Diplomat Hotel, Cebu

my husband (an american) and i visited my family in cebu and we decided to stay for 3 days and night in the city before going to the province where my family live, and decided to stay in deplomat, my husband was surprised about this hotel. the room is clean, the service is good, the price is just right, and of course location is good since you can just walk few blocks away from robinsons. the only thing i don't like is the restaurant, not to much to offer, but thats ok if your a mile or two away from the sm mall, no big deal for me actually, besides we rather like to go to the mall. we ended up booking again and stayed another 3 days before we went back to the U.S.

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.