of the lobby off to the left with another entrance directly from the exterior of the hotel. Upon entering the bar from the lobby there is a large bar to the left and plenty of welcoming green leather Chesterfield sofas and pale yellow velvet bucket chairs. The decor has an old colonial feel to it with light wood panelling, wooden floors and lots of foliage hanging from the ceiling and above the bar, and large planters dotted around. The bar looks out over the pool and gardens with a large glass wall leading out onto the terrace housing the popular Japanese influenced Matsuri restaurant.

Pool and gardens -
The large pool and delightful gardens are a real haven of peace, making one forget that they are in the middle of a bustling city. The large pool has a feature waterfall focal point at the rear of the pool and is surrounded by comfortable loungers creating a relaxing place for guests to soak in the Santiago sun. Although the pool looks very inviting on a hot summers day, be warned, it isn’t heated and we found it a little ‘bracing’. Outside of the immediate pool area is a lovely large terrace area, perfect for enjoying a drink and snack during the day or a pre-dinner drink on a balmy summers evening. Beyond the pool and up a set of steps is the hotel’s delightful gardens set above the pool area, with a lovely small patio area overlooking the pool and the best place for catching the last of the days sunshine when the hotel building shades the rest of the pool from the sun.

At the rear of the gardens and to the right there will eventually be a new gym and spa which were being renovated whilst we were there.

Restaurants:

Senso restaurant -

Senso restaurant is the main restaurant in the hotel and is where guests go for a buffet breakfast, as well as being open for lunch and dinner. Whilst the indoor dining area is a little uninspiring, with frosted glass windows meaning guests are unable to take advantage of the views out to the terrace and pool area beyond, the outdoor terrace is a lovely option for dining if the weather is warm enough. The food served is classic Italian with some delicious homemade pasta dishes, all served up with a lovely bread basket and a selection of wines. The ambience is refined but casual and the chefs frequently put on sell-out pop up events in the restaurant with crafted tasting menus. Sunday also sees the chefs out early spit-roasting a huge joint in preparation for the popular Sunday lunches. We enjoyed breakfast here every morning of our stay and ate here on two evenings, finding it hard to chose which of the delicious pasta dishes to try. We also have to mention the fabulous sommelier, Juan Carlos, whose expert knowledge on local wine ensured we enjoyed both a rather nice Chilean white wine one night and a red the next.

Matsuri restaurant -

Matsuri is the specialty restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental, open for lunch and dinner Monday to Saturday with reservations advised - this is a popular restaurant with both hotel residents and non-residents. The cuisine is an innovative Japanese Peruvian fusion offering sushi, sashimi and teppanyaki. Again we trusted the advice of our waiter here and ordered some of the dishes he suggested, including the delicious ‘special maki’ and the chicken teppanyaki with quinoa. We decided to try the hotel’s own wine to accompany our meal and have to say that the white wine was very good. We finished off our evening with a glass of their sparkling wine, moving into the adjoining bar as the evening cooled down.

Summary:

The Mandarin Oriental Santiago claims to be the most luxurious hotel in all of South America. Not having stayed in many hotels in South America we don’t feel qualified enough to substantiate this claim, however we thoroughly enjoyed our time here and were very well looked after. The pool and gardens are beautiful and offer guests the chance to completely forget they are in one of the largest cities in South America. The rooms are contemporary, very well designed and appointed and most offer lovely views over the hotel’s garden and the Andes mountains. Guest that do chose to leave the hotel on foot will find that it is located in a very nice area of Santiago with some lovely parks within walking distance.

The public areas are light and airy offering a relaxing vibe and despite its superior classification it manages to retain a causal yet refined feel. We found the staff to be very helpful, managing to combine that much desired mix of formality and friendliness. The food and wine in both restaurants was very good, offering a good variety at a reasonable price for a high end hotel such as a Mandarin Oriental.

Although in most areas this hotel excels and overall we found the service to be very good, there were times when we waited rather to long to be served, occasionally feeling a little abandoned when waiting for someone to take our order in both of the restaurants and at breakfast. Twice Rich had to go to the bar to order a pre-dinner drink to enjoy outside with only one waitress trying to keep up with all of the guests waiting to be served.

And although the room was divine there was no information to be found in the room about the hotel or its services. Arriving quite late on our first evening we had thought we might get room service but unable to find a menu anywhere we ended up wandering down to the lobby where we eventually found the QR codes for all of the menus available. As we were already down there we chose to stay and eat in Senso instead of heading back to our room and getting room service, with the restaurant staff kindly fitting us in at the last minute and giving us a lovely table overlooking the pool - probably a better option to be honest. We also found the turn down service a bit random, on the first evening someone knocked on our door within five minutes of us arriving (we were still settling in), on the second evening someone knocked on the door to do turndown at 4pm and the next evening there was no turndown at all!

Overall, we really enjoyed our time at the Mandarin Oriental, finding it a perfect base to explore both the central and out of town areas of the city. We very much appreciated coming back after a long day exploring and having some time to relax and chill round the pool before a lovely pre-dinner Pisco sour made by the amazing bar team and a delicious alfresco meal in either of the lovely restaurants.

We booked our stay here independently following an Antarctica cruise with Aurora Expeditions and a stay in Patagonia at the Rio Serrano Hotel and Spa but this hotel is regularly used by Silversea Cruises, Ponant Cruises and Hurtigruten Cruises for a pre- or post-cruise stopover for their Antarctica cruises.

We stayed in the Mandarin Oriental in Santiago, Chile after an Aurora Expeditions Antarctic cruise and a stay at the fabulous Rio Serrano hotel and Spa in Patagonia. We booked our 3 night stay in March 2022 through Booking.com paying approximately £250 per night on a bed and breakfast rate for a Deluxe king room. Upon checking in we were upgraded to an Executive King room. Our overall bill came to approximately £1000/$1300 for three nights, three evening meals including a bottle of wine each night, a drink each day around the pool and two pre-dinner cocktails. We would like to thank the Mandarin Oriental for our complimentary upgrade.

If you enjoyed this blog why not take a look at our reviews of the luxury hotels, the Four Seasons Nile Plaza in Cairo, Egypt or Marina Bay Sands in Singapore