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Excellent Local Hotel

This hotel was a true diamond in the ruff. I spent 2 weeks in this truly wonderful old world charm hotel. The hotel is an older building (I’d guess 70’s or early ‘80’s), that is true, but it is well maintained and the staff is so friendly and helpful they feel like family. Without exception everyone from the desk clerks to the maid staff it seemed there only goal was to make your stay as pleasant as possible. What is even more surprising is that room service, while a little expensive, is reasonably priced for a hotel. While the Philippines is a struggling 3rd world nation, this hotel is designed to accommodate the local populace. But if you are flexible, this is by far a true 5-Star Hotel at a 3-Star price. For a slight increase in price I upgraded to a suite, I strongly suggest the upgrade. There is a wonderful local native mall an easy 5 minute walk from the hotel and a major supermall a 15 minute taxi ride away. The true adventure is to learn the Jeepney mass-transit system and to ride on the Jeepney around Cebu. The traffic the Philippines seems a bit dysfunctional to the normal American driver, I would very strongly NOT recommend renting a car and driving yourself around. Besides, it is better if someone drives that knows where they are going so you can enjoy the sights. During my entire vacation, I never paid more than $10 USD for a taxi ride, or more than 50 cents USD for a Jeepney. The streets around the hotel are lined with numerous small native restaurants of every variety from street food vendors to extremely nice and reasonably priced high class ethic restaurants. I found the food in the smaller restaurants to be absolutely marvelous. While I had been warned to “don’t drink the water”, I found all the restaurants to be very clean, but I did only drink bottled drinks. The only negative comment I can make about the hotel is its lack of a swimming pool and the ocean beach was a 45 minute taxi ride away. But the bottom line is, if you don’t mind making minor accommodations, this hotel is a roomy economically affordable wonderful place to stay.